A New Leash on Life

by Suzie Carr

  I fell in love with Ayla the second I held her. How could you explain this love to someone who would ultimately be hurt by it? You couldn’t. You waited it out for the perfect moment when surely you could come back to town and all would be forgiven in a split second. At least when you’re eighteen, that’s how you thought the world operated. Then, you turned twenty, and by the time you turned twenty-five, and had dated every loser walking the face of the earth, you wished more than anything you could be standing in front of that girl you hurt and she’d take you in her safe arms and hug you and tell you she forgave you for being so silly and not trusting her. And, then you’d approach your thirties and you’d still be single, raising a teenager on your own, and you’d wonder where that lovely girl, who was way too special to litter with lies, placed her heart.

  Lies sucked the life out of great moments. I couldn’t lie anymore. I couldn’t look into Olivia’s eyes and mess with her trust for one more second. This one big lie was snowballing and quickly avalanching out of control. I had to grab hold of it and smash it into pieces.

  I stared at my cell for three weeks trying to figure out how to face her, how to tell her my dark secret, how to live the rest of my life without her in it. She would hate me for leaving her in the dark, but I needed time to plan how I’d convince Josh that now was the time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Olivia

  When Chloe hadn’t called me that whole week after we made love in my office, I blamed it on her busy schedule, being a single mom and an entrepreneur. Maybe Ayla had horse competitions. Maybe she forgot to tell me about a busy week of new business dealings she had to tend to. Her absence could’ve easily been explained, had I bothered to try and call her, too. I couldn’t bring myself to reach out for fear of rejection. The entire week, I checked my cell several dozen times a day for missed calls or messages, and each time I didn’t have one I fell deeper into an abyss where the walls slicked over in a slippery, impenetrable coating.

  Melanie offered me a reiki treatment. I snapped and told her to treat Phil instead. She tried to change the subject and asked about Jacqueline again. I told her to drop it and be grateful for what she already had. When Trevor and his boyfriend invited me out for drinks at Decoupage, a trendy gay bar a few towns over, I blew them off. And poor Natalie. She suffered the brunt of my attitude as we entered week two with no call from Chloe. Natalie waltzed in and asked me to sign an adoption contract, something I did often. I tore it from her hands, crumbled it into a ball and tossed it out of the door. “I don’t have time right now,” I yelled. “Go sign it yourself.”

  She ran out of my office in tears.

  Halfway through week two of no Chloe, Missy, Chloe’s top pick for a receptionist, started her first day. I hated her instantly. Even Natalie, the sweetest girl in the world, agreed that Missy sucked at the front desk. Firstly, she walked in to her first day on the job wearing a Patriots football jersey and jeans with a hole in the ass pocket. Secondly, the girl flirted with every good-looking man who entered the shelter, winking, giggling, even offering her number to one.

  She didn’t last two days. I tossed her out of the door.

  I called the girl who failed Chloe’s test instead and invited her to come back for another interview appointment. When she asked why I changed my mind, I told her my mind had never changed in the first place. I added that Chloe, the girl who kicked her out, would not be conducting the interview and would not have a say in hiring. Chloe might’ve strangled my heart again, but she certainly didn’t control the reins.

  I needed to hire this girl.

  When Chloe first left for New York thirteen years back, I dove into studying hoping it would set me free from the wraths of her memory. I studied anatomy and psychology, even Spanish, hoping to find strength and a break from the empty, lonely pit that sat in my stomach until it wretched. Fellow classmates would invite me to parties, and I’d go only to return to my dormitory miserable or frustrated with the guys who would ask me out and get an attitude when I turned them down. Soon, the few friends I managed to meet took offense to my declining their offer to set me up with great guys who were friends of theirs. So, I’d end up back alone with no one to talk to who understood me or cared to.

  I’d think about Chloe often during that first year of studies. Every time I’d see a cute girl with black hair, it’d take me several weeks to get back on track with my emotions, my determination, and my focus. During my second semester mid-term period, things got so bad that I flunked out. I’d lost so much control that I ended up right where I started, back in my bedroom at my parents’ house. One very bad night, I got drunk on cheap red wine and started smoking cigarettes. I sat on the rooftop outside of my bedroom window, staring up at the stars and wishing I could just die and be done with this world. Then, Floppy stuck her head out of my window and attempted to climb out onto the rooftop with me. Well, one clumsy paw after the other she managed and sat beside me letting me smoke my cigarette and wallow in a sea of red wine pity. She leaned against me, and I spoke to her about how much better life could’ve been had I just died right then and there. I could just jump, I told her. Screw school. Screw girls. Screw everything. Floppy looked up at me with her sad eyes and pleaded with me to end the silly talk and get a hold of myself. I balked and slapped the roof in some sort of crazy protest and then I slipped. I slid down the roof one slow agonizing shingle at a time, clawing for my life, clinging to an edge only to be greeted with more velocity. My arms dragged against the grainy shingles, cutting them up. Then, my chin got in on the punishment when it, too, scraped and failed to save me from falling ten feet into a holly bush. Floppy barked like a junkyard dog from the top of the roof. Next I remembered my dad carrying me out of the bush like a firefighter rescuing an innocent victim. Only I wasn’t so innocent. I caused this. My lack of control caused this. My inability to focus caused this. My weakness over another human being caused this. I broke an arm and a leg that night, suffered a concussion, and battered my skin pretty badly. My father later told me Floppy warned him with her incessant barking. My parents were fast asleep, and I would’ve frozen to death out there once the temperature dropped to its ten degrees. Thanks to Floppy I lived. She saved my life.

  I guess she owed me. And, I had owed her again to rise above my challenges and get on with my life. So, school became a breeze. I just focused in on how much Floppy and other dogs would need me. My purpose needed to be greater than worrying about how some girl had screwed me over with careless abandon. I had maintained control ever since.

  Now that Chloe was back in my life, I found myself veering close to that edge of reckless abandon again, though. I cared too much again. I lost myself in needless anxiety over what she could’ve been thinking, who she spent time with, and why she hadn’t called.

  I couldn’t stop obsessing over her.

  Melanie noticed this first. During a reiki treatment on one of our older dogs, Ben, a graying German shepherd mix with not a whole lot of energy left in his pocket, she asked me about Chloe.

  “Why do you ask?” I asked as I helped drain the weak energy out of Ben’s body by envisioning a flood of positive light shining from my hands into his neck and traveling down to his feet.

  Melanie focused in on Ben’s hips. “The photographer called here this morning expecting to have a phone conference with you. I told her you were out sick. I’ve never had to lie for you before.”

  “Shit. I completely forgot about her.” I blew out a sharp breath. “We were supposed to go over the logistics for the Walk for Paws event.”

  “I’m not judging you.” She peeked up over her flowery frames. “I think it’s fabulous that you’re letting yourself feel some emotions for this girl.”

  We continued work on Ben in silence until he dozed off, snoring like an old man. The whole time I couldn’t focus on anything but why Chloe refused to call me. The shelter needed me to stop this ridiculous, childish behavior. I couldn’t handle focusing on both.

  ~ ~
<
br />   Chloe called me three weeks from the day we last saw each other. Josh and I were sitting on my deck smoking a cigarette. “This isn’t a good time,” I told her.

  “I’m really sorry I haven’t been around. I promise to tell you everything when I see you.”

  I rolled my eyes at Josh who had inhaled deeper. “I’m not going through this again, Chloe.”

  “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just needed time to sort through some things.”

  “If you can’t be honest with me, this will never work. I don’t play that game.”

  “Can you talk tomorrow at the shelter?”

  “Just come by. I’ll be there.” I hung up.

  “What was that all about?”

  “We fucked each other three weeks ago and she’s finally coming around to call me. So, now she wants to chat. What now? Did she murder someone and spend the last thirteen years in a jail cell?”

  Josh clicked his tongue and tossed his half lit cigarette below. He exhaled with force. “God only knows.” He stood up and opened his arms for me. “Come here, kiddo. Let me have a hug before I leave.”

  I drew a drag and flicked my cigarette down below, too. I walked into his arms and he held me tight, rubbing my back like my dad used to do when I’d get flustered over a homework assignment.

  “Whatever happens in the future, I hope you know how much I love you and care about you.”

  I pulled away and saw concern. “What’s this all about?”

  He grasped my upper arms and spoke slowly. “I just wanted to tell you that.” He walked away. “Get a good night’s sleep, sis.”

  Chloe

  Josh called me shortly after I hung up with Olivia. “We’re hurting Olivia more by keeping her in the dark now.”

  “I love her, Josh.”

  “I think it’s time we tell her, then.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m ready if you are.”

  “Would you mind if I tell her alone?” I asked.

  “I was kind of hoping you’d say that.”

  The next morning, I drove up to the shelter and sat for a few minutes with my window opened to take in the barking, the rustle of the leaves, the cool breeze, my last moment of peace before unleashing myself into the unknown.

  With Josh’s permission after my call with him the night before, I set out to tell Olivia the truth.

  I emerged, shaking and dizzy. I stopped to straighten a lopsided sign about a family picture event, praying it wasn’t the last thing I would do for the shelter, aside from sending in my anonymous donation every month. I’d never tell her. Regardless of what happened, I’d never stop sending it.

  I walked in the front door and Sarah, the girl I tossed out of the interview for failing the paper pick up test, stood behind the receptionist’s desk. Olivia stood beside the display of leashes and collars with a satisfied smirk on her face.

  “Hi,” I said, extending my hand to the girl and smiling through the embarrassment.

  “Hello to you, too.” She shook my hand without meeting my eye and then escaped back into a stack of prescription orders.

  I looked to Olivia who ignored me as she fiddled with a row of leashes that had fallen. I bent down to help gather them. We collected them, our knees brushing together and then stood to meet the tension. I turned to Sarah. “See, that’s how it should be done.” I winked, grabbed Olivia’s arm and led her to the door that would lead us to the conversation that could ultimately destroy all we’d worked so hard to rebuild.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Olivia

  Chloe stood before me in the fenced yard wearing no makeup and wrinkled clothes. General sniffed the ground beside us, brushing his face against the grass to scratch his dry nose. As if he sensed we needed privacy, he looked up at me, locked eyes for a moment, and walked away far against the perimeter of the yard, a place he never ventured alone.

  Chloe stood with her arms wrapped around her like a strait jacket. This jumpstarted a series of tummy flips. I bounded towards the back fence, dodging holes and dog balls along the way.

  “You have every right to be mad at me for not being here,” Chloe yelled out to me.

  I cringed at her need to point out the obvious. I turned and faced her. Giant tears pooled in her eyes and streamed down her porcelain-smooth face. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  She bit her lip and bowed her head, kicking up dirt with her sandals. “I was afraid to come here, because I need to tell you something that’s not going to be easy to hear.”

  “Stop with the drama. Stop wasting my time. Just come out with it.”

  “It’s so hard. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

  Exacerbated, I walked away to the edge of the yard and stared out over the valley below. She followed and stared out over the wild grass with me. She bucked, sniffled and started bawling, clinging to herself as if ready to confess that she murdered someone and buried him in the yard. I didn’t step in to console her. I let her buck and bawl waiting for news that would surely rattle my world.

  We stood side-by-side for several long minutes. She sniffled, shook her head a few times, sighed, and finally said, “I still love you, and that’s why this is so difficult for me.”

  “Just tell me.”

  She inhaled and trembled under the pressure.

  “Are you married? Is that what this is all about?” I asked, staring her down.

  “I wish it was as easy as that.”

  “Did you kill someone?”

  “No.” She twisted her face.

  “I can’t imagine what could be worse,” I said. I looked back down to the valley. “Did you steal the money for the shelter, and now someone’s expecting payback?”

  She swallowed hard before looking up at me with her tear-stained eyes. “Josh is Ayla’s father.”

  All sounds vanished. The rustling leaves, the barking dogs, the chirping birds—all gone and replaced by a void so deep and profound, that it swept me up in its swirling vortex and spun me against gravity itself, funneling me into what I could only explain as the blackest, deafest, space imaginable.

  I fell to my knees, bent over with my face in the grass, unable to win against the force of truth. It shackled me to the ground and blindfolded me to a nightmare of tangled webs with spiders digging their fangs into every square inch of my body, piercing me with poisonous lies, engorging my cells so they could no longer sustain against the pressure of reality. I couldn’t shed a tear. I couldn’t open my mouth to yell. I couldn’t swallow to rid the awful taste of grit.

  I had no idea how much time had passed. I glued to that spot in the grass, comforted only by General’s embrace as he leaned against me and fell asleep snoring. I clung to him and that’s when the tears sprang and my voice returned. I finally looked up and forced out a tough question. “Does Josh even know?”

  “He knows.”

  My heart clenched. I buried my head against General again. The two people I cared about the most in this world betrayed me. Of all the guys, she chose him. I looked up at her. “Why Josh?”

  “He was just there. It was just a moment. A blip in time.”

  “But, I was there,” I said. “Why wasn’t I enough?”

  She inched up to me, hands in her pocket, head cocked slightly to the right, her toes pointing like a ballerina with each slow, methodical step. “Of course you were, but…”

  “But what?”

  She dug the tip of her toe into the dirt refusing to meet my anger. “It’s just that night…” She paused and shook her head.

  “Go on.”

  “That night that it happened, Josh helped me stand up for myself and I guess that opened up a whole new set of experiences for me. Up until that moment, I’d always been the weak one; the one who turned to you for protection.”

  “The night you went with him to return the ring?”

  She nodded.

  That night returned to me like a slap. I begged Josh to go with her. When she returned, she curled u
p in bed, stiff and different. “I should’ve been there.”

  “No,” she said. “See that’s just it. You were always there for me, protecting me.”

  “Why was that a bad thing?”

  “By protecting me, I was weak.”

  “So what happened that night that made you fuck my brother?”

  She winced. “My stepfather came after us with a baseball bat. Josh stole it from him and handed it to me. He told me to stand up to him. I swung and for the first time, my stepfather fell back, and I stood tall looking down on him. I told him off. I kicked him. I stood up for myself, finally. I was no longer the weak one.”

  “Did I make you feel weak?” My voice reeked of bitter spices.

  “You enabled me. You took care of me. You protected me. So, yeah you sort of did.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest demanding more.

  “You pitied me. You viewed me as a weak person, and so I became that. Each time we got together, I became weaker in your eyes. Do you know how terrible it feels to look into the eyes of pity?”

  “You think I pitied you?”

  “Can you honestly deny that?” Now she crossed her arms, standing up to me, challenging me. “I wanted you to adore me as much as you said you did. I wanted you to love me because you loved me, not because you felt guilty that you were blessed, and I wasn’t. I wanted you to look into my eyes and feel challenged, not empowered that you controlled my safety.”

  I blinked more times than normal, settling in on her words, truly comprehending what she said without passing judgment. “I never meant to pity you.”

  She closed in on herself, avoiding my gaze.

  I inhaled deeply. “You know after my parents died, strangers flocked to me, baking me fruit cakes and casseroles, inviting me for coffee and to participate in book clubs and card games, offering up their services for free to see me through the tragedy. I hate pity. I’d rather someone yell in my face and tell me how much they can’t stand me than pity me.” I looked up to the tree branches and then back at her. “I did pity you, and I’m sorry.”