A Harsh Affection

My cat yawns loudly and stretches out next to me. Wrinkling his little pink nose he blinks twice with severity. Even though this small animal knows nothing of the world around him, never having ventured beyond the hallway outside our door, he carries himself in a grand manner indicating otherwise. With a subtle tilt of his head and a nod he tells me what I should not need to be told; it had to end. From the very start, from the moment I realized that there was something there at all worth considering something, I knew it had to end. This kind of situation never works out for me. You see, this isn't the first time I've been through this. In fact, this isn't even my second occasion. It's more of an ongoing event in my life, one that my cat has faithfully (and almost mockingly, these days) born witness to all along. My greatest fear is quickly becoming that my constant companion will finally have enough and, when my life has once again completed this cycle and I am more in need of a friend than ever, he too will abandon me. For now he judges me most lovingly.