Page 353 of Bad for Me

What was supposed to be a sunny Saturday quickly turned into a nightmare rainstorm in minutes, mid-commute to the post office to pick up a package for the neighbor. By the time I got back to my car, I was soaked clean through, and my hair was a frizzy mess. I patted the ends of the mess I’d have to detangle later and sighed.

Life was never as easy as we wanted it to be. Today’s rainstorm was one more cog in the wheel of disappointments.

As long as it didn’t thunder, everything would be okay.

Ihatedthunder. And lightning. Especially together.

The parking lot in front of the animal shelter was packed, thanks to a little adoption event going on this week, and with any luck, quite a few of the long-time residents would find a good home. It would mean less work for me during my shifts, and fewer animals I had to pretend to like. The cats weren’t too bad. Most of them didn’t expect you to love up on them. Many of our cats were still half-feral, a sentiment I could commiserate with. But there were a few who nearly tripped you up at feeding time because they liked to weave in and out between your legs for attention whenever there was a human in the room.

Dogs were individually needy. Not many of our shelter dogs were calm and withdrawn. The younger girls were optimistic and so adorably lovey with them, and they’d grown accustomed to being tended to with all the annoying squeals of high school girls who thought taking care of a bunch of dogs for free was just the bee’s knees. They filled out their community service requirements here or at the local hospital, ticked off the last box for college admissions, and with any luck, got far the fuck away from this tiny little town.

Hell, we still had a working fucking sanitorium here.

There had to be better opportunities elsewhere for most of our youth.

The shelter's back door was unlocked, like usual, so I slipped in unnoticed and stuffed my purse in an employee locker. I usually didn’t bother locking it up–most people around here were trustworthy enough. But something today felt different, so I turned the little orange key in the lock and slipped it into my pocket for safekeeping. I had abandoned my phone in the car and had no desire to pick it back up anytime soon.

The dogs were at the back of the facility, their kennels loud and annoying as usual. A group of workers milled about nearby with smiles on their faces, fawning over one of the friendlier dogs who’d only been in the shelter a short while–Sassy, I think her name was. She was an adorable little pomeranian whose owner had to relinquish her because they were moving or some other bullshit excuse. I turned to an old hat, a resident who’d been here longer than I had–Rex.

“Wanna go for a walk, big guy?” I asked him, reaching for the leash attached to his pen.

Rex was one of the biggest dogs in here, but he was old, with gray hairs sprouting around his muzzle, and a glossy sheen over his eyes that warned he wouldn’t have his vision for much longer. He came in with a younger dog, both of them found wandering alongside the highway after a bad car accident. The younger one went quickly to a family with four kids who wanted a new dog for Christmas. Ole Rexy hadn’t been given a second glance.

And he’d been with us ever since.

Sometimes, a random visitor would peer in at him, give him a little scratch and a smile, and then wander on to the next kennel, always looking for a dog who looked like they had more time to give.

Nobody ever wanted to give a home to an older dog whose lifespan was nearing its end.

I briefly debated taking him home, but with my schedule as busy as it was, I wouldn’t be able to give him as much attention as he needed, as he deserved. I’d tried to coerce several stay-at-home moms and foster homes to take him in, give him a peaceful place to lay his head and die. But nobody took the bait.

Assholes.

For such an old boy, Rex was excitable when he was going for a walk. The hint of the outdoors had him jumping and snorting like he wasn’t on meds for his arthritis and hip dysplasia. Tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, he let me clip his lead to the generic collar around his throat, and out we went, into the downpour that had only let up a hair.

In a lot of ways, Rex was like me, and I like him–we kept to ourselves, didn’t mind being alone, and barked on command. But at the root of it, we were old souls, waiting to die and resigned to the fate that was our lives. The two of us got along well, mainly because we understood one another, and neither of us asked for more than the other was willing to give.

Funny how life worked. It was unfortunate I had more in common with a dog than with other humans my own age.

After a few minutes of exploration outside, I deposited Rex back in his kennel and walked about three more dogs before anyone even noticed I’d shown up. And of course, the person who spotted me first was the one girl I didn’t care to interact with.

Stacey.

“Oh, look what the cat dragged in! Nice to see you today,Scarlett.”

Stacey was a class-A pain in the ass, with her bleach blonde hair and her annoying, high-pitched voice and those perfectly manicured nails that wentclick-clackagainst all the surfaces she touched. I kept holding out for her to leave one day and not return, but she never did. I was beginning to think she stayed out of some sick sense of humor, tormenting the rest of us with her stories about the hot boyfriend she had who was most definitely cheating on her, or her rich daddy, who bought her things like new cars and fancy purses whenever she asked.

Nobody liked Stacey, but this was volunteer work. We couldn’t just fire her.

Plus,, I was pretty sure she had something going on with the director of the shelter. She spent far too much time in his office for it to be innocent.

“Oh, hey, Stace,” I called back, knowing shehated itwhen I called her that. “How’s the event going today?”

She watched me put away the last dog I’d walked with a sneer on her pretty, overpainted pink lips. “Oh, you know, the usual. Plenty of animals being adopted, a few more trickled in.”

“How many dogs found homes so far?”

She lifted a hand and began tallying them up. “Well, there was Ajax, Brownie, Caramel, Waffles, Ingrid, and I think the twins down at the end from that stray litter. They all went out pretty quickly. A few others have some holds on them, to verify the potential owners, and one guy called in about Rex today. Said his older dog needs a friend, and maybe he’d like to adopt one who’s not got a lot of time left.”

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