By Your Side, Always

Chapter 1

Hello! I wanted to challenge myself in this new book. I am a French speaker that learnt English very young. This is a quick warning that my English might not be the best, my vocabulary might not be super rich but I am trying my best to give you guys a story that you will enjoy. English has always been very interesting to me and I finally decided to try to write a story in English. I am simultaneously writing the story in French so that my French audience can enjoy the book as well. Thank you for giving me your time, I appreciate it a lot! I am sorry for the mistakes that I might make.

__________________

After the tone, please state your name and the reason for your call. Biiiiiiiiiip.

" Woah, pretty formal" he laughs, visibly uncomfortable. "It's Luka, I don't know if you remember me..."

Of course, I remember him.

"Anyway, I'm calling because I had to leave pretty fast and I would've liked to continue our conversation. Would you like to meet me somewhere?"

You have reached the end of the message. To delete this message, press 1, to...

I pressed 1.

This man, this perfect stranger that I met a few hours ago has already called me? I was expecting a few days before receiving a call.

I will not call him back right now. I have things to do.

I am going to welcome my next client in a few minutes. I am a psychologist. I like my job, I am happy with my life, I even consider my life pretty fulfilled in general.

To listen to all of your messages, press 4, t...

I pressed 4.

Message received at 2 hours 43 minutes by Matthiew Luzon.

I am not really listening to the first words of the man. I know them too well.

"... and you know, everything comes to an end, I think we have to part ways in order to progress in our lives. Maybe our paths are too different for us to stay together like we are right now. I really would've liked better to talk to you directly, I feel like I'm not giving you the respect that you deserve by leaving you a voicemail. If you want to talk about it, you can call me back. Otherwise, I will not be expecting news from you anytime soon."

You have reached the end of the message. To del...

I pressed 3.

Message saved.

I hang up and put the phone in my pocket. Billie looks at me and tosses her head to the side. She knows this scenario too well. It is repeating every day since last month. Billie rubs her body on my legs and looks at me with her beautiful eyes. I extend my hand toward her and she licks my fingers, maybe hoping she will get a treat. Bill is my best friend. She has been living with me for three years now. She is a Corgi dog. From a very young age, she has been trained to be a therapy dog. She is my colleague since my clients can if they desire, benefit from her company. When a client does not feel comfortable around dogs, Bill stays on her bed and does not move from there. She is the perfect pet. Everyone likes her.

"Bed" I order while getting up.

Obediently, she goes back to the bed I placed in a corner of my cabinet and gets herself comfortable. It is currently 5 PM and Billie starts wanting to go outside and play. And I am impatient to see him again.

This mysterious man looked in such a hurry. The man accompanied by an absolutely fabulous labrador. Billie clearly had a crush on Amigo, Luka's adorable white dog. Or am I the one that has been starstruck

Luka is about 25 years old. I am 28. He would not stop looking around when we were talking as if he were a criminal. This mysterious boy had very effeminated manners, the kind of man that could do well on social media since he has a lot of interpersonal skills. He is also very sociable, close to his emotions, and very fragile too. Luka has a rather dazzling style, I would say. If his closet looks like the clothes he was wearing today, he is probably rather easy, economically speaking.

He was alone with his dog on the playground. A black hoodie and some sunglasses hid most of his face so my chances to recognize him on the street are close to zero. He has a freshly done French manicure. His under eyes bags indicated that he was just waking up or lacking some serious sleep. I did not ask any question since he looked like the type of person to take care of his appearance. 

He had brought a rope toy for his labrador. Both of them were playing when Bill and I entered the playground. Obviously, Billie being Billie, she jumped on the toy, surprising Luka and challenged Amigo in a game of the strongest.

When I got to the master of the other dog, I asked if Billie had hurt him in her excitement. He just laughed. This is when he said:

"They're full of love, those little furry beasts."

I nodded and we went to sit on the bench on the side of the playground. He talked about his dog, I talked about Billie. I told him that she was helping hospital patients and elders in senior care. He told me that Amigo was an unwanted puppy that nobody wanted because he was too small. His owners were going to give him up for adoption because they did not want another permanent dog in their house. Luka told me that since this day, he was donating money every month to shelters and was very implicated in said shelters. I found it admirable.

Luka then glanced at his phone while I took care of my little Billie. I heard him call his dog back and when I turned around to face him, he was gone. I was standing alone with Billie on the playground, the rope still in my hand. I looked around in every street, no trace of this Luka person. I went back to work looking sheepish with Billie scampering by my side, proud to have made a new friend.