When we arrived at where my car was parked, I opened the door on the passenger's side for Alma, before getting in on the other side.

I started the engine and turned on the radio, playing "Be there" by "Krewella." As I pulled out of the parking spot, I looked into the mirror and saw the guy from before coming out of the restaurant, watching my car. I could feel myself shiver and knew that I wanted to get away from there. He walked over to an old pickup truck, its red color fading and rust slowly devouring the body.

I quickly drove to the exit and waited for some cars to pass by. When the street got empty, I accelerated and the tires of my blue Nissan squealed while sliding over the wet asphalt.

In my mirror, I could see the old pickup truck driving off into the other direction, and the odd feeling I was getting from that guy was finally starting to fade.

"Will Lucy be alright being all alone until evening?" I asked out of worry for that little thing.

"Y-Yes... she is a brave little kitty," replied Alma, then the drive went silent again, the only sound being the music that was playing on the radio. Alma was looking out the window, watching the rain and slightly twitching whenever a lightning struck. From time to time she also glanced over at me for a few seconds, making me wish I could read her mind to know what she was thinking about.

It didn't take us long to reach my favorite ice cream shop. We got out of the car and once again I was holding an umbrella while opening the car door for Alma.

"Y-You don't need to do this every time..." stated Alma.

"But I want to. I don't usually do this for anyone, so you may feel special," I answered jokingly. With Alma, I just had the urge to do stuff like this.

'Seems like I am a gentlewoman after all, huh?' I thought to myself.

Once again I linked arms with Alma and proceeded to the entrance of the building. As it was right next to the street together with some other shops, there was no big parking lot belonging to it, so we had to park a bit further away. After passing supermarkets and coffee shops, we finally could see the glass front of the arcade we were here for. It was the only building on this street that had its colorful lights on, the other ones were closed on Sundays.

Although there were actual ice cream shops nearby, I chose this place because it not only had very good home-made ice cream but also had games I could play with Alma.

With our arms still linked I led Alma to the counter to choose our ice. She seemed overwhelmed with the possibilities she had.

After standing there for a short time, looking at all the different sorts they had to offer, the owner of the place showed up. She was an elderly lady with shoulder-length gray hair and dark brown eyes, a warm smile sitting on her wrinkly face. Helena was a naturally cheerful person, just walking into her shop would lighten up anyone's mood.

When she saw me, she had a smile on her face and greeted, "Hello Miss Faye, how are your parents?"

My family was known around the city for various reasons. For once, my late great-grandfather was the mayor for a long time. Aside from that, he also financially supported the founding of the high school I'm going to. So my family had ties with the town many years ago. Officially, my parents still were part of the city council, and their opinion was being considered when making important decisions, but they missed most of the council meetings due to their job.

"Hello, Helena, nice to see you again. My parents are fine, thanks. How about you?" I answered.

"Oh, I'm still fit as a fiddle... and who's this?" she looked over to Alma, who was shyly hiding partly behind me. I took her hand in mine and pulled her beside me lightly.

I gripped her hand a bit stronger, signalizing her to introduce herself. So she spoke, "I-I'm Alma..."

Helena looked at the two of us smiling and said, "So what can I bring you, Alma?"

"Um, Strawberry p-please," ordered Alma. Helena noticed that Alma wasn't one for many words, so she didn't even ask if she wanted it in a cone.

After Alma got her ice cream, I ordered mine, "For me the usual please."

"Of course," confirmed Helena smiling. She took a chocolate coated cone and put two scoops of my favorite ice cream on it.

After paying, I led Alma to one of the two tables of the small secluded room this shop had. She started to lick her pink ice adorably and looked satisfied.

She glanced over at my cone, where the light blue ice was slowly starting to melt. She seemed interested, so I asked, "Want to try it? The sort is called 'Sky' and tastes like bubblegum."

I held my cone in front of her face, and she licked it while blushing. She smiled and stated, "It tastes good... l-like sweet mint..."

We had just finished our ice when someone entered the room. I looked at the three girls I had never seen before, which were standing next to the door, and therefore, next to us.

"Ew, what is this... thing... doing here? I didn't know they let these ugly mutants in here..." one of them said with a disgusted face while pointing at Alma.

"Let's leave again, Anna," replied another one. Before I knew what I was doing, I was standing and felt the sting in my right palm. This was the second time in my life that I slapped someone.

The girl that was seemingly called Anna held her left cheek in pain, which was becoming bright red already.

"Fuck you," I told her straight to the face.

"What the fuck!?" screamed the second girl.

"Do you know who we are!?" yelled the third one.

"Don't know, don't care," I replied.

"It's not my fault her mother fucked a cat!" yelled Anna.

"What is going on here?" the voice of Helena came from behind the girls.

"That bitch slapped me!"

"Yeah, I did because she said Alma's mother fucked a cat and called Alma an ugly mutant!" I defended.

"So!? I have the right to say whatever I want!" Anna once again yelled, still holding her cheek.

"I want you to leave and don't come back. I don't welcome racists in my home," Helena told Anna.

"What!? She is the one who should get kicked out!" protested Anna.

"I would have reacted the same way as Brea, now leave," stated Helena.

"We will make your life hell, Brea. You know the surname Hollands, right? Let's see what our uncle will say to this," threatened Anna.

"So that's who you are, huh?" I responded. They were the nieces of my school's principle. That was a very welcomed coincidence.

"So you think you can let your uncle deal with me? Well, the funny thing is, I'm friends with him myself. And as far as I remember, his two-year-old daughter is a catgirl, right?" they froze when they realized what that meant, "Let's see what he will do after he heard what you just said."

The three of them were standing there and looked terrified. They probably didn't even know that their cousin was a catgirl.

"Now you can either leave and never ever again belittle someone because of his or her looks, or you can go crying to your uncle, but then I would do the same," I stated. Anna quickly turned around and left, the other two followed.

"I'm sorry for causing a ruckus in your shop," I apologized to Helena.

"That's fine, when I was young I did the same thing because my mother bad-mouthed my by-now-husband after she found out his skin wasn't of the same color as ours," she replied smiling.

I went back to the table where Alma was still sitting, looking down and crying. I sat beside her and tried laying my arm around her waist to pull her to me, but she slid further away. I wasn't sure if she did that because she was reminded of how her life was until now, or if she was in fear because I slapped that girl.

"Why..." Alma said after crying for a while, "Why would you do that? You... you shouldn't hurt p-people... and why for m-me?"

"Because I have the urge to protect you," I replied after a moment.

"No one has ever tried to... to p-protect me, they always insulted and hit me... Please don't hurt people... violence is very bad, I hate it..." Alma told me while her tears were still dripping down her cheeks.

I took one of the paper napkins from the table and wiped away Alma's tears.

"No one protected you, but I will... and I won't hurt anyone again, I promise," I stated while looking into her light blue eyes. I once again tried pulling Alma by her waist, and this time she didn't refuse. She turned to me and buried her face in my shoulder, crying even more. I started stroking her back, and after a short while, her tears stopped coming.

We kept on sitting like that for several minutes, then I said, "Want to go play some games in the arcade?"

Alma thought about it, then answered, "I don't even know how to p-play them..."

"That's alright; I will show you," I reassured. Alma hesitated for a moment, then nodded with a small smile. I continued, "Okay then, choose the game you want to try."

Alma went out of the room and looked around, her ears once again moving as if she was stalking her prey. Her eyes landed on an Air Hockey table, and she seemed interested. Her eyes wandered back to me, then she cutely pointed to the table, saying, "That one..."

I smiled and answered, "Let's go then."

I went over to the token machine and put money in it. In exchange, I got some of the plastic coins this place uses as tokens to start the games.

After reaching the table, I put in one of the tokens, and the game started. Air started coming out through the tiny holes on the surface of the table, and the puck appeared on Alma's side.

"You take the paddle in one hand and push the puck with it. Try hitting the puck into this slot right here," I instructed while pointing at the goal on my side. Alma hit the disk with the paddle, and it slid over to my side pretty fast. I decided to let it go into the goal, to give her a small advantage.

She got the hang of it pretty quickly, and we kept on playing for a while. After a few rounds, we decided to try something else, and I spotted a pool table in an extra room. That one was new, they didn't have a pool table when I came here last time.

"Want to play pool?" I asked while pointing to the extra room. Alma glanced over to where I was aiming with my index finger and nodded slowly. That made me happy, I used to play pool with my dad a few years ago, but we haven't played in a long time.

I took Alma's hand and happily skipped to the next room. I took two cues, handed one over to her and put a token into the table. The sixteen balls that are used to play pool appeared on the side of the table, so I took them and put them in place.

"In this game, you hit the white ball with the cue, and by doing that, you sink the other balls in the six holes of the table," I explained.

"Okay..." replied Alma. I placed the white ball on the table and made the first shot. The sound of the balls bouncing against each other was heard, but none of them fell into a pocket.

"Your turn," I told her. She took the cue and tried imitating what I did, but she seemed unsure about how to do it. I decided to help her and went closely behind her. When I touched her, she let out a small surprised noise, which was adorable. I pressed my body against hers and took her hands in mine, leading her movements. I led her hands to where they should be and showed her how to hold the cue.

"Stick your butt out, you need to lean down more to aim correctly," I instructed and lightly touched her hips, pulling them back slightly.

I caught my eyes linger on her body a bit too long, so I shook my head and pushed my attention back to the game. I once again leaned into her and led her hands to hit the white ball with the cue. The sound of the balls hitting each other was heard, and this time one of them rolled right into a pocket.

"Okay, one of the fully colored fell in, so you need to sink the full ones, and I the spotted ones," I explained, "When you sink one of your balls, you get another turn. Now try it yourself."

Alma leaned down over the table, stuck her bum out like I instructed and held the cue as I showed her. She hit the white ball, which then again hit some of the colored ones but this time, none fell into the pockets.

"No worries, it takes practice to hit the ball right where you want it," I said, and Alma looked happy.

After that, we played for quite a while and tried out some other games the arcade had to offer.

The sun started setting, and Alma and I were still sitting at one of the tables.

"Do you want to eat something?" I asked her.

"No, I'm not hungry," answered Alma, but this time it was probably the truth. As she wasn't used to eating more than once a day, she wouldn't need dinner today. But in my opinion, she should get used to eating more.

"Then how about another ice cream?" I offered and immediately caught her attention. She nodded, so I got up to order it.

I came back after a few minutes with a plate and a fork. I placed them down in front of Alma, who was looking at it interested. On the plate, some waffles were cut into small pieces and strawberry ice cream on top of that.

"I hope you are fine with splitting with me," I told her smiling, and she nodded looking at me genuinely happy. I sat down as close to Alma as possible, took the fork and fed her some waffle with ice.

She seemed to like it, so I fed her some more. When moving the fork for the third time to her face, drips of ice cream fell onto the back of Alma's right hand which was in her lap.

"I'm sorry, let me just..." I apologized while taking her right hand in mine. It was as if I turned off my brain for a moment because I pulled her hand closer to me and bent down, kissing the back of her hand, and gently sucking away the ice cream.

"There, all clean now," I said while smiling, embarrassed by my own actions. Alma's face was bright red, and she was hiding her mouth behind her left sleeve.

"T-Thank you... now you eat some," she replied while taking the fork I put down on the table. She led the fork with the food to my face and fed me, looking unsure if she did it right. We both smiled and continued eating.

We kept messing around while feeding each other, and when we finally finished the waffles, I brought back the plate, and we made our way to the exit. We once again shared the umbrella and got in the car. While pulling into the street, I noticed a familiar dusty red pickup truck standing on the other side of the road.

The uneasiness I felt before came back, and I felt myself getting anxious. I didn't know why, but that guy was giving me the creeps, and I didn't like that. It seemed like Alma had not noticed the car yet, so I drove off quickly, for her not to worry about it.

The drive was once again pretty silent, and it took only a few minutes until my car was parked in the garage. After getting out of the vehicle, we went upstairs, holding hands on the way. Upon reaching the living room, Lucy greeted us excitedly, her little paws hopping over the wooden floor.

Alma fed her, and we agreed on watching a movie, although we couldn't find an agreement on which movie to watch. We were about to go up into my room while I was telling Alma about the films we could watch, when I heard a car pull up in front of my house. The red pickup truck flashed through my mind, and I was getting anxious again. I felt myself sweating and Alma probably also noticed as she was holding my hand.

I went over to the window and looked out, feeling relief. In front of the house, I could see Amanda's pink Jeep standing there. Then the doorbell rang, and I went to open the door.

As soon as I pushed down the handle of the door, Amanda pushed it open and said, talking really fast, "Oh good, you're here Brea. Did you know Quinn and Ida were dating? I just saw them kiss-... ing..." she froze as soon as she spotted Alma standing there, hiding behind my back while gripping my arm.

We three were standing there, looking at each other, not knowing what to say.