Solving for Ex

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

no feelings could be strong enough

That Sunday morning, I relished the opportunity to sleep in. My urge to crawl under the covers and sleep all day had been steadily intensifying since our first day back, actually.

I blinked my eyes open drowsily from the most wonderful daydream—Brendan and I holding hands, and him kissing my temple, during some sunrise from the water tower. He didn't tremble, wasn’t scared. Wasn’t focused on his fear of heights, or the next math exam, or anything but me.

That’s how I knew it was a dream.

Still, I wanted to revel in it, and I turned my cheek to the side, rubbing it against my pillow.

That is, until a deep, thundering bark woke me up out of a deep sleep.

I groaned, rolled over, and pushed up the blinds from the window over my bed, blinking as the sun’s rays careened recklessly through the slats. Blinded, I didn’t see anything until a giant, wet nose attached to a black and white mottled snout huffed steam against my window.

“Goddammit, Hamlet,” I groaned, but rolled out of bed, stepped into a pair of jean shorts and threw a T-shirt over my camisole. I fumbled in the bottom of my huge duffel bag for some flip-flops. Poking my head out the front door, I noticed two things—Aunt Kristin and Uncle Bruce’s cars were both gone, and a pair of giant black and white paws followed by a matching tail swished around the side of the house.

Of course the damn dog would want to play a game of chase.

“Hamlet!” I called behind the house, looking up and down the row of houses that stretched down the street. Back in Williamson, I lived in an old farmhouse, standing all on its own for miles. I could scream bloody murder from my driveway there and no one would hear it unless they happened to be passing by. Here, two kids laughing too loudly in the front yard playing hopscotch would wake half the street on a Sunday morning.

There were also a lot of roads around here, and that seemed to sense that the only thing bigger than he was that were willing to play chase with him were the cars.

Why couldn’t Brendan keep his goddamn dog in check?

I tripped around the side of the house. The grass, dry from weeks of scorching summer sun, was sharp against my toes and ankles, but wet from dew at the same time. I cursed myself for not taking the time to put on real shoes, and I cursed Hamlet even harder as my heels slipped off the stupid cheap foam-and-plastic sandals and onto the grass below. I rounded the corner of the house and blinked my eyes into focus. That ridiculous giant dog, sitting square in the middle of my backyard holding two of Uncle Bruce’s brand new, glowing yellow tennis balls in his drool-dripping mouth.

No matter how cranky I was at being woken up, I couldn’t help but laugh. The damn dog was smiling at me.

“Is Brendan ignoring you today?”

Hamlet pawed the ground, and I looked over at the Thomas’s driveway. Julia’s car was gone, but Brendan’s car was there, and so was his mom’s. Meaning at least two grown people around who could walk Hamlet, and no one who was.

I trudged over to Hamlet, whose shoulder reached my waist, wrenched the dog-slobber-slick tennis balls from his mouth, and tossed them across the yard. He launched his massive body after them, and I stared after him, feeling sad that he only had this tiny yard in Pittsburgh to sprint across. The fluorescent yellow tennis balls glowed in his mouth as he galloped toward me, and when he was about twenty feet away, I realized he wasn’t even close to stopping.