Living Silently

Volunteering

"Austin"

"I'm getting dressed right now meet you at the shelter in an hour," I texted to Noel. I was thankful for Chloe for sending me his number. I watched as the text bubbles appeared on my screen for a longer time than needed for the "k" text I had received. He seemed always to type out what had to be a paragraph and then end up sending me less than a sentence. I had been texting him all week seeing if he would back out of today's activities which I was admittedly surprised that he hadn't found a way to renege.

He intrigued me in a way I couldn't describe. He seemed to keep his guards up at all-time but still had a softness to his personality that made him approachable. He wore a lot of his insecurities on his sleeve without knowing it which made you want to protect him, though he was grown and probably could do that for.

I got up off of my bed and looked around my studio apartment that was coming along nicely from the rundown shack it was when I first got the place. I walked the few feet over to my closet and grabbed a thermal shirt and a pair of sweats that were nice enough to go out in but were not so special to me in case it got ruined. Usually, I ran late, but today I had everything together and was out the door at the time I had set out for myself when I woke up. I walked out in the cold air and made a u-turn back to my building and ran to my apartment and grabbed a coat before leaving again out to my Jeep and hopped in quickly turning the heat on so I wouldn't be freezing. Once I was no longer an icicle, I cranked my music up and backed out of my parking spot and made my way down the street.

I wondered what Noel would be like today, would he be mellow and calm or would he be reserved and emotionless. That was his two states of being since I'd known him in the hospital. Some days he would be calm and somewhat engage in conversation and others he would be dismissive or pretend to be asleep.

It was a short ride and only took me about fifteen minutes to get there and park out front. I didn't see Noel's shiny silver Volvo with all the bells and whistles pull up. He made so much more money than I did, lesser men would have been intimidated by that, but I knew I would be on his level pretty soon. Firefighting wasn't a dream of mine, but it paid the bills while I was in law school at the University of Texas during the week. I looked out at the road for Noel not too upset about waiting since I was warm inside my vehicle. About five minutes later his car pulled into the parking lot, and he parked three cars down. I removed the keys out of my ignition when I saw his door open and got out of my car before jogging over to the side of his car watching as he stepped out of his vehicle. He was wearing a full sweats set and had a hat on low on his head covering part of his face.

"Hey, how are you," he asked, and I could immediately tell that he was in one of his mellow moods.

"I'm good, just ready to go play with some dogs," I said to him.

"Cool," he responded as he was entirely out of the car and stretched.

"Alright let's get in there," I said to him and waited for him to start walking to the front door of the shelter. Before he could, I grabbed the door and let him inside of the building that smelled like lemons and animals which wasn't bad but also wasn't right.

"Hello, can I help you guys with something," a dark-skinned woman in cartoon scrubs said with a smile.

"Yeah we're the two volunteers for the day," I said to her, and she nodded.

"Let me get Mrs. Ansliey, so she can give you the assignment for the day," The woman stood up and left through a door that led to the back. It was only a few moments till she came back, but the whole time Noel was fidgeting with his fingers.

"Just make your way to the back she's in the cat housing room to the right," She said pointing us to the back just as the phone began to ring.

"Come on," I said walking to the door and pushing open. I could feel Noel walking not too far behind me with his feet just barely scuffing the floor. I was a little confused as to where I was supposed to go, but luckily I noticed the signs of animal silhouettes. I walked over to the one of a cat which looked somewhat similar to the Babyphat symbol and a house next to it. I walked into the room which had its door wide open giving me the view of an elderly white woman stroking the back of a fluffy brown cat's ears.