I’ve hated him for years. A deep, burning hatred that settled into my bones like damp, winter air. Everyone thought I was over him, but they didn’t know. They couldn’t know the real reason my heart felt like a hollowed-out cavern. It wasn’t just the breakup, or the way he moved on so quickly. It was the cruelty. The utter, soul-crushing cruelty. He set my cat free.
That’s what I believed. That’s what he wanted me to believe. After our brutal split, after he left me shattered and adrift, taking with him not just my future but my sanity, he came back one last time. He said he needed to clear out the last of his things. I was still too broken to fight, too numb to care. I just wanted him gone. But the next morning, when I called for my little shadow, my fluffy companion, my soulmate with whiskers… she was gone. The window was open, just a crack. Too small for her to slip through on her own. And I knew. I just knew.
He had always hated her. Or so I told myself. Said she was “too clingy,” “shed everywhere,” “just a cat.” But she was my anchor. My quiet comfort when the world felt too loud. She slept curled against my chest, purring a rhythm that calmed my frantic heart. Losing her, after losing him, was like a second death. Worse, because it was deliberate. It was spiteful. It was meant to destroy the last fragile piece of me. It worked.
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I called him, screaming. My voice cracked and broke, but the rage fueled me. “WHERE IS SHE?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!” He was so calm. Too calm. “Honey, she probably just slipped out. You know how curious she is.” LIES. Every word a lie. My cat was an indoor cat, terrified of the outside. She never went near windows. He heard the despair in my voice, the shattering of my already broken spirit, and I swear, I heard a smirk in his. “Maybe she just wanted to be free,” he said, and then hung up.
Free. That word echoed in my nightmares for months. Free to be hit by a car, free to starve, free to be hunted. He didn’t set her free; he condemned her. And he did it to punish me. To remind me that he still had the power to hurt me, even when he was gone. I searched for weeks. Posted flyers, haunted shelters. Every meow I heard on the street sent a jolt of hope through me, only to crash into disappointment. The guilt was crushing. I should have locked the window. I should have never let him back in. I should have seen the monster he was capable of being.
Months bled into years. The hatred for him festered. Every time I saw a picture of him online, happy with his new life, I’d clench my fists until my nails dug into my palms. He got to move on, while I was haunted by the ghost of my lost cat, the memory of her soft fur, the silent accusation in her absence.
Then, a few months ago, something shifted. A mutual acquaintance, someone I hadn’t seen since before the breakup, bumped into me. We were exchanging pleasantries, talking about old times, when she mentioned him. “Oh, he’s still heartbroken about that cat, you know.” My blood ran cold. “What are you talking about?” I snapped, far too sharply. She looked confused. “About what happened. You know. When he told everyone what he did to try and fix it.”
Fix what?! My mind was reeling. Fix what? He set her free! There was nothing to fix, only to confess. I pushed for more, but she just looked uncomfortable. “Look, I probably shouldn’t say anything, it’s just… a really sad story for everyone.” She walked away, leaving me reeling. What did she mean, “fix it”? What did she mean, “sad story for everyone”? This didn’t fit the narrative of vindictive cruelty.
Rob, Sheryl, and John Owen Lowe attend the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Maltin Modern Master Award Honoring Robert Downey Jr. at The Arlington Theatre on February 9, 2024, in Santa Barbara, California. | Source: Getty Images
A seed of doubt, tiny and unwelcome, began to sprout. What if I was wrong? No, IMPOSSIBLE. I knew what he did. But that phrase, “fix it,” kept gnawing at me. I started digging. Quietly. Subtly. I contacted another old friend, someone who was closer to him, someone who I thought would confirm my suspicions. Instead, I got more cryptic answers. “He blamed himself, I know that. He felt terrible.”
Terrible? He felt terrible? The man who smirked on the phone while I was sobbing? It didn’t add up. Then I remembered something. A tiny detail I’d dismissed. He’d mentioned taking her to a vet, months before we broke up, because she was “acting a little strange.” I’d told him he was being overly dramatic. He always was dramatic. But now… now I wondered.
I started calling local vets, explaining a long-lost cat, giving her description, giving the old address. Most said they couldn’t give out information due to privacy. But one, a small clinic tucked away on the other side of town, was different. The receptionist remembered the cat. Not by name, but by a distinct marking. “Oh, yes. She was such a sweetie. But quite ill, I recall.”
ILL? My cat? She seemed fine! A wave of panic washed over me. I pressed, and after much pleading and explaining that I was the original owner, the vet herself called me back. What she told me… it didn’t just break my heart. It shattered my entire world, then rebuilt it with jagged, poisoned glass.
“Your ex brought her in multiple times,” the vet began gently. “He was very concerned. She was developing severe respiratory issues. We ran tests. It turns out, she had a very aggressive, very rare form of lung cancer.”
My breath hitched. Lung cancer? My healthy, happy cat?
Rob, Sheryl, and John Owen Lowe attend Netflix’s 2024 Oscar after party at Mother Wolf on March 10, 2024, in Los Angeles, California. | Source: Getty Images
“It was likely environmental,” the vet continued, her voice soft. “We found trace elements of a specific chemical in her system that’s often found in certain types of air fresheners, especially the plug-in ones. The kind that release a continuous scent.”
The world spun. Air fresheners. I LOVED those. Every room in my small apartment had one. I loved the smell of lavender and vanilla. I thought I was making my home cozy for her. I thought I was making it pleasant. Instead…
“Her lungs were deteriorating rapidly,” the vet explained. “We talked about options, but truthfully, by the time he brought her in, there wasn’t much hope. We could try aggressive chemotherapy, but it would have been painful, expensive, and with very low odds of success. He was distraught. He kept saying he had to save her. He wanted to get her out of that environment.”
And then the twist. The gut-wrenching, soul-crushing twist.
“He decided… he decided the kindest thing was to let her go peacefully,” the vet said, her voice filled with empathy. “He stayed with her until the very end. He cried for a long time. Then he told us not to tell you. He said you loved her too much, and knowing the truth, especially that it was likely caused by something in the home, would destroy you. He said you’d blame yourself. He said he’d rather you hate him than carry that burden. He asked us to tell you she was rehomed, if you ever called. To preserve your memory of her as alive and well. He took the cremation ashes himself. He said he wanted to scatter them somewhere beautiful, where she could finally be ‘free’.”
Rob and John Owen Lowe attend The Alliance For Children’s Rights 30th Anniversary Champions For Children at The Beverly Hilton on March 9, 2022, in Beverly Hills, California. | Source: Getty Images
My blood ran cold. He didn’t set her free. He didn’t abandon her. He saved her from a slow, painful death, caused by me. And he let me hate him, let me believe he was the cruelest man alive, just so I wouldn’t have to live with the truth. Just so I wouldn’t blame myself for unknowingly poisoning my own beloved cat.
I collapsed onto the floor, the phone still clutched in my hand. Years of hatred, of anger, of grief, all misdirected. I was the monster, not him. My ignorance, my love for a pleasant smell, had killed my companion. And he, the man I reviled, had carried that terrible secret, choosing to be the villain in my story to spare me a far more agonizing truth.
He didn’t set my cat free to hurt me. He let me believe she was free to save me from the unbearable weight of what I had done. And now, the truth has finally set me free. Free from my hatred, yes. But condemned to a lifetime of guilt and the crushing realization that sometimes, the ones we demonize are making the most heartbreaking sacrifices of all. And sometimes, the villain in your story is you. OH MY GOD.
Rob and John Owen Lowe attend Netflix’s HOLIDAY IN THE WILD Cast & Crew Screening at The London Hotel on October 29, 2019, in West Hollywood, California. | Source: Getty Images
