by Megan Green
“I’m going to get started on her blood work. Can you let them know they’re free to go? We’ll give them a call tomorrow, if they want, when we have more details. Oh, be sure to get a phone number. We never got that far.”
She gives me a mock salute before turning and heading to the exam room I left Mason and his daughter in. Once she’s gone, I take a second to breathe, trying to collect my thoughts. Dropping my elbows to the table in front of the dog, I cradle my head in my hands as I inhale on a count of ten and then slowly release it, just like all those self-help books taught me.
When I decided to move back here, I knew I would run the risk of running into people from my past. It’s a small town, and while I’m sure many of the people I went to school with got married, found jobs, and moved away, I knew that the day would come when I came face-to-face with one of them. I told myself I could handle it. That I wasn’t the same person I had been when I left this town. They no longer had that control over me.
And it was true. I walked past Rob Allen in the grocery store last weekend and didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at his presence. I felt ten feet tall, like I’d finally conquered this thing that’d haunted me for nearly my entire life.
But all it took was one glimpse of Mason Cooper to bring it all crashing back down.
I still can’t believe how quick I was to believe he wasn’t like the others. How easily he fooled me into believing he was my friend …
I tapped the eraser of my pencil against my chin as I stared at the math problem in front of me, my lips pursing as my brain began to work out the complex angles of the triangle. Only a few seconds had passed before I pressed my pencil to the paper, beginning to scribble furiously as numbers and solutions poured from my mind.
This was my happy place. This was where life makes sense. Give me the Pythagorean theorem and geometric proofs over prom and girls’ nights any day.
Put a complicated math problem in front of me, and just call me Vanilla Ice because I’d solve that shit in no time.” But put me in a room with a few of my peers, and as my mother liked to say, my big old brain froze instantly, leaving me a jumbled mess of awkward half-sentences and embarrassing hyena laughs.
And as if I didn’t have all of that working against me, being one of only three girls in my class who wasn’t a size two definitely didn’t do me any favors.
So, yeah, I preferred the company and solace of my numbers. Numbers didn’t lie. Numbers didn’t laugh and make fun of you behind your back when you forgot to change and came to school with Elmo socks on.
I’d just about finished with my math problem when a throat cleared behind me. I turned, dropping my pencil, and twisted in my chair to see who it was that so rudely interrupted me. I swore to God, if it was Tiffani Swenson or Stephanie Harris again, I was going to punch them in the face. There were only a few more months until graduation, and honestly, there was only so much a girl could take. One more Fatty Maddy song from Tiffani and Stephanie, and I might’ve snapped.
But it wasn’t Tiffani or Stephanie. No, the person that stood behind me was someone I never would’ve expected in a million years. The one person in the popular group who’d never gone out of his way to make fun of me. Though he’d never exactly gone out of his way to stop his friends from doing it either.
“Mason Cooper?” I said stupidly, staring up at him from the library table where I always sat after school, waiting until my mother could pick me up.
Another downside of being me: my dad took off when I was four, and it had just been my mom and me ever since. Which was fine, except when it came to money. Seventeen years old, and I still had to resort to rides in my mom’s busted minivan because we couldn’t afford another car and she wouldn’t let me get a job. I was to focus one hundred percent on school so that I could get a scholarship to a good college. It was my only chance of getting out of this godforsaken town.
Normally, the extra after-school time wasn’t so bad. It was peaceful in the library after everybody left, and if I finished my homework fast enough, I usually had an hour or so to kill, getting lost in a book, in a world that was so different from my own. It was the hour I looked forward to all day long, and Mason Cooper standing before me only meant that I’d get less time to escape into my fictional fantasy.
“What do you want, Mason?” I asked when I realized he still hadn’t spoken.
He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his eyes falling to the table I was sitting at instead of looking directly at me. “Mr. Williams said you’d be here after school.”
I quirked a brow. “Okay … and you just wanted to tell me he was right? Well, thanks, but I already know where I am. You can go now.”
I turned back to my homework, aware that I was being sort of a jerk. But whatever. Mason might not have been the biggest asshole at this school, but he hung out with them. Therefore, he was an asshole by association.
“I need help,” he said, his voice so quiet that I could barely hear him, even in the empty library.
I looked around, as if there must be somebody else he was speaking to. Surely, Mason Cooper wasn’t asking me for help.
“I’m sorry,” I said when I saw we were the only two there. “Did you say, you need my help?”
He nodded, his mouth set in a somber line.
I still wasn’t convinced. “What on earth could the Mason Cooper need from me? I don’t know anything about baseball, so I can’t help you become even more of a god in this school,” I said, dramatically rolling my eyes so that he knew those were not my words of choice.
Dude could throw a ball, and apparently, that meant everybody in this school was supposed to worship the ground he walked on.
Gag me.
Mason shook his head. “I don’t need help with baseball. Mr. Williams said you’re good in Geometry.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I am …”
“And I am not.”
His request for help suddenly made sense. “You want me to help you. With math.”
He nodded. “Yes. Mr. Williams said you have the highest grade in the class, and if I don’t get mine up, I could get kicked off the team.”
“Oh, and what would this world do if Mason Cooper couldn’t play baseball?” I asked with mock horror.
His shoulders deflated. “Sorry, forget I asked.” He turned on his heel, his steps slow and defeated as he walked away.
And then I felt like a bitch. He was asking me for help, and I had just done what everyone else in this school always did to me. I made fun of him.
“Wait,” I said, standing up from my chair and running after him.
He turned to face me, and I swore I saw the corners of his eyes glisten a little.
Was he crying?
“What?” he asked, clearing his throat and biting his lower lip to keep it from quivering.
Sympathy swelled inside my chest. If only he knew how often I’d done the exact same thing to stop myself from crying in front of his friends.
I regarded him thoughtfully. He shifted again under my gaze, and I sort of liked that I seemed to make him uncomfortable. It wasn’t a feeling I’d experienced often—okay, never —and it made me feel like I had an upper hand of sorts.
After a few seconds passed, I finally put him out of his misery. “You swear you really need help? This isn’t some dumb prank you’ve concocted with your asshole friends to embarrass me?”
His brow furrowed, his face scrunching in confusion. “A prank? About tutoring?”
I nodded. “Yeah, you know, the hot jock gets the poor little nerd to trust him, all the while laughing behind her back with his friends.”
Mason shook his head, his face still a mask of confusion. “No, this is nothing like that.”
“Good,” I said resolutely. “Because I’ve seen those movies. And trust me, I won’t react as pathetically as those girls. I won’t run home and cry and demand to be homeschooled. I will make sure you pay. So, consider yourself warned.”
Mason looked like he was rethink
ing the whole tutoring thing, like he was no longer sure I wasn’t insane.
Good. I preferred to keep him on his toes.
“Be here tomorrow at three,” I said, spinning on my heel and going back to my seat. I glanced at my watch.
That asshole had cost me ten minutes of reading time.
It had better be worth it.
I snap out of the memory when Cami rejoins me, letting me know Mason and his daughter have left. I let out a sigh of relief, already feeling like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders simply with him leaving the building. He said the dog wasn’t theirs, that they’d only found it in the park. With any luck, that will be the first and last time I set eyes on Mason Cooper.
With Cami’s help, I draw the dog’s blood and get started on running the tests. The IV has already helped steady the dog’s heartbeat, and once we’re sure she’s stable enough to make it through the night, I send Cami home. I tell her I’ll stay here with the dog tonight to keep an eye on her. She doesn’t need to know that was my intention all along, dog or no dog.
I’m sitting on a stool in front of the dog, attempting to soothe her with my hands while I wait for her results, when my phone rings. Pulling it out of the front pocket of my white coat, I glance at the screen.
My mother.
I tap the Answer button and put her on speaker, not wanting to take my hands off the dog for long. I know, medically, petting her isn’t going to do anything, but it seems to have already lifted her spirits. I make a mental note of how far her ribs protrude beneath her skin and wonder how long she’s been out on her own. Which only leads me to start thinking of what other neglect or abuse she might have endured in her life.
“Maddy? Are you there?” my mother’s voice says from the speaker.
“Oh, yes. Sorry, Mom. I’m a little distracted.”
“I noticed,” she says with an amused laugh. “Are you still at work?”
I always make sure to pull up something online to have playing in the background when she calls, so she thinks I’m cozy in my hotel room instead of holed up here, in my office. But with all the commotion of the evening, it completely slipped my mind.
But the feel of the dog’s fur under my fingers reminds me I have a valid reason for being here late tonight. “Yeah. We had an emergency come in right as I was getting ready to leave. She’s not doing well, so I’m staying to observe her for a bit.”
My mother clucks her tongue. “Oh, my Maddy. You work yourself too hard.”
“Not work when it’s something you love,” I remind her for the millionth time. “Besides, I have nowhere I’d rather be right now than right here, making sure this little one makes it through the night.”
“You should have someone who can do that for you,” she chides. “How are you going to think straight tomorrow if you’re up all night tonight?”
My mother—obviously—is completely unaware of my current financial struggles. Firstly, because I don’t want her to worry about me. And secondly, because I know she’d offer to cash out her savings or eat into her retirement fund to try and help me. And there’s no way in hell I’d ever let that happen.
So, instead, I tell her the same thing I’ve told her every time she mentions me needing more help since I got back. “I like doing it all myself, Mom. Helps me get to know the animals better. Helps me know how to help them.”
It’s not exactly a lie. I do love every minute I get to spend with my patients. But I also know there needs to be a line drawn somewhere, or I’m going to burn myself out. I only hope I can afford to draw that line before I end up in a straitjacket.
“Okay, honey. I’ll stop worrying. For now. But sooner or later—”
“I know; I know, Mom. And I promise I’ll hire more help soon. But I want to do it all on my own right now.”
“Mmhmm,” she says, still sounding unpleased.
“So, uh,” I say, trying to think of anything I can say to change the subject. And of course, the other disaster of my night springs to mind. “You’ll never guess who I ran into tonight.”
“Who’s that, dear?” she asks, seemingly uninterested.
Knowing her, she’s picking at her fingernails, waiting for me to finish my sentence so she can go back to fussing over me. I adore my mother, but she worries way too much. Especially when it comes to me.
“Mason Cooper.”
“Oh,” she squeaks, and I know I’ve caught her attention. “That boy you were friends with back in high school?”
“Yeah. Well, we weren’t really friends. We were …” I trail off. Because I don’t really know how to describe my relationship with Mason.
I started off not trusting a single word that left his mouth. But he managed to thaw my frozen demeanor, and I eventually warmed up to him. There was a time I thought we were friends. Good friends even. Maybe even …
But then he shattered my heart, just the way he’d said he wasn’t going to.
And I did the exact thing I’d promised him I wouldn’t.
I ran.
“I still don’t understand what happened with you two,” my mother says, apparently thinking back to all the times Mason showed up at our house—first, for extra study sessions and then just to hang out.
I couldn’t count the number of movies the two of us watched, parked on my mom’s living room sofa. The number of dinners he shared at our dining room table. And then just—
“Kids grow apart. It’s ancient history,” I say, trying to sound like seeing him tonight didn’t rock me to my very core.
“Well, still. You two were so close. It broke my heart when you fell out of touch.”
Not as much as it broke mine, I think, the sting piercing my chest like it was only yesterday.
“You know, I heard he has a daughter now,” my mom says, completely unaware of the despair brewing inside my gut.
I nod before realizing she can’t see me. “Yeah. She was with him. They’re actually the ones who brought in the dog I’m staying with tonight.”
“Oh, it’s Mason’s dog? Well, no wonder it’s getting special treatment. Maybe this will help mend fences between you two.”
I scoff, “I wouldn’t count on it, Mom. It’s not even really his dog. They found it in the park and brought it in. I doubt I’ll see him again.”
“Well, that’s a shame. You know, I heard his wife left a few years back.”
A mixture of malice and delight shoots through me. Malice because … well, the asshole hurt me. It’s only karmic fairness that he experience a little bit of hurt in his own life as well. And delight because …
Yeah, I’m not even going to go there tonight.
“That’s too bad,” I say absently, hearing the alert on my computer ding, letting me know the dog’s test results are ready. “Look, Mom, I’ve got to go. Talk to you tomorrow. Love ya.”
I end the call as she mumbles her love, sliding my chair over to the computer and clicking open the file. My eyes scan the document, falling on one number that’s dangerously low.
“Oh, baby girl,” I say to the dog. “You’ve got a long road ahead of you.”
5
Mason
Hannah stares up at me as the phone rings in my ear, her entire body rigid with anticipation as she waits to find out the fate of her new best friend.
“Harts Creek Animal Hospital. This is Morgan. How may I help you?”
The perky receptionist’s voice catches me off guard. After the way Maddy’s assistant ushered us out of there last night, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I called this morning. I half-hoped that Hannah would wake up and somehow have forgotten about the dog during the night, writing it off as a vivid dream or a conjuring of her overactive imagination. But no such luck. She was by my bedside at six a.m., demanding I call to check in.
It took every ounce of parental authority I had to convince her their office didn’t open until eight and that she needed to eat breakfast first. She reluctantly choked down some eggs and a piece of cinnamon toast, her little
face never once dropping its disdain for my lack of cooperation.
Now, as she waits with her bum quite literally on the edge of her seat, I wonder how in the hell I’m going to get out of this one.
Hannah has always been quick to latch on to new ideas. Dance class, karate lessons … you name it, and my little girl has surely tried it. She always dives headfirst into any new activity with gusto, but then her excitement dwindles after a week or so until it fizzles out completely.
But something about this makes me think this isn’t like all her other obsessions. This dog isn’t a shiny, new idea she can’t wait to try out before getting bored of quickly. In the few minutes the two of them spent in the back seat of my car, something happened. A bond was formed, and I have a feeling it isn’t one that’s going to be easy to break.
Taking care of Hannah full-time is already a lot. Don’t get me wrong; I adore my baby girl. I wouldn’t trade being her father for anything in the world. But nobody goes into parenthood, expecting to be the sole provider and caregiver for their child.
I gave up my career as a firefighter—the only thing I’d ever wanted to be—the day Stephanie walked out of our lives. I couldn’t put myself at risk like that, not when I was the only one Hannah had left. And I don’t regret it. Not really. Sure, I have days where I miss the hell out of the guys at the station and the work I was so passionate about. But all that is worth it when I get to come home and see Hannah’s smiling face at the end of every day.
But after a long day at the bank, processing loan applications, and then an evening of shuttling Hannah to her activities, making dinner, doing homework … I don’t have the time—or energy—to add a dog into that mix.
Somehow, I’m going to have to talk Hannah out of this idea she has that the dog is now ours.
“Uh, yeah. Can I please speak to Madd—I mean, Dr. Woods, please?” I stammer out when I realize the receptionist is still waiting for me to speak.
She pauses briefly—checking the caller ID, I’m sure, to see just who in the hell thinks they can call up and ask for the vet by her first name.
