“Well, I grew up around animals. Dad wasn’t a fan, but he did anything to make Mum happy. And she loved them. We had rabbits, guinea pigs, ducks, chickens. I’d volunteer at the local animal rescue too, cleaning out cages. That’s where we got our dog, Scamp. He was my best friend. We did everything together—explored the woods, spent hours down by the river. He was always with me. We were inseparable.
“And Scamp loved to run. I never tried to stop him because he could never be parted from me for long. Anyway, one evening, we were out on a forest track and he bolted after a rabbit. Which was pretty normal for him—except this time, he didn’t come back. So I started calling him and calling him, but... nothing.” The pitch of Joel’s voice dips a little. “I stayed out until dark looking for him, then went home to get Mum.” He pauses. “Eventually we found him. He’d tried to run through a barbed-wire fence, but impaled himself halfway. The blood loss was... Well, he didn’t stand a chance. But it was as though he’d been waiting for us to find him. He was struggling for breath, and he looked up at me like he wanted to say sorry for running off. A few seconds later, he died in my arms.”
I feel my eyes dampen with tears.
“Anyway, I told him I loved him. And then I just held him until thewarmth had left his body. That was the day I knew I wanted to care for animals. At my interview, I wasn’t supposed to be soppy and say I loved animals. I was supposed to talk about my work experience and future plans, what skills I would bring to the job. But for me, there was no other word to convey how I felt. Anything else would have fallen way short. It was love.” He exhales, then looks up at me.
I’m smiling softly, though my heart is peeling apart. “Sounds like you’re still a vet to me.”
•••
Over piles of pasta and ciabatta, Joel casts a glance around the restaurant. “You know, I imagine Italy to be... not at all like these charming faux frescos.”
I laugh. They’ve made a good stab at it, but the stenciled temples and pretend piazzas won’t be giving Michelangelo a run for his money any-time soon.
“You should add Rome to your list,” he says, breaking off a hunk of bread, dipping it in oil. “One of Europe’s greenest cities, apparently.”
“Actually, I’ve been once. And it is—it’s beautiful.”
“Family holiday?” he asks lightly. I sense he’s offering up the wrong answer in the hope of exchanging it for the right one.
“No, I went with my ex. Piers.”
Joel sips his wine, doesn’t comment.
I try to work out what to say, how best to describe a holiday that was wonderful and torturous all at once. “I just... spent a lot of time exploring by myself, in the parks and the ruins, walking along the river. I found this incredible rose garden...” I relive that blue-sky day, how the air swelled with scent. “Anyway, Piers barely left the hotel. He spent most of the time by the pool. We were the opposite of each other, really. He was a bit of a playboy, super-flash. Rome was actually our third date. His idea, not mine.”
Joel smiles. “Flash indeed.”
“He attracted drama—you know? Got into fights, debt. He’d disappear from time to time. Was always falling out with people, lurching from crisis to crisis. I thought at the beginning maybe I should go for someone who was totally not my type...” I trail off. “That was a mistake. Turns out we have types for a reason.”
Joel winds spaghetti around his fork, face clouded with thought. “Better to play it safe, you mean?”
For a moment I’m not quite sure how to answer. “Or avoid drama at least, I suppose. Yeah.”
Something passes over his face then that I can’t quite identify, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared.
22.
Joel
When we got back from the restaurant last night, I toyed with the idea of inviting Callie in for a coffee. For a few seconds, I had the words ready to go.
But at the last moment, I stopped myself.
Callie told me she’s not interested in drama: another red-flag reminder of why this can’t go any further. All my life, my days and moods have tracked my dreams, played out in ups and downs. As Vicky once pointed out, I’m the exact opposite of stable, the antithesis to steady.
So I let the words dissolve, sweet but only fleeting, like sherbet on my tongue.
I made an excruciating mess of saying good night, obviously. I deliberated awkwardly, then went in for a double air kiss neither she nor I was prepared for. Topped it off by mumbling something inexplicable about the Continent as our noses collided.
I’ve been keeping my head down ever since.
•••
I’ve dropped in at my dad’s in the hope of uncovering the truth about my dream. Luckily, he spends each Friday across town, immersed in his woodworking hobby. Comes home covered with sawdust and shavings, the scent of split timber.
I dreamed he sawed off a fingertip once, bemused him with a giftshortly afterward of some cut-resistant gloves. It worked out all right in the end, because Dad’s reached that age where he rotates between gloves. Leather for driving, latex for the petrol station. Rubber for washing up, and a pair with longer cuffs for scrubbing down the loo.
