My Ambitious Feed

like suddenly every bad ex, every argument, every person who didn’t meet your emotional expectations is a “narcissist” and every unpleasant interaction is “abuse”

not everything is a clinical condition. not everything is abuse. sometimes someone is just selfish. sometimes they’re immature. sometimes the relationship was unhealthy on both sides. that doesn’t make it a diagnosable personality disorder or a specialized category of abuse

and honestly, reducing everything to “narcissistic abuse” kind of flattens what actual abuse looks like. it turns a serious pattern of manipulation and control into a buzzword you can slap onto any situation where you felt hurt

you’re allowed to say “that relationship sucked” without needing to medicalize it. you’re allowed to leave people who treat you poorly without turning them into a diagnosis

Suicide, on its own, isn’t some moral failure or character flaw. It’s usually the result of overwhelming pain, and it deserves to be treated with compassion. Full stop.

But how someone chooses to go about it? That can have consequences that ripple out in really brutal ways. There’s a difference between someone who is suffering and someone who makes a choice that leaves another person, often someone they supposedly care about, to deal with something deeply traumatic. Forcing a partner, family member, or even a stranger to be the one who discovers or cleans up the aftermath isn’t just “part of the tragedy,” it’s an added layer of harm.

And we don’t talk about that enough, especially when gender gets involved. There’s a pattern where men’s pain is centered (which, yes, matters), but the impact on everyone else, especially women, is minimized or ignored. It turns into “he was hurting” instead of “multiple people were harmed.”

You can hold two truths at once:

someone can be in real, unbearable pain and still make choices that cause additional, preventable harm to others.

Based On This Story Prompt.

Her name was Elara Vance, and she lived in the tall, ivy-strangled house at the edge of the woods, the one with the black iron gate and the silver knocker shaped like a crescent moon. One morning, she nailed a notice to that gate:

I will marry the one who can open my front door with the key around my cat’s neck.

No further explanation. No loopholes. No fine print.

By noon, men were already sprinting through the hedges like poorly trained hunting dogs.

The cat in question was a smoky-gray blur with eyes like molten gold and the kind of tail that flicked in judgment. Around its neck hung a thin chain with a small brass key. It lounged on rooftops. It balanced along fence rails. It vanished into hedges just before outstretched hands could grab it.

Traps were set. Cream was spilled into saucers. One fool tried to lasso it.

The cat responded by knocking over his bucket and watching him fall into his own mud pit.

It became a sport. A spectacle. Every failed attempt made Elara more myth than woman. From behind her lace curtains, she was occasionally glimpsed, dark hair, cool smile, unreadable eyes.

And the cat? Untouchable.

I didn’t run.

That was the first difference.

While others crashed through bushes, I sat on the low stone wall near the marketplace with a book and a slice of roast chicken I didn’t particularly need. I noticed things.

I noticed the cat avoided loud boots and quick hands. I noticed it paused near the bakery at dusk. I noticed it liked high places and long shadows.

So I stopped looking at it like a prize.

The first time it approached me, I didn’t move. I didn’t even reach for it. I just tore off a piece of chicken and set it beside me on the wall.

“You can take it,” I said mildly, keeping my eyes on my book. “Or not. Your call.”

It watched me for a long, calculating moment.

Then it took the chicken and vanished.

The next day, I brought nothing. I just sat.

The day after that, I brought a bit of dried fish.

We built a rhythm. I didn’t call to it. I didn’t whistle. I didn’t pss-pss-pss like an idiot. I let it come. Sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it did. When it did, I talked, to the air, mostly. About the weather. About the absurdity of grown men falling into shrubbery.

“You’d think they’d realize,” I muttered once, as the butcher’s son face-planted chasing a gray streak across the cobbles. “You don’t catch something that doesn’t want to be caught.”

The cat blinked slowly.

That was the first sign.

Weeks passed. The spectacle thinned. Bruised egos retreated. The key remained where it was.

One evening, as the sun bled copper into the horizon, the cat leapt lightly onto the wall beside me and didn’t immediately bolt.

I felt its warmth before I felt anything else.

“Bold of you,” I said softly.

It sniffed my sleeve.

Carefully, slowly, I lifted my hand and let it hover, offering the back of my fingers. It leaned in, pressed its cheek against my knuckles, and purred.

The sound was low. Resonant. Almost… deliberate.

After that, it became routine. It would sit beside me. Sometimes it would curl against my thigh. Once, it sprawled across my lap as if it owned me outright. The chain glinted in the fading light, the key resting against soft gray fur.

I never touched it.

Not at first.

The night I did, it was because the cat nudged my hand with its head, then tilted its chin up in clear expectation.

“You’re certain?” I asked.

Golden eyes met mine. Unblinking.

My fingers brushed the chain, then slid beneath it. The cat did not tense. Did not flinch. Instead, it purred louder, pressing closer as if the contact pleased it.

I slipped the chain over its head.

The key was warm from its body.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

The cat jumped down from my lap and trotted toward the edge of town without looking back.

It didn’t need to. I followed.

The house loomed in the twilight, windows dark, ivy whispering in the wind. The iron gate stood open.

The front door was heavy oak, carved with winding shapes that almost resembled vines, or claws.

I hesitated only a second before fitting the key into the lock.

It turned smoothly.

The door creaked open.

Inside, candles flared to life one by one, illuminating a wide entry hall. And there, at the base of the staircase, stood Elara Vance.

She was exactly as described and nothing like it at all.

Dark hair spilled over her shoulders. Her eyes…

Her eyes were molten gold.

“Well done,” she said, voice low and amused. “You’re the first to use your head.”

Behind me, the door shut with a soft click.

A flicker of movement caught my eye.

On the polished floor, just beside the staircase, a smoky-gray cat sat, tail curled neatly around its paws.

I looked from the cat to the woman.

The cat’s golden eyes gleamed.

Elara smiled.

The cat rose, stretched, and in a ripple of shifting shadow and folding light, fur melted into skin, spine elongated, paws unfurled into fingers.

Where the cat had been, Elara stood.

Where Elara had stood…

Nothing.

I blinked.

The version of her by the stairs laughed softly. “Did you think I’d leave something so important to chance?”

I glanced toward the doorway, half-expecting to see the gray cat again.

“You were—”

“Always,” she said, stepping closer. “The notice. The watching. The waiting.” Her head tilted slightly. “Men who chase do not listen. Men who trap do not ask. You did neither.”

“So this was a test.”

“Of course.” A small smile curved her lips. “I needed to know who sees a creature and thinks ‘companion’ instead of ‘conquest.’”

She reached out, fingers brushing mine. Warm. Real.

“You never tried to steal the key,” she continued. “You waited until I offered it.”

The truth settled between us like a shared breath.

“You were deciding,” I said.

“I was,” she agreed. “Cats are excellent judges of character.”

“And shapeshifters?”

Her grin widened, just a flash of something sharp and ancient behind it.

“Even better.”

From somewhere deep in the house came a soft purr, impossible, considering she stood right in front of me.

Unless, of course, she was not bound to a single form.

Briar Hollow would wake tomorrow to the news that someone had opened Elara Vance’s door.

They would argue about skill, about luck, about fate.

Let them.

The truth was far simpler.

You cannot win what you try to conquer.

But if you sit still long enough, if you offer kindness without a hook, sometimes the key will place itself in your hand.