Shoot Your Shot

XIX: Golden Restless Age (Dina)

The second Dina had shut the door behind her, she leaned against it, sinking down with her back pressed to the mahogany as her mind swam through the past few hours of her life. Dina was confident in herself and her words, sure, but it was a thinly veiled facade.

To actually have done it, and the extent to which she did, well. Dina was floored by her own words and actions, to the point where she started laughing to herself, rising to her feet and heading towards her room to change into more comfortable clothes.

It was too warm in her room, so Dina cracked her window open, the drafty winter air quickly making itself known as the defender flopped onto her bed, glancing at the cage across the room.

"Hello Wrench. How are you doing bud?" She asked, swinging her feet and kneeling in front of the cage. Wrench peeked his head out of his hidey hole before ducking back in, making Dina huff as she rose to her feet, lifting the hidey away to reveal her guinea pig, who now stared up at her with shock.

"Get over here." Dina said, promptly scooping him up into her arms and carrying him back to her bed. She gingerly eased herself down to lay flat on her back and gently released him from her hold, seeing him stare at her blankly.

"You have like, zero thoughts in your head." Dina stated, Wrench seemingly straightening up at this and making a small sniff sound, which made her laugh.

Wrench had been a birthday gift from Eugene and indirectly from Talia. Before Dina's sixteenth birthday, she wouldn't shut up about the prospect of owning a tiny creature of her own, blabbing Talia's ear off about it. Through her, this information got back to Eugene.

So, when Dina held her sixteenth birthday, Eugene showed up with a somewhat distressed guinea pig in one hand, its eyes darting about at the noise of boisterous teenagers. Dina had excitedly accepted the gift much to her parents own reluctance, as Eugene didn't know the first thing about guinea pigs and assumed they were kept like dogs.

One long pet store trip later, the small guinea pig had everything things he needed and Dina was obsessed. She spent every waking moment she could by his cage and watched his every move meticulously. During this time, she appropriately named him Wrench, since Eugene referred to him as 'a tool' after the guinea pig had nipped his finger.

Wrench was an all tan guinea pig with some black splotches that reminded Dina of grease stains from the shop, so as he grew, his namesake only became more fitting.

"Did you have a productive day today?" Dina asked as he blinked at her before quickly moving to her chest, his whiskers brushing her cheek at the movement. She had learned that guinea pigs didn't enjoy being looked down at, so his climb wasn't unexpected.

"Well, I sure did." She said, keeping it vague as she moved a hand up to gently scratch the very top of his head as Wrench pancaked flat at the attention.

"I got to see the girl I like at the arcade, and all my friends. I thought of Talia too." Dina said, her voice dropping off slightly with an emotional inflection.

Thinking about her didn't hurt nearly as bad as it used to, but sometimes it had its moments.

"I think the promise I made to her in the hospital is the only reason I made it out Wrench." Dina said, messing with the cowlick atop his head absentmindedly before banishing the sadness from her mind. She didn't want it to dampen her phenomenal evening, and giving this line of thinking any further attention would only reopen the wound Dina so desperately had worked to stitch closed.

Dina ran her hand down Wrench's back and softly pressed down, cueing the guinea pig into stretching, opening his mouth and exposing his incisors with a wide yawn.