My pet rat's missing eye

I never found it. Or more truthfully, it was my stuffed animal’s. I remember the soft, bubbly surface of the basin where I was giving it a bath, and I plunged my hand to to look for its little black orb, but it was gone. I remember weeping as I cradled my one-eyed fat rat, bubbles of detergent prickling my cheek. It was soft and it hurt. I’m sorry for this. I never wept the same way after I watched my guinea pig get swept by a raging flood at 13. You never love anything alive after that. I watched as his chocolatey head bobbed down muddy water, floating down some unnamed street, and I never forgot how sorry I was and I’m sorry I scrubbed too hard and you lost your eye and I’m sorry if I only love soft, inanimate versions of you now. I’m sure you understand, right? You would understand.