“The hell why?” Jerome said. “You got some sort of a—”
“Jerome,” I said sternly. “I’m not asking you as a member of the Black Reapers. I’m asking you as a friend and a brother. Tell me. Who told you what happened?”
Jerome got the hint. He put his beer on the table.
“Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. You wouldn’t believe it.”
He took a deep breath.
“Butch.”
Rose
Two Days Later
Iwoke up before the sunrise to an unusual feeling.
Happiness and hope.
When my alarm went off, I didn’t beg to be back asleep where I could have dreams that would be better than the day. I didn’t wish to be back in Utah or to be a few years younger. I didn’t wish I was in a residency program now. I was really, genuinely happy to be where I was.
Of course, I would have preferred for my circumstances to be different. I took no pride in being broke and being a vet tech. But I felt very happy that I was finally asking myself to pick up the pieces, rather than hoping that someone else would do it for me. I didn’t think that LeCharles or a new job could finally make me happy. I just believed that I alone, with some work, could do so.
I reached over for my phone, turning the alarm clock off in the process. I hadn’t gotten any messages since I last checked the night before, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have some messages to read. In fact, since Saturday morning, LeCharles and I had texted each other quite a bit.
“Hope you’re having a great day,” he’d texted Saturday afternoon.
“A little hungover, but a little relaxing. :-) How are you?”
“Same. Going to see some friends tonight.”
“That sounds wonderful. Hope you have fun.”
That was the last I heard of him Saturday, but it was just the kind of casual, easy conversation that I would have read into far too deeply before. Here, though, I just felt happy to be talking to him, but I wasn’t desperate for it. I wasn’t begging and yearning for the chance to be with him. I was just happy at the moment, and everything that followed was a continuation of my happy mood.
I had texted him Sunday, talking about how unusually hot it was for this time of year. I sensed that LeCharles was not quite as talkative as the night before, or at least he wasn’t as fluid and easy-going. Maybe the encounter with his friend hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped, but he still made an effort to ask about me. I finally had to end the conversation when our texting hit ten p.m.
“Fun as this is, I gotta go into work at 7 tomorrow at the vet clinic. Animals don’t wait for us to arrive.”
“I thought you were a nurse?” LeCharles wrote back.
I knew he didn’t mean it condescendingly. He just really didn’t know everything that had happened, so of course, from past knowledge, he would just assume I’d come back to be a doctor or other human medical professional.
“Not quite :-),” I wrote back. I wanted to save the whole story for a later time when we met in person. LeCharles didn’t write back after that, but that didn’t signify anything to me.
“Buddy!” I called out.
Shiloh, emerging from under the bed by me, rose up, his tail wagging as he jumped up onto the bed and started to lick my face. He then pawed at me, trying to get me out of bed.
“I know buddy, I know, but it’s still early, I still need time to wake up!”
But if I was feeling more energetic, Shiloh must have picked up on it, because he was pawing at me with more enthusiasm than he ever had.
“Dang, buddy, did I put coffee into your water bowl last night?” I joked. “Okay, okay, I’m up, I’m up. Let’s go outside.”
At the magic word of “outside,” Shiloh leaped off the bed and headed to the closet with the doggie leash. I stretched, went to the bathroom, put some clothes on—much to the annoyance of Shiloh, who insisted on walking right at this moment—and then finally leashed him up. We stepped outside, and the high heat from the day before had faded in favor of a light cool morning air.
“What a day, buddy,” I said as he leaned into his leash, insisting I walk him faster than I was. “You know what today’s going to involve?”
