“No,” I lied, still smiling. “I was never diagnosed with anything.”
Chapter 21
The vet wrenches open Reaper’s mouth and peers down his throat. “How long’s he been acting strange?”
I swallow nervously, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. Poor Reaper wriggles violently like a fish being dragged to shore. I cup my hand at the back of his neck, feeling the tremors ripple through his small body.
“A few weeks, I think.” I bite my lip and feel horribly guilty for dragging Reaper here. The vet shines a torch into Reaper’s eyes, and he howls his rage. The vet doesn’t even flinch. She’s mid-twenties with severe eyebrows and brassy red-brown hair, and I’ve forgotten her name already. It took half an hour this morning to wrangle Reaper into his kitty carrier. He howled the entire drive here, and by the time the vet opened the door and smiled, I felt like screaming.
“We just moved into a new house, and I thought maybe that’s why he’s been acting up,” I say helplessly.
The vet’s eyes flick up to mine, but she keeps shining the torch into Reaper’s. “Black Wood, you mean?”
I freeze. Reaper tries to swipe her, but she dodges him expertly, clicks off the torch, and walks to her upright desk in the corner.
“How’d you know that?” I ask a bit stiffly as she busies herself at her workstation.
“News travels fast in small towns,” she says, her back to me. She types something into her computer, pauses. “You said he was vomiting all last night?”
“Yeah,” I say grimly, remembering the piles of watery vomit I discovered on the couch an hour ago. “He’s been missing for a day or two, but he finally came home yesterday arvo.”
I was so relieved to see him there on the doorstep, yowling and indignant. I wrenched the door open in relief, bent down to pick him up, but he darted inside and ran straight for the water bowl in the kitchen. He gulped for an entire minute, and I hovered behind him, chewing my lip. He went straight to the couch, perched on the armrest, and I left him sleeping there. It was 9a.m.when I got downstairs and saw the puddles of vomit. There was a bit of blood in one, right on the cushion. It scared me enough to google the closest emergency vet and rush him here.
I pet Reaper over and over, trying to calm him, trying to calm myself too. The vet clicks away at her keyboard, and I peer at the screen, trying to see what she’s writing. She turns around, reaches for him again, and rubs both sides of his stomach, a faraway look on her face.
“I can’t find any foreign bodies in him,” she finally says. “You said you hadn’t seen him for a few days?”
I nod eagerly. “Yeah, he didn’t eat any of the food I left out for him. Maybe he was hungry and ate something he shouldn’t have?”
“Maybe,” she says, letting him go. “I’ll give him an anti-nausea injection for now. Keep an eye on him over the next few days, and if he gets worse, just bring him back in.”
“I will, thanks.”
She looks him over, clicking her tongue. “What’ve you been eating, buddy? Hey? Don’t scare your mummy like that.”
Yes,I want to say out loud.Stop scaring me, Reaper.
I’ve got enough to be frightened of right now.
—
I load Reaper’s kitty carrier into the passenger seat, and he howls and spits at me through the wire cage. The vet said it should take an hour for the anti-nausea injection to kick in, but for now he’s an asshole. I shut the door firmly and lean against it. I’m so mentally exhausted that for a few moments all I can do is stare down the street, watching the people of Beacon go about their Sunday routine. The general store is packed with people sitting outside, sipping flat whites and calling out friendly hellos to passersby. It must be a nice feeling to be so settled. So communal. They speak the same language, share the same history.
Overhead, a flock of black cockatoos screech through the sky, their red tails shining like a warning. I shove my hands in my pockets and watch them. My dad used to say that when cockatoos started screeching like that, it meant a storm was coming. But the sun’s as full as an egg yolk, and the sky is burning blue, so maybe the cockatoos got it wrong. Or most likely, my dad was just full of shit.
I chew my lip and wonder if I could take Reaper with me to the general store. We could sit in the sun for a while and drink coffee. I’d smile at the dog walkers, read my newspaper, and pretend I belonged.
But I don’t. Never will. I’m the outsider with nothing to offer this million-dollar town but my horrific family history and brilliant lies. Maybe they can even see the two-bedroom flat I was raised in with its moldy ceiling, rusted taps, and corroded pipes spewing out muddy bathwater.
And is it just me, or are people starting to look my way? I glance at the general store, feeling someone’s eyes on me. An elderly woman holds a coffee mug to her lips and blatantly studies me. I rarely come into town, and I think my reputation precedes me.
I drop my gaze, and a teenage girl jogs by with a golden retriever, frowning at me. I shove my hands deeper into my jean pockets. Forget the coffee. I hurry to the driver’s side door and wrench it open.
“Nice day, isn’t it?”
I whirl around. The guy is around my age with a giant forehead, bulky teeth, and hairy forearms. He’s smiling, though.
“Haven’t seenyoufor a while!” he says eagerly, folding his arms across a violet T-shirt. “Where’ve you been hiding yourself, then?”
