After seeing Buster, I walk over to the reception and prop my forearms on the counter. "Excuse me, miss."
The receptionist looks up from her papers, her gaze briefly lingering on the tattoos on my arms before looking me in the eye. "Yes?"
"I was told that Buster is going to be discharged tomorrow. Is that still correct?"
She nods, looking at me questioningly. "As far as I know, yes. Why?"
"What would I have to do to… adopt him?"
Within a split second, her confused look turns into a 200-watt smile. "Since the stray hold period has passed, you’d just need to sign a few forms, pay the adoption fee, and cover the costs of the legally required vaccinations and microchipping."
I suppress an eye roll because her suddenly good mood is almost nauseating. "All right. Then… I’ll do that," I reply somewhat awkwardly, already expecting her to leap over the counter to throw her arms around my neck.
Fortunately, she remains seated and begins to pull out the documents and prepare everything. After gathering a small stack of papers, she looks back up at me. "Do you want us to vaccinate him right now and put the chip in?"
"Sure." Nodding, I take the documents from her to fill them out.
Shortly after, she disappears around the corner before I hear her shrill voice. "Did you hear that, Buster? You got a daddy now!"
"Good Lord," I murmur softly.Daddy. Just hearing that…
Sighing, I fill out the forms while I can’t stop imagining Sophie’s face when I get home with Buster tomorrow.
I’m just getting into the pickup when a text comes in on my phone, so I pull it out before buckling up. The content instantly brings me down from the high I’ve been riding all day and reminds me that I can’t keep pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows forever.
It’s from Steve, informing me that I will be first up tomorrow night.
I have no idea what to say in response because all of a sudden, I actuallydocare whether I survive a fight or not. It no longer feels unimportant whether I get hurt or hurt someone else. And that’s certainly not because I just adopted a dog.
TWENTY-THREE
SOPHIE
There are things I already knew but couldn’t fully grasp. Like the size of the sea, which—when I saw it in front of me—left me speechless.
And then there are things IthoughtI knew, when, in fact, I didn’t have a clue. That’s how I feel about Cole. I thought he was always angry and closed off and just… Cole.
I had absolutely no idea.
No matter how hard I tried, there’s no chance of finding the right words to describe what it meant to me that he showed me the ocean. Nothing can depict how I felt when he stood behind me with his hands on my hips and his chest against my back while the wind whipped the salty air in my face and I heard the rumble of the waves, which was then overpowered by his softly spoken words close to my ear.
Open your eyes, little darling.
Again and again, I hear his voice in my head, making my heart do somersaults. And with each replay, it becomes clear that I can never be sure what he’ll do next. One moment, he’s cursing and pushing me away, and the next, he’s asking me to lie next to him or showing me the sea.
There’s only one thing that’s nonnegotiable for me: Cole lied.
When he said he wasn’t nice, that was a lie, even though he really seems to believe it himself. But I know better. I just feel it. He’s not a bad person.
Still, I can sense this deep hatred he carries constantly. A hatred that seems to be directed mostly at himself, and it’s breaking my heart. At the same time, I have no idea how to make him understand that, to me, he’s not one of the bad guys.
Cole stands on the stairs and looks at me with raised eyebrows. "You’ll never see him again if you don’t come with me."
I shake my head.
It’s Tuesday, so Buster will be released from the vet clinic today. And since Cole doesn’t want him, he’s going to the shelter. I couldn’t bear to look into the dog’s loyal and loving eyes, knowing that he would have to live in a kennel indefinitely.
Cole explained to me that the shelter is like an orphanage, only instead of children, animals live there. And that they often stay there for a very, very long time, and sometimes even die there if nobody wants them.
