Able To Ignore

 Walking, or rather shuffling her feet, home while her body was completely slumped was a task she felt was too much. Coming home at 10:00 pm was usual for her, but being gone all day, on a Friday because she had to cover her coworker that is currently in the hospital was not.

Anais usually had the regular shift working at the tax firm from 1:00 pm to 9:45 pm, but today she started working at 8:00 am because her boss called her and asked to cover her coworker who crashed their motorcycle on their way to work. She didn’t love it there, but she needed a job while looking for English teacher opportunities and the owner of the tax firm happened to be her dad’s friend. Another plus is she has the weekend off.

She was grateful, of course. However, Anais was always tired because of this job. Having the weekend off usually just meant sleep and job searching. Anais’s dream of becoming an English teacher just seems so far away. 

Anais finally sees her apartment building when she turns the corner and almost bursts into tears out of relief as she practically sprints to her building. 

She doesn’t even remember entering the building and going into the elevator, but somehow the elevator is already stopping on her floor. Anais sees a glimpse of her door, that's the second last door in the hallway, before clumsily making her way down the hallway. 

Anais is halfway there when she catches something at the very end of the hallway.

A baby tiger.

Ha.

How funny, she worked so hard today she’s starting to see stuff. Maybe she should take the following Monday off because she most certainly starting to realize how hard she works.

“God, I’m losing it.” She mumbles under her breath.

Anais keeps walking until she’s at her door and starts unlocking her door until she looks over at her left and sees next-door neighbor’s apartment door when she realizes, she was most certainly not imagining this cub.

*

Anais has been standing in front of her door having a staring contest with this tiger cub for a solid 10 minutes. Her eyes could simply just not process what’s right in front of her. It wasn’t until the cub starting moving closer to sniff the hand, that was mid-air from her sudden pausing, does she finally finishes processing.

Her mind and heart were both running fast beyond comprehension. Anais honestly can’t even explain how scared she was. She’s aware that it’s a cub, but she is also very aware that it’s still a tiger.

Though her heart calms down when the tiger stops sniffing her hand and starts licking it instead. Anais’s brain was still a mess, but now she knows that the tiger will not hurt her. 

Gently, she moves from the cub’s mouth and toward their ears and starts scratching. That’s all it took for the cub to chuff. 

They stay in this position for a few more seconds before Anais hears the elevator ding. Without another thought, she quickly grabs the cub, opens the door, and runs indoors slamming the door behind her. 

Anais didn’t know what neighbor of her’s it was, but she was not gonna let anyone potentially scare this poor baby tiger away. Not when she still needed to find where they came from.

Wait. Where did they come from?

The tiger was right outside her neighbor’s door. Her tiny neighbor’s door. Her tiny adorable neighbor’s door. Her tiny, adorable neighbor with different colored irises.

No. Anais shook her head, this is not the time to think about her cute neighbor. 

Okay, I don’t why they were in front of their door. But the better question is, where’s their Mother?

She finally looks down at the cub in her hands who’s been studying her thinking intensely this whole time. 

“Hey, buddy,” Anais starts, “You wouldn’t know where your Mama is, right?” She questions, but all she gets as a response is two blinks.

Anais groans as she slides down her front door with the cub still in her hands, “What did I do in my past life to deserve this?” She asks seriously as she looks into the eyes of the tiger with, what she now noticed, distinct heterochromia.

After saying this, the cub leans over and starts licking her face and Anais only grinned with a sigh finding this cosmically amusing.

*

For the rest of the evening, Anais bent to the will of the bratty cub. After Anais mini-breakdown she decided if this cub is gonna be taking their stay here she would probably have to wash them. While scrubbing the cub she inevitably found out that it was a she. After bathing the young tigress, Anais tried to dry her, but after the cub quickly found they did not like the blowdryer, she had to practically pin her down to effectively dry her. 

After working so hard all day and then bathing a man-eating animal, she finally decided to eat a snack. Unfortunately for her, the baby wanted some as well. Not knowing if tigers digest cookies well, she ignored the whining and pawing taking place on her legs. She thought she was doing a good job at ignoring the protests coming from the naughty kitten, but the cub jumped up on her lap for a better chance to attempt to steal her cookies.

Anais gasped trying to hide her giggle, “Such a naughty kitty! I can’t believe you!” She said pulling the cub from her lap and holding her in her hands.

She ignored the growl coming from her mouth when she said “kitty”. Looking into the cub’s eyes, Anais exhaled before setting her back in her lap and taking her chocolate chip cookie before picking off a chip and holding it up to her face, “Okay, we make a deal. You can have a couple of my chocolate chips as long as you don’t eat the actual cookie.” Anais offered and the cub seemed to understand perfectly.

 The feline gladly accepted it while chuffing. Not before Anais was forced to pet her and if she stopped she would get scratched.

Anais finally got to finish her cookies but when done she realized the cub fell asleep on her lap. Without much thought, she picked her up and took her to the bedroom, and lied down, the tiger in Anais’s arms. 

Anais admitted to herself, that yes this was the most fun she had in a while. The young tiger made her smiled so many times that she was able to ignore the extra shift she had to work so suddenly,  the similarities between the tiger and her next-door neighbor, the fight she put up when drying her fur, the adorable cookie compromise, and most importantly she was able to ignore the warm hand she felt combing through her hair as she fell asleep.