We used to be friends growing up, best friends actually. So close that we’d made a pact to marry each other if we couldn’t find someone to settle down with by the time she turned thirty.But all of that changed three years ago when Zalea got her first high school boyfriend.
Paul McIntosh.
I hated the guy, and I still do. He was controlling, always playing with her emotions and getting into her head. Apparently, he went through her diary one day and found an entry she’d written about our pact.
Whatever was written in there was enough for him to become paranoid about our friendship, and it didn’t take long for Zalea to cut me off entirely. Now, three years later, they’re not together anymore, but there’s no going back to the friendship she and I had shared. Not after a betrayal like that.
She looks in my direction as she begins stretching and I look away immediately, running straight into the ocean with my board tucked under my arm. No way am I going to let her catch me staring.
I spend the next two hours surfing, Zalea doing the same not too far away, but far enough where we don’t have to interact with each other. I stop when someone calls her name from the beach, breaking my concentration. She bails on a wave and paddles her way to shore where her younger brother, Zale, waits.
He looks worried, speaking frantically as she rushes over, and within seconds she rips her strap from her ankle and tosses her board down on the sand before sprinting alongside him in the direction of their house. I sit on my board, watching them go, knowing in my gut that something is profoundly wrong.
I paddle to the shore and run my board over to my house, which sits along the beach, before running back for Zalea’s board and jogging the familiar route to her home.
When I get there, the front door is flung wide open and inside I can hear Zalea screaming and crying. That’s all it takes for me to run, tossing her board on her front lawn, not bothering to remove my shoes.
She’s sitting on her kitchen floor, back pressed against the cupboards, sobbing as she cradles Sprinkles—her dog. Sprinkles is awake and alert but I notice blood trickling from his neck. Zale stands in front of her, anxiously running a hand through his hair.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, causing both of them to jump.
“I don’t know,” she cries out a moment later, her face red and wet.
“Another dog attacked him while we were on a walk, and he’s really hurt,” Zale says, voice shaking. “The vet in town is closed today, and I don’t know what to do.”
I look at Sprinkles again, knowing he definitely needs to see a vet as quickly as possible.
“I’ll go grab my car and we’ll take him to the animal hospital the next town over,” I say, looking at Zale. “Get your sister some clothes and a towel to wrap Sprinkles in.”
Zale rushes up the stairs, and with one last look at Zalea, I sprint back to my house. In no more than five minutes, I’m parked outside Zalea’s house in my range rover. Zale jumps into the back seat and Zalea, wearing a loose maxi dress over her bikini, chooses the passenger seat next to me, holding the bundled up Sprinkles in her arms as her lip continues to quiver and tears streak down her face uncontrollably.
I step on the gas, going well over the speed limit as we drive towards the neighbouring town, but about ten minutes into the drive, her teeth begin to chatter. One look her way and I realize her hair is still wet from the ocean and sticking to her bare arms as she buries her face into Sprinkles’ fur.
I turn on her seat warmer without her noticing, but when I look in my rear view mirror I notice Zale has been watching very carefully. I return my eyes to the road and refuse to look at either one of them until we reach the animal hospital.
“Sprinkles is going to be okay,”Zalea’s quiet voice says from behind me. “They gave him some type of shot, and are stitching up his injury right now.”
I take in her appearance as I turn away from the vending machine that just ate my last two dollars. Her eyes are red rimmed and swollen from all the crying, her cheeks are tear-stained, and her hair is a mess. I notice she’s still shivering, goosebumps running up her arms because of the AC they’re blasting in here.
“Good,” I say awkwardly. “I’m glad.”
She nods, looking like she’s trying to grasp at words. “Thanks for bringing us here,” she says, voice shaking again. “I don’t know what I would have done if?—“
She can’t finish the sentence, her lip trembling again as she tries to hide it with her fingers. But her glossy eyes are the giveaway.
“He just means so much to me,” she whispers.
“I know,” I say, watching her.
We had found Sprinkles together five years ago, abandoned at the edge town. He was a tiny scruffy thing back then, and Zalea fell in love at first sight. I tried to warn her he could have flees, or ticks, orworse—rabies. He was in pretty bad shape and we couldn’t figure out his breed. I still don’t completely know what kind of dog he is.
But Zalea never cared about that. She proclaimed the whole bike ride back to the house—one arm wrapped around my waistas she sat behind me, and the other arm holding Sprinkles close—that he was her soul-dog.
And who was I to fight her on that?
“Anyway,” she sniffles as she wipes at her eyes before more tears can fall, “my parents are on their way here to pay the bill and take us home. So, you don’t have to wait around for us.”
I want to tell her that I’m not leaving, that Iwantto stay and make sure that Sprinkles really is okay. That she’s okay. But I don’t. I start walking away, but when I notice her shiver once more, I stop and pull my hoodie over my head and hold it out to her.
