I was so upset about the whole situation that I actually went back to my parents' house in Samesville—and not only that, but I barricaded myself in my old bedroom, not wanting to deal with my parents' concern if they saw my current mental state. My eyes were itching like mad and blurring my vision, even though I hadn't cried. It wasn't because I was angry, either. If anything, I was just angry at myself. How long had I been the hypotenuse? How long had I been completely ignorant of the very presence of the triangle that existed solely because of me?

A rational part of my brain whispered that maybe I was being a little too hard on myself. After all, how was I supposed to know? Mr. Cat hadn't told me. I could feel my face scrunch up in anger. Yeah, good point… how could he stand there and complain that I didn't care about his happiness when he didn't even tell me this, this obviously very important factor of it! How was I supposed to even know what made him happy if he wasn't going to be forthcoming about it?

Except he had told me. More than once, in fact. I was the jerk for brushing it off and ignoring it.

Well, of course I brushed it off! He always made it seem like such a joke! And it's not like he hasn't pulled other stupid jokes on me just to rile me up before. Why would I have believed him? In fact, maybe even now it was still nothing more than a prank. Why should I believe him now when I couldn't believe him any other time?

I exhaled loudly, releasing the tension in my facial muscles, but they still ached, and the unmistakable sound of a sob came out with my breath. I had seen the look in his eyes. I had heard the raw betrayal in his voice. He wasn't joking. This was genuine.

I couldn't bear letting down anyone. Especially a friend. Especially my best friend. My facial muscles still ached all the more, and now my stomach was starting to follow suit.

How horrible was I to just assume that Mr. Cat could take care of himself? Clearly I had been horrifically mistaken. I should have paid more attention. Heck, I should have asked him and made sure he was doing alright. Because if I had, he would have…

…he would have just told me to shut up, or annoyed me, or done something to anger me, or told me to stop worrying about him…

Once more, my face scrunched up, but not from despair this time. This time, I could feel that all-too familiar feeling of annoyance and rage against Mr. Cat bubble to boiling.

If he was going to act that way towards me, then clearly he didn't actually want me around. What right did he have to feel betrayed when my only crime was simply being unaware of his true feelings—feelings that he seemed to be doing everything he could do to mask and hide? He clearly hadn't wanted me to know how he really felt about me, and up until today, I hadn't. So why was that a bad thing? Why was that my fault?

Of course, in the end, it didn't matter whose, if anyone's, fault it was. The bare facts were that Mr. Cat was unhappy and possibly broken-hearted, and while I might not have been in a position to do anything about it before now, circumstances had changed, and now I simply had to do something. I had to find some solution to… well, maybe not make him happy, because even though I wanted to I could see no way of making that happen… but to at least alleviate some of his misfortune.

And… I was afraid he was right. There was nothing I could do. Okay, so there was one thing I could do, but I would never do it. It would break Pretty's heart, and I couldn't be responsible for that, either.

The tears in my eyes continued to well without falling, probably because they had no clue what the reason for falling would be. I clung to my pillow, unsure of whether I was desolate with despair from the horrid situation we were in, a situation with no way of concluding that didn't leave at least one participant miserable… or enraged at Mr. Cat for feeling this way about me and choosing this way to go about demonstrating it. It, as always, was as if he was trying to do things in the way that irritated me the most—even, for some reason, this—and you'd think irritating me would be the last thing he wanted to do in such a situation?!

I didn't understand him at all. I never really had, I realized, and this newest revelation just made me understand him less, not more.

Sniffling, I pressed my head into my pillow, trying to block out all light and all stressors. What, then, did that say about me? All I wanted was to make my friends happy. Well… sort of. I winced, allowing myself to acknowledge a more selfish reason to my altruism. What I really wanted was for my friends to like me. And many days, after the disastrous ways our games ended, I feared that they didn't. If I was honest with myself, it was more often than not that when I'd approach them with a cheerful "Hello, friends!" part of me was both terrified of and resigned to the fact that they very well could ignore me, wanting nothing more to do with me.

It seemed obvious now that of all of my friends, Mr. Cat had the highest opinion of me. He, apparently… loved me. I felt my stomach do a weird flip, but my mouth was still in a dismayed grimace. Because even if that were the case, I wasn't sure he liked me. And if he didn't like me, how could anyone else?

How could I?

I pushed the pillow aside and rolled onto my back, forcing myself to focus on my ceiling through my tears.

The only way I could even hope to like myself after this was if I found a solution to this whole messy predicament. I didn't expect to find one that made everyone happy, but if I could at least find one that everyone would tolerate, we'd all be in a better place than we were now.

I tossed and turned. And tossed and turned some more. It rattled my brains and shook the tears from my eyes but it didn't grant me any strokes of genius. My mind was simply stuck in an endless loop of anger at Mr. Cat, misery at not being able to help anyone with their problems, and self-loathing for being the kind of person to stumble blindly into an unwinnable situation like this in the first place.

I'm not sure how long I stayed there. I'm not sure how long it took for the smallest glimmer of an idea to slowly make its way through the maddening fog of my repetitive, destructive thoughts.

But, little by little, an idea finally came to me.

And when it had manifested itself fully, when my tears had dried, when the negativity in my brain had settled back down into background noise, I finally stood up, gritting my teeth with determination, and leapt off my bed, down the stairs and out of my parents' house, and towards the door leading back towards Smileyland.

I had it. I could fix everything.

…

Smileyland was quieter than I was expecting, although that's not to say that there wasn't any sound whatsoever. I had just barely stepped through the portal door when I could hear the dull hum of the TV set over on the hill. It wasn't a lot of noise, but it was something, and it was there that I headed, my head high and my resolve airtight.

And, sure enough, Mr. Cat was right there where I expected him to be, sprawled out on the couch and only half conscious, with a few empty beer bottles strewn about the ground.

I grimaced, a pang of guilt erupting in my gut. This pathetic display of drinking himself to a near catatonic state was clearly because of me. I was the reason for this mess, for his state. And then sudden angry rationalization doused the guilt into nothingness. It's not like I told him to do this to himself, after all. Regardless of how I made him feel, his choices of how to deal with it were exactly that, his. Not mine.

Besides, in a moment it would be a moot point anyway, because I was about to solve everything.

"Mr. Cat! Mr. Cat, wake up! And turn that TV off!"

One eyelid cracked fully open, and upon seeing me he gave a groggy, annoyed groan. "Oh jeez. Go away. I'll pick up my mess later, alright?"

"That's not what I came here to tell you—although yes, this does need to be picked up, so yes, please do clean up after yourself in a timely manner—but not too timely, because I have great news! I've found the answer to our problem!"

He groaned again, although both eyes were now open. "I'm probably going to regret asking this, but… what did you have in mind?"

"We can date in secret." I could feel my smile stretch across my face eagerly, the genius of my plan exciting me even more as I explained it out loud. "That way you're happy and you get what you want. And Pretty won't know about it, so it won't completely crush her hopes and dreams either, so we're all happy—or at least no worse off than we are now!"

Mr. Cat's left eyelid twitched again, but no other reaction or mark of approval accompanied it. "You woke me up for that?" He slacked his shoulders and slid back down into a fully reclined position on the couch, closing his eyes again.

This was not the reaction I had been counting on.

"What's the matter?" I demanded, still too confused to be angry yet. "It's the perfect plan! Or at least the most perfect plan available given the circumstances!"

"It's a horrible plan," Mr. Cat countered in a flat voice, not even opening his eyes. "For one thing, there's no way it would stay secret. You know Duckface and Nutcracker would find out. Duckface would tell his girlfriend. And she'd tell her sister. A chain of events that would play out in a day, tops."

"That's… that's very defeatist thinking, Mr. Cat!" I insisted, although part of me was forced to admit he was probably right about that. It would be hard to keep something like that a secret, especially from Quack Quack and Stumpy. "If we try our hardest, I'm sure we can—"

"Can you just drop it already, frog?!" he snapped at me, his eyes once again fully open and gleaming with harsh condemnation. "I'm not going to date you just because you feel 'obligated' to, or however you're going to try to justify your line of thinking. This isn't some puzzle that you get to solve. You just need to accept that we're at an impasse until one of us budges from our convictions—and that's never going to happen. Never." He glared at me for another second or two before turning around and facing the back of the couch, his back towards me.

I could feel my lower lip quivering. Oh great, isn't this just perfect, I'm going to burst out crying in front of him. And if I burst out crying, that would just convince him that what he said was right. And it wasn't. …or was it?

"You… you don't have to be so stubborn all the time, you know!" I spat out, in a nastier tone than I'd meant to use. "If you're going to be all mysterious and secretive, that's fine, but then don't act so disappointed and hurt when I can't read through all these walls you put up! I know the truth now, and I don't want to leave things like this! I can't! I'm doing my best to try to find a solution that'll make things better, but you won't even give it a chance!"

He slowly rolled back to his other side, regarding me carefully, the glare in his eyes mostly gone. I took a deep breath, calming myself. It seemed I had finally gotten through to him, at least a little. Now I just needed to know what his takeaway was.

"Okay, fine, fair point, I shouldn't have expected you to know the truth. And I shouldn't have been disappointed that you couldn't figure it out by yourself. I apologize."

I blinked, surprised. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard him apologize for anything, to anyone.

"And you were right about me being able to take care of myself," he continued. "Even though it seems like you've already forgotten that. How about this—why don't you forget about trying to make me happy, or make Pretty happy, or make anyone happy other than yourself. Did you ever consider that course of action? You're just coming up with these harebrained schemes because you think they're what other people want—but what do you want?"

I blinked again. I suppose in some sense I realized it was a valid question, but trying to separate my happiness from that of my friends was such a foreign concept to me that I was unsure of how to respond for a good while. "But—but that's just it, Mr. Cat. What I want most of all is for all of my friends to be happy. I'll be happy if they are. If you are."

"You know we're all never going to be one hundred percent happy, right?" he said to me, moving to a more fully seated position to regard me. His countenance was less and less annoyed and more and more… well, concerned, I suppose. Cautiously supportive, albeit confused. "If that's what your happiness is tied to, then you're just as screwed as the rest of us."

I sighed, looking down at the ground in defeat. "Yes, I'm beginning to realize that now," I murmured harshly.

"Okay then. You're just going to have to deal with that."

"No," I said, lifting my head to look him in the eyes. "There are still things I can fix. And the thing about this that has upset me the most is knowing how much I've shortchanged you. You were right. You're at the bottom of the pecking order and I never meant for it to be that way. And I know, maybe it's inevitable, maybe it's just the natural result of me not being able to read you, maybe it's any other negative Nancy thing you're going to try to tell me, or whatever else, I don't know! And you're probably right. But I want to try to tip the scales back, at least a little bit. You're going to have to tell me what I can do, since I can't read you at all. So just tell me. Let me know what I can do to help you feel happier, at least a little bit! Other than the obvious." I gulped, suddenly realizing that "the obvious" hadn't exactly been spelled out yet. He could take "the obvious" many different ways.

He regarded me carefully, and I could detect no more traces of annoyance on his face. He was probably trying to figure out what "the obvious" was, too. I probably should have said something to clarify. But I didn't. I just waited. Because I really did want to make him happy, at least for a little bit. And as long as his suggestion was something that didn't affect the happiness of anyone else, then I was going to do it.

And that… covered a lot of ground.

"Let me kiss you," he finally said, the slightest beginnings of a smirk pulling up the corners of his mouth.

This request made me exhale just a tiny bit, although I was still tense with a sensation of mild surprise. I had honestly been expecting him to go further than that. Whether or not I would have acquiesced was another matter entirely, of course, but my expectations had been far higher, and so now I was just left with a bit of confusion that this was all he wanted from me.

"I promise I won't grab your butt," he said quickly when I didn't answer right away.

A thought occurred to me as I took in his apprehensive, guarded expression. I initially thought he was lowballing this, but something about his uneasy, careful posture made me think that, on the contrary, he had purposely shot high, to try to get me to agree to something less than this initial request but more than that he thought I would have otherwise. I couldn't be sure if this was true or not, but I couldn't help thinking that we both had very different expectations about what I was willing to do.

"Okay," I said, nodding.

His eyes widened a bit, seeming to confirm my theory that he hadn't actually expected me to agree. Of course, my track record of reading him was… less than stellar, to put it mildly. To me, Mr. Cat always seemed so in control and confident, like he knew how to do everything absolutely perfectly. But now he was hesitating a bit, nervously shifting back and forth in his seat, not even standing up, let alone stepping towards me. Either I was misreading him now, or I had gotten him wrong before when I assumed he just always knew what he was doing. Maybe he did except when it concerned me.

Maybe I could help him out, for once.

"You can grab my butt if you want to," I blurted out.

That was not exactly what I had been intending to say, and I could feel my face engulfed with a fierce blush as soon as I said it, but those words were enough to get Mr. Cat off the couch. In an instant he was upright, and in another instant he had taken the two steps forward to approach me and pull me towards him, cupping my chin with one hand as his mouth met mine.

I was frozen in place. He had moved so quickly that I was barely aware of what was going on, even though this was what we had agreed to. I felt his other hand grasp my buttocks and squeeze them once, but by the time I was fully cognizant of what was happening, he'd already pulled away. I was left standing as stiff as a mannequin, staring at him unblinkingly, one arm poised in the air awkwardly. I honestly didn't know if I had raised it to caress him or slap him.

Did… did this count as my first kiss? All those times he'd kissed me without my consent didn't count, surely. And besides, he'd never kissed me on the lips like this before. My mind couldn't reach a satisfactory answer, though. I still was having trouble processing the whole thing. It had been so quick and so sudden that I honestly couldn't figure out exactly how it had felt. It was disappointing, and almost infuriating, that this was how I was going to have to describe my first kiss—quick, confusing, and no way to adequately classify it! I could feel my eyes burrow in annoyance. Now I was pretty sure that I had been about to slap him.

Wait, wait, wait. This hadn't been about me at all. This had been about him. My feelings weren't what mattered here, so there was no need to analyze anything on my part.

"So," I said shortly, crossing my arms against my chest to avoid slapping him, "are you happy now?"

He continued to regard me carefully, although any of the nervousness I had detected earlier was gone. And little by little, that smug grin to which I was so accustomed began to creep up on his face. "Reasonably," he finally said, continuing to smirk at me.

"Well, good," I said quickly. "Consider our tallies to be even now. I will no longer concern myself with trying to please you. I have fulfilled my duty to you. Good day, Mr. Cat." And I began to march away from him.

"You keep telling yourself whatever you need to ease your conscience," Mr. Cat called after me.

Even though I wasn't looking at him, I could still hear the smile in his words.

…

Ten minutes later I was doing my daily yoga stretches and dance exercises with my troupe of faithful flowers. They look forward so much to my classes, you know, and for them I do my best to give them a thorough, intense workout.

Today, though, I was more intense than thorough.

There was no denying it—I couldn't get the day's earlier events out of my head. Even though I should have been able to. That had been the end of it, right? I'd let Mr. Cat call the shots, with no restrictions. Well, okay, there had been restrictions, but he hadn't even asked to cross them, so in practice there had basically been no restrictions. Mr. Cat had gotten what he'd asked for. I had done my part. The problem was solved.

Except the problem wasn't solved.

My solution was only temporary at best. I hadn't done anything to address the source of the problem. Pretty still wanted Mr. Cat, and Mr. Cat still wanted me. And I… I was still the useless hypotenuse. I was the problem, and as long as I was there, the problem would continue to exist.

I held a tree pose for far longer than I should have, my already taut limbs aching, accentuating my harsh thoughts. My presence was the problem, yes, but I had no easy solutions. On the surface one would think that leaving Smileyland was an option—take myself out of the equation, as it were—but I knew it wasn't that simple. That would just upset Mr. Cat even more. No, I had to stay, for more reasons than just Mr. Cat's wellbeing, of course. That was the most pressing reason currently, but there were plenty of others that compelled me to remain in Smileyland with my friends. Leaving would be foolish.

Unfortunately, staying wasn't much better. At least not while leaving things as they presently were. But how could I change things? I had tried the only option I could come up with, and Mr. Cat hadn't cooperated. What else could I do? I couldn't change their feelings.

Well… I could try, right?

I suddenly remembered that I was doing stretches the exact moment that my leg gave out and I tumbled to the ground, sending my flower students scattering for safety. I squinted with defeat and resignation before hoisting myself back to my feet, the flowers squeaking out their concerns for my well-being.

"I'm fine," I answered them, "but class is over."

The flowers voiced their surprise and disapproval.

"CLASS IS OVER!" I roared. That finally got through to them. They dispersed, leaving me all alone with my spandex and eighties-style boombox.

Groaning, I wiped the sweat from my brow with a hand towel and changed out of my workout clothes. Changing feelings wasn't going to be easy, of course. And I already knew that I wouldn't be able to change Pretty's opinion of Mr. Cat. And not for any reason on her part. I simply could not bring myself to convince one of my friends to turn against one of my other friends. Also, I realized, if I tried to convince Pretty to give up on Mr. Cat she'd probably misinterpret my intentions.

No, the best—the only—way to go about this was to focus on the individual involved in this triangle who I knew the best—me. It was far more practical to convince Mr. Cat of my faults and all the reasons he should get over me. This wouldn't be hard to do. I could probably write a book on all my shortcomings and personality failings.

Yes, yes, writing it down would be the best option.

Mind you, when I say "the best option" I mean it was the best option available to me after every other option I'd considered had been vetoed either by myself or Mr. Cat. And I could feel the tears already springing to my eyes as I pulled out a pen and a sheet of paper to write my list. I didn't want Mr. Cat to hate me. Goodness, the thought of it made me feel… well, it was breaking my heart. But it was the only option I could see at that moment. It was the only way I could solve this dilemma. And I couldn't let this situation continue. I had to do something. Even if that meant alienating and driving away the person who meant the most to me in the entire world.

The reasons to go through with this course of action were myriad, however. The more I wrote, the more I cried, and the more I cried, the more I wrote. This list was almost writing itself. In fact, as I wrote, it almost seemed like it was a service to Mr. Cat, to free himself from the folly of being caught up in me.

That thought didn't really make me feel any better, though.

I had completely filled up one side of the paper and turned it over to the back side when Stumpy and Quack Quack ambled by, chatting amongst themselves and hardly noticing me. I turned my focus more fully into my list, trying to avoid looking at them and hoping that they'd ignore me, but Stumpy noticed me anyway, despite my best efforts.

"Hey, Kaeloo! Wow, are you doing the same thing we are, writing a new comic book?"

Upon being singled out, I couldn't ignore them, so I carefully raised my head to regard them, praying that my tears weren't as noticeable as I feared they were.

"No," I answered carefully, keeping my head high, "I'm just… making a list."

"Ooh! A list?" Stumpy leaned in towards my list eagerly, Quack Quack keeping his distance yet still looking interested. "We're making a list too! Ours is about what kind of superpowers Mr. Coolskin would have if he lived underwater. I think his powers would mostly be the same, but Quack Quack thinks he'd be able to talk to aquatic life. What kind of lame superpower is that?" Stumpy laughed dismissively. "Is that the list you're making, too? I want to compare and see how wrong you are!"

"My list isn't about that, Stumpy," I said, pulling my sheet of paper close to me. "It's personal."

"Aw, come on, let me see!" And before I could protest any further, Stumpy pulled the list out of my hands.

"'A list of reasons why you should actively dislike me'?" Stumpy read aloud. He quickly scanned the contents. "This is a pretty good list!" he said, handing it back to me. "But you forgot about how your breath stinks when you yell at us. You definitely need to add it to the list."

"I… have bad breath?" This was honestly a shock to me, and not a pleasant one. I mean, I dutifully brush my teeth twice daily, and I even floss, too! How could my breath stink after all of that?

"Yeah. Actually, I wouldn't say bad. More like… disgusting."

"Quack," Quack Quack agreed.

Tears began to trickle down my face once more. "W-well, I… thanks for telling me," I squeaked out.

"No problem! What are friends for?" Stumpy handed my list back to me, smiling genuinely as if he'd done me a favor. "If you need any more help with your list of reasons why you suck, just let me know! Maybe I should make my own list! I bet I could come up with a lot of reasons why I'm a horrible person!"

"Quack."

"Aw, come on, Quack Quack, I'm not that bad."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said sternly, clutching my list close to my chest. "But for now, please leave me in peace."

"Sure thing. We've got our own lists to add to, anyway. Hey, Quack Quack, that would be a cool power to give to Mr. Coolskin, huh? Super Noxious Breath?"

"Quack."

"Well, it would be more useful than talking to fish, that's for sure!" And they walked off, having already moved on from me and my distress. Meanwhile, I was left still struggling to breathe normally. I carefully unfolded my list and added "bad breath" to the end of it.

Alright, this was sufficient. I could probably find plenty of other things to add to it, but in my current mental state I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to actually write them down. If I ever needed to write a part two, well, clearly Stumpy and Quack Quack could help with that. At any rate, the most important issue now was getting this list to Mr. Cat as soon as possible, and as it was now it contained more than enough reasons to turn his opinion of me sour.

Now the problem was finding him. Especially when every part of me desperately wanted to not go through with this.

But still, I ventured forth… slowly, reluctantly, yet still resolutely. No, I didn't want to do this. I wanted nothing more than to tear up the letter in my hands and forget all about this. But I also knew that I had to go through with this course of action. There was no other way.

"Mr. Cat?" I tried to call out, although my voice was weak and pathetic. He couldn't have heard me even if he were a meter away from me. Very well then. I couldn't call him to me, so I'd have to find him on my own. I continued to walk slowly, one foot in front of the other, scanning every which way in an attempt to find him.

I saw him and heard him at the same time, and what I encountered halted me in my tracks.

"Oh really? She canceled the class and just left you high and dry, just like that?"

Mr. Cat was leaned over and conversing with some of my flower students, looking genuinely compassionate towards what they were telling him. I could hear them chatter something in affirmation, along with some not so pleasant assertions regarding my professionalism and reliability.

"Mr. Cat!" I cried out. "You can talk to flowers?"

Both Mr. Cat and the flowers turned to regard me, although only the flowers did so with any sort of animosity.

"Don't worry about it," Mr. Cat said to them in a low, comforting voice. "She's got a lot on her mind today."

The flowers all murmured something in halfhearted agreement before scattering off. I guess they didn't really want to talk to me right now. Not that I could blame them. In fact, part of me was glad that they'd left, because the last thing I wanted when presenting my list to Mr. Cat was an audience.

"I've been looking for you, Mr. Cat," I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Oh really?" Mr. Cat smirked at that.

That smirk would be long gone once he knew my true reason for coming. "I have something for you." I held out the sheet of paper towards him, turning my head away in shame.

Mr. Cat didn't say anything for a moment. "It's either a marriage proposal or a break-up letter, huh?" he finally said.

One thing I can say about Mr. Cat—despite how depressed and downtrodden I was, his arrogance was enough to stoke my anger. "It's nothing like that!" I insisted.

"It's probably not worth my time, then. I don't want it." He folded his arms, refusing to take the paper from my hands.

"Mr. Cat!" I pleaded. "This is important! If you're not going to entertain the thought of my first solution, then you need to at least try this one. I'm all out of ideas. You have to take this!"

He sighed, sounding tired and almost annoyed. "Okay, I'll bite. What is it?"

"It's a list of all of the horrible things about me."

He stared at me, nonplussed.

"You know, to help you get over me. So you have to read it! And then once you hate me, this whole situation will be fixed."

He sighed again, definitely more annoyed this time. "Oh, for crying out loud. I'm not reading that."

"But you have to!"

"I do not."

The paper in my hand was noticeably shaking along with the rest of me. I was shaking from anger, yes, but also from desperation. I was at the end of my rope. I had to do something. Even if that meant doing this myself.

"Fine then. I'll read it to you." I unfolded the paper and began to read aloud. "Number one, I am extremely volatile and can't control my temper."

"Wrong; you won't let anyone take advantage of you or your friends and you have a high moral standard to which you hold not only your friends, but also yourself." Mr. Cat gave a small yawn. "What's the next lie?"

"They're not lies!" I forced myself to read the next one rather than waste time debating Mr. Cat on the first. Maybe another item on the list would get through to him. "Number two, I have an annoying lisp."

"It's not annoying, it's cute." Mr. Cat made a swirling motion with his hand. "Next."

"Mr. Cat," I said through gritted teeth, lowering the paper to look him in the eyes, "the purpose of this is not for you to disagree with everything I say!"

"Then stop telling me 'facts' that are obviously untrue."

"They're not! They're not! If you would just stop being so stubborn and really think about what I'm telling you—"

"You might as well just give it up, frog. I'm too far gone. A lost cause." He smiled at me as he said that.

I blinked through the anger that was rapidly disintegrating, through the flush on my cheeks that seemed to be triggered by something other than rage. "R-really?" I stammered, trying and failing to keep the corners of my mouth from twitching upwards in a touched smile.

And of course, it was right at that moment that Pretty walked into view.

"YOU!" she shrieked at me, the volume and pitch of her voice enough to shatter glass. "I KNEW it! This whole plan of yours was just a ploy to get yourself closer to Mr. Cat, wasn't it?!"

"No, Pretty, it wasn't!" I insisted. "It's not like that! I really was trying to help you! I still am!"

"Then why are you giving him a love letter?!"

"It's not a love letter!"

"Yes it is," Mr. Cat interrupted with that agonizingly smug smirk of his. "She's infatuated. Can't get enough of me, actually."

"WHAT?!" Pretty alternated between glaring at Mr. Cat and glaring at me, several veins in her eyes already popping.

"That's not true!" I screamed.

"She's reduced to begging," Mr. Cat said to Pretty with a raised eyebrow.

And I lost it.

"LIES! ALL LIES!" I roared as I transformed, plucking both of them off the ground by their necks. "WHY KAELOO WASTE TIME TRYING TO HELP BAD FRIENDS LIKE YOU?!"

I smashed them together and held them there, hearing plenty of bones popping and squeals of pain and protest. Once I'd finally had my fill of their suffering, I drop-kicked them both far out of sight.

Yeah, I probably could have handled that better…

…

I honestly don't remember detransforming, or finding my way near the edge of a cliff, but there I was, and there I sat, watching the sun set and trying to make sense of the day's events.

I was past the point of getting angry. In fact, I was even past the point of feeling guilty or sad. At this point, I was ready to admit defeat. And not just admit it, but accept it. I'd tried everything I could think of to amend the situation. Heck, I'd say that I'd gone above and beyond in trying to find a solution. I was now past the point where I just had to accept that there were some problems, like this one, that simply couldn't be fixed. It was through no fault of my own. I just had to learn to live with the status quo.

It's strange to say that I was okay with this. I wasn't happy about it per se, but I was tired enough that I wasn't feeling much stress over it, either. Maybe in the morning after I'd gotten a good night's rest I'd be back to obsessing over it… or maybe I'd just forget about it. Things in Smileyland usually just reverted back to their previous state no matter what I'd done, or what anyone else had done, and no matter the severity of what had happened. Of course, in this case, the previous state was one in which neither Pretty nor Mr. Cat got what they wanted, but in spite of all that they did seem to be doing relatively well for themselves. They'd clearly learned to deal with it. I suppose it was now my turn.

I sighed, absentmindedly kicking a few pebbles closer towards the edge of the cliff. I wished that these weren't the circumstances I was left with, but save the use of a time machine, I couldn't see any way of changing it. And I was pretty sure Mr. Cat wouldn't let me borrow his time machine again. Especially for something like this.

"The sun will still set even when you're not monitoring it, you know."

Speak of the devil. Mr. Cat was there by my side, close but not too close. I groaned softly, looking up at him. "You've got a lot of nerve."

"Who, me?" He tried to sound innocent but I wasn't buying it.

"You purposely antagonized both me and Pretty, and in doing so you made an already bad situation worse."

"It was fun."

"For you, maybe." I looked down at the ground again and kicked another tuft of dirt. "But if you've come here to antagonize me again, it won't work. I'm too tired to get upset right now."

"That's not why I'm here."

I regarded him carefully. "Then why?"

He hesitated, looking again like he was not exactly sure of what to do or say, a stance from him that still seemed so strange and foreign to me. Finally, he rubbed at his arm and said, "I just wanted to make sure you're alright."

To my surprise, I gave out a soft little chuckle at that. It was a simple question, but even I wasn't sure how to answer it. "I will be. I think." I looked down at my hands again. I could hear Mr. Cat sit down next to me, although again he wasn't super close. He was allowing me my personal bubble. He also wasn't saying anything, another behavior from him that I wasn't sure how to deal with. I'd answered his question, and he clearly didn't have any others (or at least any others he was willing to ask), but I wasn't about to ask him to leave. Never mind that he was the cause, directly or not, of all my current problems. Even though he wasn't saying anything, even though I wasn't even looking at him, I found his presence comforting.

"You're awfully quiet," he finally said.

"So are you," I said. "I answered your question. I have nothing else to say to you."

"There is… one other reason why I went looking for you," Mr. Cat admitted, a bit guiltily. "You dropped this." He handed me a sheet of paper, still carefully folded. It was my list.

I gulped. I would have liked to forget that I had written that thing at all. "Did you read it?"

"No."

"Are you going to?"

"No."

I unfolded it and ripped it up into tiny shreds.

"Good choice," Mr. Cat said approvingly.

"Don't think this means that I've… agreed to anything that you're hoping for. It just means that I've accepted that I can't change this."

"That's honestly the best news I could hear," Mr. Cat said, nodding at me sincerely. "If that means that you won't be trying to get me and Pretty together anymore, then I'm happy."

I sighed, although again with a self-effacing chuckle. "You don't have to worry about me trying that again, Mr. Cat. I don't think that would make me happy anymore."

"Oh really?" That smug smile began to creep back up on his face. Yes, this was the Mr. Cat I knew.

And I don't know why, but I wanted to encourage that. I wanted him to smile, even if it was for this reason. I wanted to believe that he was cool and collected and in charge like I did before.

And him being that way was part of the reason I could feel myself blushing. The other part… "I think it would make me… jealous," I admitted softly.

His eyes widened a bit, but the smile didn't leave his face. He scooted closer to me. Very close. The personal bubble had definitely been popped. He reached out a hand and stroked my chin, slowly enough this time that I could adequately process it, if not for the furious thudding of my heart.

"What would make you happy, then?" he asked in a low, smooth voice.

So, this should have been the easiest question in the world for me to answer. I know that there's a lot that makes me angry, but there's a lot that makes me happy, too! Bringing joy to the lives of my friends would make me happy. A clean, safe world for ourselves and future generations would make me happy. A pretty flower would make me happy. A kind word of encouragement from any one of my friends would make me happy! All in all, I'd say I'm just as easy to please as I am to anger. So I should have had a number of ready answers to Mr. Cat's question.

Except they were all gone. They all dried up in my throat, leaving the only thought towards my happiness one that I dared not speak aloud. Because with his fingers ghosting my face, and his eyes smoldering at me like that, and his body so close, the only thing I wanted at that moment was for him to grab my butt again.

He carefully eased my face closer towards his. I leaned in, praying that this time he'd linger. Our lips touched and this time I could feel the warmth of his mouth on mine, the light brush of his whiskers, his supportive hand still under my chin. I'm sure he could feel my body trembling, and my heart was pounding so strongly that I bet he could even hear that, too—but I didn't care. I just wanted to stay like this. Another moment longer, then another, and then another, until all the little moments snowballed into one grand one. This was my first kiss, I decided. My first real kiss. That one before didn't count.

I leaned in closer, closing my eyes and raising my butt from the ground a little bit without realizing it. I think Mr. Cat understood my intentions better than I did, for a second later I could feel his hand there again, giving a light squeeze. I could hardly breathe. I grasped his shoulders and pressed my mouth against his more fully than before. I figured I might die from the lack of breathing, but at least I was going to die happy.

Once again, Mr. Cat pulled away before I was ready, although at least this time he was slow and gentle about it. My eyes shot open. He was smirking at me, almost laughing, and I could guess the reason why. I was fairly certain my jaw was hanging open halfway to the ground. He moved his hand from my butt and used it to carefully release my grip on his shoulders.

"Well, I guess you've got a lot to think about, don't you?" he asked.

I nodded. It was the only action I could force my body to do, what with the blood still fiercely throbbing through my veins.

Mr. Cat moved back on his feet, giving me one last smile, somehow containing a show of affection alongside the usual snark. "Thanks, babe," he said softly, and then he turned and left.

Numbly, I plopped back down fully onto my buttocks again.

I certainly did have a lot to think about…