Tombstone Tourist

We arrived back at my home and my black and gray cat came to greet us. She was special, a chimera cat, sniffing out the boy who was intruding upon her home. Alan reached down to stroke her head and she wrapped around his right leg, accepting him into the household. As Alan pet her, she rubbed against his leg and flicked her tail. Alan had a huge smile on his face as he straightened up. She meowed loudly, protesting against the loss of attention.

“Let him be, Aurora.”

“Does s-she not like me?”

“No, she likes you. She doesn't like that you stopped petting her. Such a little attention whore, I swear.”

Alan giggled and went back to petting Aurora while I set the things he had bought in my spare room. I didn't notice that he had followed me until I heard the meow of an annoyed cat. He was ignoring her to pay attention to me and she didn't like it one bit. She was probably hungry, now that I thought about it. Unbeknownst to me, it was nearing five o clock. Alan smiled at me and thanked me for letting him stay here. I reassured him that it was no problem at all; that I loved having company, though I rarely did. He looked a little confused at the confession and I explained that I wasn't exactly popular around here.

“Why not?”

“People don't take to the fact that I spend a lot of time at the cemetery very well. It's okay, though. I'm used to it.”

“You shouldn't h-have to be used to it. It sucks to b-be alone.”

“Well, now I'm not. I have you, right?”

He smiled and said yes before continuing to say that he really wished that he could hug me, but the whole “ghost thing” complicated that a lot. I told him that it was fine, that I understood and then asked if he wanted to go get dinner.

“Would it be okay t-to order in? I'm sort of sleepy.”

I laughed a little at him using “sleepy” but agreed that we could just order pizza if that was okay with him.

“That works for me. Is cheese o-okay f-f-for you?”

“I'm allergic to peperoni, so that's perfect.”

“A-are you really?”

“Why on Earth would I make that up?”

“I-I d-don't know. T-th-that's just an odd thing t-to be allergic to.”

“It's terrible! I may or may not still eat it sometimes, though,” I laughed as I dialed the phone.

~

Half an hour later, a knock came at the door and Aurora meowed like crazy, as she always does when I get company.

“You're not an attack dog! Go away!”

I pushed her to the side and opened the door. I traded a few crumpled bills for a large pizza and thanked the delivery man. I set the box on a kitchen counter and Aurora jumped up to inspect.

“You're terrible. I can't remember why I keep you around.”

I leaned down so I was eye level with her and she licked my nose.

“Oh, right. Now you play nice?”

I put Aurora back on the floor as Alan laughed at me. He had a nice laugh. It was hard to imagine him being so depressed that he felt suicide was the only option, but I didn't know him well, really. I realized that that should change. We both grabbed a slice of pizza and sat at the table.

“Okay, Alan. Twenty questions, go.”

“What?”

“You ask me a question. I ask you a question. I figure I should know a little bit more about you considering you're living here.”

He looked nervous, worried about something. I wondered what there could possibly be to be nervous about in a little game of twenty questions.