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Driving home, I grip the steering wheel and stare blindly out the rain-spattered windscreen.
Turbo will never learn to chase a ball. He will never go for a walk on the beach. Never feel the sun warming his fur or sleep on a soft cushion or snuggle in a lap. He was born and bred in a laboratory and now he’ll die in one.
I’m sorry, Turbo. Sorry that you’re all alone tonight. Sorry that I won’t be with you tomorrow when you take your last breath.And I am so very, very sorry that I didn’t save you.
I cry all the way home. I cry for Turbo and for all the other beagles in the study.
I cry for Justin, for the terrible vulnerability in his eyes he couldn’t hide from me.
My love for my family and their love for me will carry me through tonight, as well as all the nights after this. But Justin has to bear this night alone, because this time I was strong enough to leave. And oh, how it hurts. It hurts so much to leave the man I’m falling hopelessly and impossibly in love with.
64
JUSTIN
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Wednesday, July 21
A heavy feeling settles in my chest as I watch Heather’s taillights disappear into the darkness.
I thought the hardest thing I ever had to do was stop her from rescuing Turbo. I was wrong. It’s even harder watching her drive away, knowing I’m unlikely to see her again.
Guilt and grief choke me. My conscience will have to bear the weight of another death. My mind will have to replay the agony I caused on the face of a woman who has somehow managed to smash through my defenses.
Heather’s parting words won’t leave me.You’re running from a relationship, Justin, but how will you get through nights like this without someone at your side?
I lift my face to the onslaught of the storm. It’s nothing compared to the storm raging inside me.
I’ve always taken pride in the fact that none of my hookups lasted more than a month. But it’s not pride I’m feeling now. Instead, I feel lost and alone. All I see stretched ahead of me are an endless succession of long, lonely nights.
Do I want to die like Turbo? All alone?
Do I want a life of fleeting pleasure? Or one filled with love and the promise of happiness?
All these questions and my own rising emotions are starting to scare me. I make a desperate attempt to pull myself together. Only it’s not working. After a minute, I realize why. I can’t pull myself together if I wasn’t whole before this.
Rain lashes at me. I should get in the car, get dry, but I’m rooted to the spot, Heather’s words on repeat.
My eyes are burning, my breathing ragged. I feel on the brink of something, hovering on the crumbling edge of what feels like the longest moment of my life.
And then I feel it. The overwhelming desire to take a chance and leap off the brink. I want to be loved. And I want to love in return.
There’s only one person I want to step off the cliff with. A woman who intrigues and excites me, who challenges me and seems to want me, flaws and all. A woman who is slowly stealing pieces of my heart. Truth be told, I believe she’s already taken a huge chunk of it.
As I stand there, free falling in the rain, a lightness comes over me, as though a huge weight is lifted. I sense I’ve taken the first tentative steps on a whole new journey.
Rushing through me right now is the sudden urge to chase after Heather and admit all this to her.
I’m about to head to my car when I glimpse something lying on the asphalt of the parking lot. It’s Heather’s lanyard with a keycard to get into the SolomiChem building. And I have the unshakable feeling she left it lying there deliberately.
65
AMY
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