Antifreeze

He looked at me and said, "tell me something I don't know about you."
So I told him about the time my cat died when I was eight.

The look in his eyes, the smell of his fur.
Cross-legged, enveloping him.
The antifreeze he'd been poisoned with, the neighbor kid who did it.
The first time I saw anything die: the air changed and my fingertips tingled.
The first time I understood there was cruelty in the world.
But kindness, too. Cross-legged, enveloping him.

He looked at me and said, "I've already heard that story."
But he hadn't. I'd only ever told him I was eight, the cat died, antifreeze.