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Then I watch him mark the perimeter of Ty’s place, take down a buck then hunt for and eat two fish, drink a half a pond’s worth of water, piss on four more trees, take a giant shit, then he swims in the river and takes a long run back to the cabin’s porch, napping while he waits for her to open the door.
And seeing but not feeling her stroke his fur in front of the fire while she drinks tea and eats pistachios and yogurt-coated raisins, maybe I’m a little jealous of my wolf. Wanting to feel those fingers in my hair. Missing the heat of her pussy clamping around me over and over. Am I beginning to thaw? To see reason? Beginning to hit the capacity where I’m finally processing and gaining perspective? All I know right now is the more I think about it, the angrier I am that some assholes decided to punish us both this way. And angry at the way I’ve behaved, how it’s put me right where I am now – trapped.
No, I’m not right yet, but maybe this time out isn’t such a bad thing.
27
Erica
I wake to sunshine spilling in through the window, Riley’s wolf, who I’m now affectionately thinking of as Scooby snoring softly beside me, his paw on my palm. I look at him and get a burst of affection.
The part of Riley that doesn’t despise me.
Now my chin trembles. I hold myself together and rise, stretching while my legs dangle.
Immediately, he’s pouncing off the bed and dancing in front of me with excitement.
“Good morning, Scooby Dooby!”
He pounces back up, knocking me back on the bed and licking my face, making me giggle.
My giggle halts because his eyes suddenly glow.
And then they stop. Was that Riley?
“I need to pee. Do you need to pee?” I ask.
He hops off the bed and trots out.
I let him out and then go to the bathroom.
Waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, I look around from the porch and there’s no Scooby. After making my coffee, I unplug my phone from where it’s being charged and take it with me to sit on the porch with my morning cuppa. Instead of sitting on a chair, I sit on the ledge and wiggle my toes in the grass. There’s so much energy out here right now. I’m practically tingling with it. It’s as if I’m being invited to play with it, which is such a new, odd sensation.
I see a missed text message on my phone.
Vivi: How are you?
I reply with a flower emoji.
A flower lets her know I’m okay. The more flowers, the more okay. One will do today.
She responds promptly with two eyeball emojis. One eyeball means she’s okay. She’s a bit better than okay.
I’m not big on texting and generally keep it short and sweet with my sisters, particularly with the secretive nature of some of our conversations. We’ve adopted emoji use for our conversations and identifiers. I use a flower. Ronnie uses hands. Jess uses lightning bolts. Dani just uses thumbs up or thumbs down, won’t subscribe to our coded system. She’s our most serious sister. I’m the most whimsical, likely followed by Jessie, the other redhead in the family. Or, I guess I used to be…
I wish they were nearby. That I could talk stuff out with them. And that’s not really me. I’m not much of a talk-out-her-problems kind of girl. I love having people around me and will always lend an ear though it’s rarely my style to bend someone else’s ear. But I’m craving that right now. Vivi would put my head in her lap and give me a scalp massage. Ronnie would paint my fingers and toes. Jess would try to make me laugh, try to cheer me up. Dani would give it to me straight and tell me how to fix all my problems.
And I know that now that I’ve sent Vivi two text replies since I got here with the one flower both times, if there’s one more single flower text, she’ll call me to try to get me to talk.
I can’t. I can’t articulate the pain of this situation to anybody. I told Riley and that was harder than anything I’ve had to do. I’m tapped out and don’t want to explain my feelings about Riley’s reaction and our time together so far to anybody. It hurts too much.
The wolf trots happily in my direction.
“My life is shit,” I tell him. “At least I’ve got you, huh, Scoob?”
The wolf’s tail thumps on the porch where he’s now lying down.
He looks content.
“For now at least,” I add softly, thinking that life will soon need to change for me. But to what, though? What will life be like after Riley?
***
Late Evening
Not sure how Riley and I can work out our issues since he’s not here, but given that I know he’s just going to tell me he wants a severing at the end of this week, I guess he found a loophole. Now he doesn’t have to put up with being in the same space as me. Maybe he doesn’t even want Scooby to let him in.
