Fucking honest truth?
I don’t want to be alone in my own home.
I don’t want bottles of pills with a medication schedule inside those walls again. I don’t want to get set up to sleep on the first floor because it’s too hard to get up to the second floor. I don’t want to feel physically broken inside the same walls where my brother eventually couldn’t get upstairs either. Or even go to the bathroom by himself.
Doesn’t matter how much I renovate, paint, re-floor, whatever.
If I stay there by myself while I’m injured, I’ll go fucking mad.
I might go mad anyway just having to be the patient inside the house.
Hell, I want Ziggy to stay almost more than I want to stay myself.
She’s growing a new life.
That’s something.
That’s something good.
“Once I get a phone, I’ll call a buddy. Crash at his place so you can have the house to yourself today.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I can’t—I can’t get around well, but I don’t want to be a constant burden.”
She sucks in a breath through her nose, making her nostrils wobble, but she doesn’t look at me again.
“Be a few weeks before I can take care of Jessica again.”
“I’m taking your dog with me whenever I leave.”
My heart dips.
She should, and I know it. Jessica likes her. Jessica hates me.
But it’s one more failure.
And I need to accept it. “Okay.”
She wrenches the wheel, jerking us to the side of the road at the very edge of the neighborhood, and slams on the brakes. “Are you fucking serious?”
Her eyes are blue flames heating the rest of her face until her cheeks are splotchy red.
I swallow and instinctively lean closer to the door. I’m six-two. Two-hundred-thirty pounds. At least six inches and fifty pounds bigger than she is. And at this moment, I’m absolutely shrinking away from her.
“She hates me. I try, but she hates me. You like her. You should have her.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know me at all, and you’ll just give me your dog?Who does that?”
“You just told me you’re taking her.”
“But you’re not even fighting for her.”
“She doesn’t like me. I took her because no one else would. But she likes you.”
“You’ve seenfive minutesof evidence of that. Maybe I’m aterrible person. Maybe I’m planning to ruin her life by making her internet famous and putting too much pressure on her. Maybe I won’t let her have any other doggie friends.”
What?“My neighbors texted me. They said she looked happy with you.”
