Sweet Romance10 min read
My Ragdoll, My Match — And the Sofa That Kept Our Secrets
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I still remember the first time I learned how useful a talking cat could be.
"It is called diplomacy, woman," Reid said from the top of the wardrobe, his blue eyes cutting through the dim like two small moons. "You bribe with food, you bargain with attention."
"You mean you," I snapped, "since you were the one who said 'roll' at the rescue shelter and then chose me."
"Roll? I said 'roll' when you wanted me to show off. That is not the same thing," Reid corrected, very dignified as always.
He was a ragdoll with a jawline in fur. He had blue eyes that made strangers melt in the group chat, and he had opinions about my cleaning and my cooking that made me think he must have been an elderly aunt in a former life.
"Why are you so picky about cat food?" I asked, holding up a tin.
"Because that brand makes me think of cheap hotels. Do you want me to develop class problems?" Reid's whiskers twitched.
I bought the expensive tin anyway. "Eat this and help me," I bargained. "There's a guy in the cat group who wants a ragdoll. He's cute. Help me get him."
Reid narrowed his eyes. "You mean that phone person with the fast typing fingers? The one who calls me 'precious' even though he has never met me?"
"Yes. Help me get his attention. For my mother. For my life's happiness."
"For your mother's happiness?" Reid mocked. "You humans have such grand plans for us. Very well. But you will owe me."
"Fine. I'll owe you my first paycheck," I said. "That's not nothing."
"Bah. A woman who spends on lip color and ignores the vacuum is not convincing when she cries poverty," Reid said.
When the night of the meeting came, I dressed like the heroine in the screenshots I had kept in my head. A white off-shoulder dress, hair done like I had more time than I did, shoes that made me feel taller than my everyday five-ten. Reid sat in my arms and refused to be put down.
"Madeleine," he said as if I hadn't already been called by that exact name my whole life, "I will not sit in the arms of a stranger. I will be majestic."
"Then be majestic while you are charming him into my life," I whispered.
We arrived at the square. The group chat's handsome finally appeared in person — the man from the messages: kind eyes, a white shirt, the same quick smile I'd heard in voice notes. He laughed, and it felt like warm syrup.
"Sorry, I'm... he's a bit hyper," I blurted, chasing after Reid the moment he leapt and wriggled free, as cats do when they have plans of their own.
Reid, with the speed that used to make my sofa a battlefield, planted himself in that man's arms. The world paused.
"He's perfect," the man murmured, stroking ragged ears with complete focus. "He really is something."
My cheeks warmed. "Oh. Sorry. He runs off sometimes."
"It's okay," the man's voice was softer than I had imagined. "I'm glad he jumped to me. We have a good feeling."
When we chatted, the texts and call-hours followed like a tide. He asked about the tins, the toys, the bed. He sent photos of my cat sleeping like a small cloud in his apartment. I felt important in a way few things had allowed me.
"You can visit anytime," he said on the third night, voice low like a secret. "And if it helps, I don't have a girlfriend."
I froze. "No girlfriend?"
"No," he said. "And... if you want to check on him sometimes, that's fine. I like his company with you."
Relief was a hot thing behind my ribs. "Really? You mean like, every week? Or daily?"
"Only keep him if you can promise he gets loved," he laughed. "But don't make rules it's hard to keep."
"Okay," I said too fast. "I'll be fair. He'll be home every few days."
"Good," he said. "What's your name again?"
"Madeleine," I whispered.
"Madeleine," he repeated, like he had swallowed it as a taste he liked. "Then text me and we'll set a time."
Reid watched us as if he were both proud and personally offended. "Woman," he said when we were alone on the elevator, "you're shameless."
"It's called strategy," I said.
We agreed on a trial handover: Reid would visit the man's place for a few days. I wrapped his favorite blanket around him. He peered up at me as if to say this whole exchange was beneath him, and then — so traitorously — he bumped his head against my chin.
"Take care of him," I told the man. "If anything goes wrong, text me."
"I will," he said. "He seems very special."
That night he sent photos: Reid snoozing on a sunny mat, Reid drinking from a porcelain bowl with a small paw tucked in, Reid almost regal. My messages started a small river of relevancy into my inbox.
Then work called. I had to go away for two weeks — a project I couldn't postpone. I told the man. He said he would take care of Reid. I typed "thank you" until my thumbs hurt and sent them into a void of late-night data.
On the tenth day, my pocket buzzed. "Reid is missing," the man's voice on the call sounded thin, like a balloon being let out of a child's fist. "I went to work, and when I came back, he was gone. I looked everywhere."
"No," I whispered. "No, he can't be. He would never —"
He went quiet. "I don't know where he went. I tried calling you. Are you there?"
I scrambled home. The apartment felt too big without the small tyrant's footsteps. I opened my door and heard the television voice in the living room, the same old Sun Wukong line that always made me laugh.
"Reid?" I cried. "Reid, are you here?"
There he was, sprawled on the sofa, exactly as if he'd never left. He blinked slowly and yawned with heartbreaking entitlement.
"Did you climb the eighteenth floor?" I demanded, breathless with panic and fury.
"Please," he said, licking a paw. "You cannot make drama out of a nap. You humans worry too much."
That night the man called again in a voice that had found new cracks. "I looked for him for two days. I'm so sorry. I thought I lost him."
"He came back," I said, holding Reid like he was the last blanket on earth. "He was at my place, sleeping."
He exhaled like a man who had been allowed to breathe again. "Keep him then," he said. "Maybe he likes you better. I... I can bring the things I bought. Consider it a gift."
When I told Reid, he pretended to be insulted. "Woman, you did not need to make me into a theater piece," he said. "I only came back because I remembered the sandwich you drop between the couch cushions."
"You're impossible," I said. "And thank you."
Reid had always been particular; he had opinions about my laundry and my perfumes. He suffered my cooking with a dignity that made me proud on small, stupid days.
Then one morning he left.
He jumped onto the windowsill and hung a little charm I'd given him — my silver bracelet — around his neck. He nosed my fingers, then pushed them off like a prince embarrassed at his own affection. He looked at me like someone about to board a ship.
"I cannot say when I will return," he told me. "Do not worry. Live, Madeleine. Laugh a bit more."
"Go where?" I asked. "Reid, it's dangerous outside."
"For us?" he said. "Everything is dangerous for us." He touched my cheek with a paw. "But I must go. I have debts to settle. I have to find something for you. Promise me you will not cry."
"How could I promise that when you —" I choked.
He left like a gust. Days trickled into months. The man from the group and I kept speaking about little things but the calls thinned. My life returned to the routine of work and quiet.
And then one evening, I opened my door and there was a human on my couch.
He lay like someone who had conquered sleep, arms behind his head, hair dark in the sun. He smiled and curled a finger in a way I had seen a cat curl his paw.
"Madeleine," he said, already half in a joke, pointing at the television with Sun Wukong on, "you take too long to come home. I almost died of hunger."
My heart stopped that exact way a bird stops mid-flight.
"Who—" I started.
He rolled, sat up, and met my eyes. They were the same blue, the same calm that had judged me for cheap cat food.
"Reid?" I whispered, because what else is left to whisper when a man on your couch shares a name and a soul with the cat you raised?
He gave me a lopsided grin. "People call me Reid now, apparently. But yes. I am him."
I said a lot of things to him: "How? Why? You left. You promised—"
He shrugged, but his fingers found mine with the same possessive ease he'd used to wrap a paw around my wrist. "I told you I would do strange things. I kept my promise."
"Did you climb a mountain? Drink the coldest river? Did you bargain with old cat elders?" I demanded, because the legend was ridiculous and yet my chest felt full of terrible hope.
He sighed, eyes that understood storybooks and wrong endings. "Yes. An old cat named Fidel told me about a choice. He asked if I was willing to trade my nine lives to be near you. I said yes. I gave everything to be human and to be with you."
"You gave everything," I echoed. "That sounds horribly final."
"It is," he said softly. "But I have your smell in my hair and your laugh in my bones. Would you rather I had stayed fluffy and unreachable?"
"You— you could have been someone else," I said. "You chose to be me-reachable."
He laughed then, like a small bell. "I chose you. You chose me. You bribed me with tuna. Very romantic."
In the weeks that followed, Reid learned human little things. He found he did not like how his new hands moved at first, how plates clinked like strangers. He loved that I let him sleep on the sofa. He hated going to the supermarket because, "Why purchase vegetables when one may nap?"
"Reid," I teased one night, half under the duvet, "do you dream in mouse-chasing now?"
"No, I dream of you," he said without hesitation, the truth shining in the dark.
That night, he smiled at me in a way that was not about claws or sharp teeth. He tucked my hair behind my ear and kissed my forehead like an apology and a claim. It was a small touch, but it made me feel noticed in a way no number of texts ever had.
"You're different," I said, tracing his jaw.
He reached up and pulled me closer. "I am yours," he said. "I will learn everything."
We had heart moments — three that I remember like bookmarks.
First: the night he laughed from the kitchen because I was late and he wrapped the warmest sweater around me, even though it was a man's sweater two sizes too big. "You need this more than I do," he said. His smile in that moment was new; I'd never seen him smile only for me.
Second: the time he stood in the doorway and took off his jacket to cover me when rain came unexpectedly. "You always forget your umbrella," he said simply, making my cheeks hot.
Third: the morning he came into the office with a lock of his hair tied in a silly ribbon because he knew I liked silly things. "I did it for you," he said, and even the stern faces of my colleagues softened.
We fell into small habits. We argued about the remote. He learned to make coffee. I learned to clip his nails, an act we joked was our domestic version of devotion.
My mother, Loretta, came over once and found him in the kitchen making pancakes. She blinked, then did what my mother does best: she took over.
"You're handsome," she said flatly while passing a plate. "And you can cook. Why aren't you married yet?"
"It was an accident," Reid said with a crooked smile. "She conned me with a blanket."
"Madeleine," my mother said with a dramatic sigh, "you and your taste."
She liked him instantly. She called him "good son" every other time she saw him. I saw Reid crouch and give my mother a shy smile, like a cat intent to be forgiven.
Even with the sweetness, there were things Reid could not tell me. Once, over late tea, he admitted, "I made a bargain. I traded things to become what I am. I cannot... I cannot have children."
The sentence fell between us like something heavy. He watched my face when I insisted, "Tell me everything."
"I can not pass on life like you humans. Fidel said I would be short-lived, and the price was high," Reid said. "But I would not trade it back. Not for any world."
"Then we will find the rest of life in other ways," I promised, because promises are how people build brave things.
He blinked at me, tears surprising me by his bravery. "You are very brave," he said. "You are mine."
We did not rush. We married in a little garden ceremony because my heart wanted grass under my feet and my mother wanted to see me happy enough to pound on a table. Fidel, the old white cat who had guided Reid, sat nearby like an ancient deity and blinked.
"Thank you," I whispered to Fidel, because in a world that had given me a miraculous man, I wanted to honor the odd old things that made miracles possible.
Years slipped, steady as breath. We argued over paint colors and tenderly nursed each other through colds. Reid scratched at my back exactly like he used to with his paw. He loved me with a softness that had claws behind it — protective, stubborn. He was not a man who existed only to open jars. He had moods, pride, temper, and a tenderness that showed when the lights went low.
When the hospital told us that there was a life inside me, Reid sobbed like a child. He held my hand and counted heartbeats on my belly like a ritual. "We did this," he said, incredulous. "We made this."
We named our child something soft and silly. The world felt rounder, like a ball that could be kicked without fear. We never stopped marveling at the small, absurd thing that had begun with a ragdoll and an overly opinionated furball.
One evening, months after the baby was sleeping and the house hummed with the quiet of exhausted contentment, I heard that voice — the television saying Sun Wukong's line from my old favorite show — and I laughed out loud. Reid smiled, warm and human, and squeezed my hand.
"Do you remember when you used to stretch like that on the sofa?" I asked.
He leaned his head back and his eyes dove into mine. "I do," he said. "I remember the way you smelled at night before we had candles. I remember your bad singing and the way you fold blankets. I remember everything because I am greedy for you."
I rested my head on his shoulder and listened to him breathe. The sofa creaked under us like an old friend.
"You said you gave everything," I said softly.
"I did," he replied. "But I gained a home."
Outside, the city moved on.
Inside, on a sofa where a cat had once stretched, we kept a small secret — a silver bracelet turned collar, an old tin with faded labels, the television line that always made us laugh. These were not trophies. They were small proofs: that life could change; that a cat could choose to be a man; that sacrifices could be small and huge at the same time.
"Madeleine," Reid murmured, "I am glad I jumped into the right arms."
"And I'm glad you did," I said.
He kissed the top of my head, and then, in the dim light, he said the thing he rarely allowed anyone to say without a joke: "Woman, stay with me."
"I will," I said, thinking of the silver bracelet around our baby's tiny wrist and how absurd and ordinary and perfect all that felt.
The sofa held us like it always had — a witness to naps, breakups with leftovers, tiny births of new music, and the improbable miracle of a ragdoll who had decided he preferred human hands.
We never used the word forever, because forever is too big a thing to hold. But when Reid brushed a crumb from my lip and laughed at my tired eyebrow, I believed the last magic, the softest kind: that two lives, by accident or design, can choose each other and make home where once there was only a couch and a television voice.
And so the sofa still remembers the patter of four paws, the weight of a sleeping lump of fur, and now the steady breathing of a man who sometimes claws at jars and sometimes leaves little notes on the fridge.
When the sunlight finds the exact spot where Reid used to sprawl, it lands on his hair instead, and I always look up to see which of our odd miracles is smiling at me next.
The End
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