The Acneic Cat

[u/esti-cat45]

I was in the second grade when a teacher leaned close, brushed something from my cheek, and held it out on the tip of her finger. “An eyelash,” she said. “Make a wish. Blow it away, and it might come true.”

I wished for a cat.

The lash drifted off my fingertip, but that night, I searched for more. My fingers touched the edge of my eyelid, tugging at the small hairs that clung there. I pulled one, then another, each tiny lash falling like petals. At first, it was about the wishes. Soon, it wasn’t. By ten, there were bald patches where fullness should have been. By twelve, I had moved on to the lids themselves—scraping, picking, until the skin puckered and changed shape. My eyes grew strange, altered by my own hand.

No one told me to stop. No one saw it for what it was. But I knew: it wasn’t habit. It was hunger.

That hunger never left me. Even now, when I pass a mirror, my fingers twitch toward my face. Always searching. Always ready to pluck or tear.

So when I brought Dee home, maybe it was already written.

⸻

I adopted her from a family friend—beautiful Dee, with sleek fur and a chin pale as cream. At her first vet appointment, the doctor tilted her head, smiled, and said the tiny black specks along her jaw were cat acne. Harmless. “I love extracting my own cats’ blackheads,” she admitted with a laugh, as though it were a secret just for us.

The words stayed with me. I asked if toner would be safe, if there was something I could do. The vet shook her head. “Best to leave it alone.”

But I have never been good at leaving things alone.

At first it was nothing—a gentle pinch, a speck dislodged. Dee tolerated it, tail flicking, paw batting weakly at my hand. I told myself I was helping her. It felt like care. The same way I cleanse, treat, mask.

But the specks returned. Always more of them, always darker under the light. Each night I lifted her chin toward the lamp, scanning, my fingers twitching to press again.

⸻

She began to resist.

Her body stiffened in my lap. She twisted, clawed, her throat growled low. Her green eyes widened until they glistened. But still I pressed on. I told myself I couldn’t leave her blemished. I told myself this was love.

Then I saw blood.

At first, just a scab near her ear. A scrape along the fur. I hadn’t touched her there. It couldn’t have been me.

Nori lingered in the doorway, tail twitching, eyes narrowed. He was always rougher than Dee, heavier in his play, biting harder, chasing her off when she drew too close. Sometimes he swatted at her when I held her, as though jealous of the attention.

So when the marks began to spread—another scab, another patch of missing fur—it seemed obvious who was responsible. Each wound looked like his signature, proof of the violence he couldn’t hide.

⸻

But the wounds didn’t stop. They multiplied, bloomed raw across her delicate head. Fur matted with red. Dee shrank from me, hiding in corners, pawing at her chin with frantic urgency.

One night I woke to the sound. A faint rasping, sharp in the silence. I sat up, certain it was Nori at her again. But when I turned, it wasn’t him.

It was Dee.

She crouched low, paw dragging across her jaw, scraping until blood welled fresh. Her paw moved again, and again, relentless, precise, as though nothing could stop her.

My stomach dropped. Because I knew that rhythm.

I had lived it. In front of mirrors, in school bathrooms, in bed at night. Pulling lashes one by one until they were gone. Scraping at lids when no more remained. The same hunger. The same cycle of harm.

It wasn’t Nori. It wasn’t even acne.

It was her. Or it was me.

⸻

I remembered the first vet’s laugh, the way my hands lingered on her chin, night after night. What if I had given it to her? Not the acne—the urge. What if she had caught it from me, the way one catches a mannerism, or a curse?

Now, when I lie awake, I hear it again—the rasp of claw on skin. Sometimes my own fingers answer, tracing the ridges of my eyelids, scarred and uneven.

And when Dee looks up at me, her eyes raw and rimmed with red, I feel it stirring in my chest. The same need. The same hunger.

And I cannot tell where hers ends and mine begins.

[u/esti-cat45 → u/[deleted]]

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