Page 5 of I Will Always Love You (Maybe)

Her gaze pins me, and she crosses her arms across her hooded sweatshirt. “I need you to go check. Now.”

The firmness in her voice almost makes me recoil. It’s absolutely reminiscent of my college days when I worked at a dive bar in Duluth and people snapped their fingers to get me to come to the table. Heat rises in my chest, crawls up my neck, and is most likely going to turn my face as pink as my hair. “Look,” I say, matching her steeliness and exhaling through the disrespect she’s throwing my way. “I can appreciate that you’re nervous, but we have a strict policy. We wait for the doctor to update us, otherwise we’d be constantly agitating and interrupting the animals⁠—”

“There’s no way you can’t just go peek at the chart, or crack open the door, or something.”

And now, I straight-up bristle. I don’t go into wherever her place of business is and tell her how to manage her job. Nor do I want to be on the receiving end of the doctor’s wrath—who is amazing with animals but isn’t as fond of humans—by breaking her rules.

Colby strums her fingers against her arms. “So?”

“For God’s sake, I’ve said this like ten times,” I say, tightening my spine. “The. Doctor. Will. Let. Us. Know. When. They’re. Done.”

If this were a cartoon, I’m pretty sure this is when smoke would have billowed from Colby’s ears. She plants her hands on the counter, seething. “Do you not have a heart? I just need a fucking update!”

Is it coincidence, or did all animals stop barking, the phone stop ringing, and the place go eerily silent? I look around the room, the people stare back at me, and my cheeks are now definitely burning. I pull my lips into my mouth and anchor them between my teeth before I really say something to escalate. How dare she.

And then… one of on-duty vet techs comes out and whispers to me that Kona is ready. Although this is normally my favorite part of my job—bringing animals back out to meet their owners—I practically stomp back to the recovery area and burst into the room. But one toe in, my body softens.

Oh, sweet thing with her shaved leg. Yes, I see dogs with a half-shaved leg post-surgery all of the time. But they always look so chilly with their missing fur. Couple that with the stitches running across the skin, and a plastic cone hanging from a drooping head filled with anesthesia disorientation, and you’d have to be totally heartless to not feel something.

Some people here at the clinic have gained a level of desensitization. I have not.

The vet tech on duty, doctor, and I have a quick logistics chat, then I grab the leather leash. “Come on, girl,” I say to Kona, “I think your mama is very anxious to see you.” With notes in one hand, and the leash in the other, I push through the door to the lobby and walk slowly with Kona as she tenderly puts weight on her leg as she trails slightly behind me.

In the lobby, Colby glances up at me and Kona and leaps from her seat. She drops on the floor next to the dog as she hugs Kona. “Oh, baby girl… are you okay?” A half-choked sob sounding like a strangled hiccup escapes her throat. Tears slide down her cheeks and drip from her chin as she swaps back and forth between hugging Kona and checking her wound.

My heart positively melts. Colby obviously adores this dog. We all have different reactions to when our loved ones are in surgery. And even though I could’ve done without the drama for today—which is saying a lot since I normally thrive on drama—I can see how worried Colby was.

Colby swipes her eyes with the back of her hand and her chin trembles. “She’s okay?”

And I see it—the heartbreak, the fear, the red in her eyes that highlights the beautiful soft amber within the brown. There’s so much pain there, so much worry, and a deep urge consumes me to take it all away.

“She was a champ,” I say, crouching to meet her and Kona at eye level. “A really good girl, and everything went perfect. The doctor will meet you in the consulting room in a minute to talk about follow-up care, and I can schedule some post-op appointments for you.”

Colby is looking at me, a little, but her focus is almost entirely on her dog. I speak a little more, but it’s like Colby can’t hear me, at all. She’s cooing in Kona’s ears, swiping away tears, taking full, shaky breaths. Is it crossing a line to give her a hug? I don’t normally hug customers, but she looks so broken. I know broken. I’ve seen broken, and this is it. Instead of crossing that line, however, I settle for a hand on her shoulder and hold out a tissue. “Colby? The doctor has some follow-up notes.”

Finally, she blinks up at me, and the anger she had before is gone. She gratefully accepts my tissue and wipes her nose and face. “Thank you,” she says as she rises. Her gaze sweeps the floor, and she tucks a loose tendril that fell from her pony behind her ear. “I’m so sorry about before… the way I spoke to you… I, ah… I guess I was nervous.”

There’s more there. I can see there’s more, and why, why, why is there desperation to know more, to ask more, to somehow help and take it away? I don’t even know this woman, not really anyway, and yet in a snap, I’m falling into a laughable, predictable pattern. But I almost don’t care. I want to know what the more is.

The doctor escorts Colby to the room, and through the window I see her nod, run the corner of her palm across her cheeks to catch a few more fallen tears, and never remove her hand from behind Kona’s ears. After several minutes, she steps out from the room and grabs the paperwork.

She glances at me through phenomenal, dark, long lashes. Her mouth opens, then closes, when her gaze sweeps the floor. “I’m sorry again,” she says, then turns and slowly moves to the door with Kona trudging at her side.

Something about watching them leave tugs on my heart in a way that it shouldn’t. I work in a vet clinic. I see all kinds of injured or sick animals, and upset owners, but in all my years, nothing has produced this level of tug. But I’m not an idiot. I know this tug is for Colby. I also know my pattern, my need for a thrill, to seek out the next great thing. So, therefore, I need to plant my plump ass right here, in this office chair, and go back to logging notes.

The words on the screen blur, and I close my eyes. Don’t do it. Don’t do it, don’t effing do it. A few hard heartbeat thumps later, I leap from my chair, grab my jacket, and race to the front door.

THREE

COLBY

Outside of the clinic, I’m barely able to catch my breath. Reality, painful memories, and intense relief flood my system. My hand hasn’t left my dazed dog, the smooth fur behind her ear providing me the comfort I’m craving right now. I thought this would be like last time… My lips quiver, and I clamp my mouth closed. For the rest of the day, I need to pull it together. Kona cannot see me fall apart. She’ll have this intrinsic need to make me feel better, but right now, she needs to focus on resting. Kona is all I have, but sometimes I forget I’m all she has, too.

At my lifted Jeep, the relief I felt just a moment ago crashes and burns. The ramp I use to get Kona into the Jeep, which looked so accommodating before surgery, now looks like the summit at Mount Everest. I chew on the inside of my cheek as I try to coax Kona up the ramp. “Oh, girl, I know this is scary. We got this. Can you walk a little?” I nudge, offer treats, beg, and nothing.

Okay, okay. I got this. I mean, what the hell do other people do? I plant my waterproof hiking boots into the snow, steady myself, and grab under her belly to lift. Jesus. I work out a lot, I chop wood, I shovel constantly, but ninety pounds of dead weight when I’m trying to be as gentle as possible is not working.

Shit.