if only

chapter 8

On Friday, I came home filled with dread. The assignment I'd been putting off for a week was due at midnight, and I hadn't written a single word.

Billie was still at my place. On Wednesday she'd gone home while I was in class, but was back by the time I got home. She'd brought a freshly filled suitcase and—

"OW, what the fuck—"

A thick, silver gray Pitbull who slammed into my body when I opened the bedroom door.

"Don't be mad," she murmured, and kissed me.

I didn't have a drop of anger in my bones for her. I only wanted her more and more by the minute.

Now I lay on the floor with the dog in question, gaining comfort from his soft, warm coat. I buried my face in the folds of his neck, and tried to let the words form behind my closed eyelids.

"Anything?"

I sighed into Shark's fur and whimpered.

"I'll take that as a no."

"Maybe I should go for a walk."

"To avoid it?"

I sat up, and Shark scooted closer to me so I wouldn't stop petting him. "No. To... be inspired. Or something."

"Babe, you need to just pick something."

I looked up at where she sat, perched on the edge of the bed, her sock feet tucked under her. "Huh?"

"Well, you're trying to write something based on an experience, right? What experience?"

"I don't know, uggggh," I groaned, burying my face in my hands.

"You're overthinking. Focus on the experience first. Figure out what moved you. THEN write. It'll come way easier that way. "

I glanced at her, and she smiled warmly at me, perfectly sure that I could even do such a thing.

"I don't..." I chewed the sore inside my cheek. "I haven't had any experiences like that."

Her eyebrows raised. "No?"

"No," I shook my head, but the whole time I remained unconvinced.

She slid off the bed with a soft thud and crawled toward me across the floor. Shark snuggled up to her while she did, his butt wagging, making her laugh. But she pushed him off gently and wrapped her arms around me, instead. She laid her head on my shoulder.

"Hard things are moving, too," she murmured, her breath hot and damp against my ear. "You don't have to stand in a field of flowers to feel something intensely."

The implication she made had me swallowing back grief. "Billie... I don't write about that stuff."

She shrugged. "Okay."

I sat very still for a while, remembering the smell of the funeral home when I was 14. The perfume they'd sprayed on my mom's body had made me gag, and I'd thrown up on the floor. No one was angry with me, even though I felt too old to have done it. They thought it was grief.

But it was just the perfume. It was sickly sweet, floral and sugary, and they'd sprayed it in abundance to remove the smell of death.

Billie kissed my ear, and I shuddered.

"I'm gonna take that walk, I think," I whispered, squeezing her and getting slowly to my feet.

"Want company?"

"Um, no, that's okay," I said softly. "If it's okay with you."

"More than. I'm gonna call Zoe." She smiled encouragingly up at me from the floor, then laid back on the rug, her hair spraying out behind her. Shark laid on her, and she laughed, and the sound soothed me.