You should despise her for her betrayal.

But, in the end, all you can do is cry.

Despite what you have been telling yourself all these years, you still love her as much as on the first day you saw her.

You break down at her feet, the violent energy of the fight dissolves, and you finally feel her presence again. It wraps around you like a comforting blanket, protecting you from the freezing cold of solitude and warms your heart like a bath in the sun. And suddenly it's as if the loneliness has never existed.

When she takes you in her arms, you want to resist, hurt her back, like she has hurt you, want to reject her, like she has rejected you, and want to betray her trust, like she has betrayed yours. You want to shout,scream, accuse and offend, but with shock and mounting happiness you realise you have turned to a helpless child in her arms.

In a matter of moments she has brought you back to the times when you have been as close as sisters and she has still been there.

As if nothing had happened in between.

… And you don't understand.

How can she hurt you so much, forsake you, and then come back as if it hadn't meant anything to her?

Desperately you wonder if she doesn't know what you have suffered, what ugly feelings towards her had time to ripe inside your heart, in how many shreds it has been ripped by her disappearance?

But you hug her desperately and suddenly it doesn't matter. She may be the cause of all your pains – but the remedy as well.

Feeling her light and lean body, smelling her scent, the caress of her presence enveloping you, you only know that you love her and that finally you are whole again.

---

The following days, you almost can't believe you see her every day. It feels like returning to your own body.

It's just that this time you know how fragile what you once thought imperturbable is. Although she makes you forget, deep in your soul, the pain of a hundred years is still there.

When she leaves, it'll come back.

But for one week you feel like the person you are, and want to be.

------

The morning she leaves you wake up to find she isn't beside you.

You dart to the window, search the courtyard and streets with your eyes, empty this time of morning.

You see the graceful body of a cat nearing the end of the street, striding confidently and aware – of course she knows that you have woken up and that you are watching her. But does she know what you feel for her? The hollow in your chest where your self is pulled out a little more with each step she takes? Of course your soul is too strong to become a hollow, but at this moment, you think you understand what a hollow's feeling. And why it's a mercy to be slayed.

She knows that you are watching her with your heart in your eyes, that it's desperately crying after her to stay –

And she doesn't even look back.

You stifle an anguished wail and you have to grip the windowsill only to keep standing, when all you feel is your chest imploding with pain. You want nothing more than to haste after her, beg her to keep you with her.

Only you can't.

Not even love can keep a cat from leaving.

With teary eyes you watch her, far, at the end of the street, shrinking into the road.

The last thing you see is a twitch of black tail, before she is gone, beyond the corner and away.