My cat, Meep, has a sweet story. In this country, outside of the major cities at least, there is still a strong tradition of not bothering to sterilize pet cats, and drowning the unwanted kittens. A friend of a friend saw someone doing this in a village and offered to take the last of the kittens.
Shortly afterwards, this guy was going away for a while and needed a cat sitter. I agreed to take the little guy. We bonded hard and fast.
When the guy came to take him back, little Meep (I named him for the sound he made) cried desperately and reached for me as they closed the door. I cried for days.
A few months later, I got a call: the guy had a new girlfriend who was allergic to cats. He was going to put him in an animal shelter unless I wanted to take him. I got my guy back, and we've been best roomies for the past 2 years. He sleeps in bed snuggled up with me - and, in fact, any time I lean backward enough for him to feel confident he can get on top of me, he claims me as his bed. I often wake up with him tangled up in my arms, or curled around my head. He's also quite the troublemaker. He enjoys playing fetch with various odds and ends, destroying every corner of the furniture, and surprise-clawing/biting me while I'm trying to write or work.
Whenever I leave the house, even just to take out the trash or run out for emergency groceries, he gives me those torturous desperate eyes that animals love to give. "Why? Why are you leaving me here all alone? Why?" But when I come home, he runs over to me, I scoop him up, and he gives me a kiss on my nose.