“I will.”
She’s out within seconds, exhaling softly, curls falling across her cheek. I watch her for a moment, feeling something warm settle in my chest. She’s been my sole anchor through the kind of heartbreak that could’ve swallowed me whole.
When I left for New York, I ran because I didn’t know how else to survive. I ran toward something—toward becoming the person I wanted to be.
A vet with a plan. A woman who wasn’t tied down by the mistakes of her past.
But when I moved there with no plan, no direction, only this gnawing need to reinvent myself, I fell into a job at a diner. I scrubbed tables, delivered burgers, wiped down beer-sticky counters, and tried to convince myself I wasn’t lost.
Then the bartender had asked if I wanted to go dancing. Fresh from heartbreak and raw from everything I’d left behind, I said yes.
And I ran into Clara.
One look at her, one second of recognition, and something in me reopened. It had felt like fate stepping in with a firm hand, redirecting my entire life. Nothing ever happened with thebartender, but I walked out of that club with my best friend back in my life.
Since then, we’ve been inseparable. She’s the one who dragged me to the vet clinic to apply. The one who brought soup when I was sick, who made me laugh on days I didn’t think I still had that ability, who reminded me that starting over doesn’t have to mean starting alone.
I sit beside her and brush a strand of hair off her forehead, a soft fondness humming through me. She’s curled up on her side, breathing slow and deep, and even asleep, she looks like the kind of person who makes a place feel like it has a heartbeat.
The house feels different with her in it. Like it’s not closing in on me. Like it’s waiting.
I set an alarm on my phone and place it on the nightstand. The room is quiet—no, not that word. The room is still. The kind of stillness that fills the lungs instead of squeezing them.
I slide down onto the mattress beside her, exhaustion finally pulling me under. The last thing I see is the window and the space beneath it, a piece of my past that still aches, still stirs things I haven’t allowed myself to face.
But right now, Clara breathes softly next to me, and I let my eyes close.
For the first time since we boarded that plane, I let myself rest.
CHAPTER SIX
Sedona
I movethrough the kitchen with a dull fog in my head, hands drifting over the cabinets. The hinges groan when I pull the pantry door.
Old spices sit in crooked rows. A half-used box of pancake mix leans against a jar of something I don’t want to investigate.
I grab two granola bars from the pantry shelf. The wrappers crinkle as I set them on the counter. They taste like cardboard, but they will keep us from passing out during the meeting with Elvis.
Clara is upstairs with the shower running, singing off-key. The sound drifts down the hallway with a familiarity that makes the house feel less haunted.
I slept in fragments, the kind of half-dream sleep that doesn’t soothe anything. My eyes feel raw. My chest is hollow enough that every inhale pulls a sting. Still, I woke early, body alert like it knew I needed to be.
The clock on the stove reads 10:04. We have just under thirty minutes before we meet the funeral director.
I push my palms into the counter and inhale. The tile under my bare feet is cool and grounding. The house smells faintly ofpine cleaner, which makes no sense. No one should have been in here. Yet everything feels tended to.
Maybe the realtor. Maybe the neighbors. Maybe?—
I hear the front door.
Not the wind. Not a creak. The actual door opening.
A sharp rush goes through me, and my breath stutters. I turn toward the entryway. Footsteps thud across the hardwood. Heavy, confident.
Before I can move, a large shape barrels through the doorway.
A dog. Huge. A muscular body that takes up the entire hallway. One ear jagged where the top is missing.
