Page 61 of The Good Boy

Kelly flings her arms around Dave with such force that her wig half slips off her head and then tumbles to the ground. Dave winds his arms around her and they cling to each other tightly.

“I feel like they don’t want us hanging around right now,” I say to Rory in a low voice. “Maybe we should be heading off, let them talk it out.”

“Hey, Rory, mate.” Dave stops us just as we are about to sneak off. “What you said in there, it really helped. I could have done without my missus setting Genie on me, if I’m honest. But what you said made all the difference tonight. I think I can see that what I’m going through now can be over one day. There might be a ways to go, but, like you said, if I am strong enough to ask for help, then I’m strong enough to get better.”

“You are strong, Dave,” Rory says, flinging his muscular arms around both Dave and Kelly, who both hug him back.

“Bring it in, Genie!” Rory beckons me as Kelly and Dave cling to each other in the shelter of his world-class hug. Normally I abhor this kind of thing, but sometimes there is just not a good enough reason to say no to public displays of affection.

Rory might have helped Dave tonight, but he’s helped me too. There’s no harm in trying, is there? Sometimes trying is all that we’ve got.

“Hey, Rory,” I say.

“What?” he asks.

“I’ve thought about it, and, well, it looks like I’m going on a bloody quest.”

“Yes!” Rory punches the air.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“So, re: your life’s purpose, what do you want to do with your life?” Rory asks me after dinner.

We had left Kelly and Dave at the spa, arms entwined around each other. How easy, I’d thought as we left them, for two people who love each other so to somehow become almost strangers, just through forgetting to talk to each other. Or being afraid to, anyway. Lucky for Dave that Kelly has some particular skill sets, and that one of those is never letting it lie. There’s a long road ahead for them, I know that. I know that depression can weigh you down, wrap itself around your shoulders and keep out all the light. It isolates you from everyone you love and even the possibility of hope. I know that because that was me once, bricked up inside my own sadness—sometimes it still is for a little while. But then I got a dog.

And then slowly, very slowly, the two of us began to see little chinks of light together. Rory realizing he was safe now, me realizing things weren’t so bleak. Slowly, very slowly, we realized we had each other. And every day the dark lifted a little more until the point when I realized I wasalmost happy. Perfect happiness—that is a notion for fairy tales and romantic comedies. But almost happy—that is something real. Something obtainable. Almosthappy means that when those rare, fleeting moments of pure joy explode into your life in bursts of Technicolor, then you can recognize them for what they are: perfect, fleeting gifts from the universe to be wondered at and treasured. And almost happy means that when you are nearly completely smothered by that great, dark sadness, you can draw another breath—because you know you have felt, and can feel, better again. Things will always get brighter eventually. That’s just the law of averages.

It was on the day I picked Rory up from the rescue home that I began to see the benefits of almost happiness. And then what did I do? I ruined his life by turning him from an uncomplicated, spontaneous, and joyous creature that lived in the moment into an emotionally messy, constantly confused and conflicted dumb animal: a human being.

“When I was a kid, I loved art and drawing and making clothes,” I say, picking at the tassels of my favorite cushion. The beautiful little painting set that Miles got me is sitting shinily on the dresser. The ache to open it and start making tiny little paintings is very strong. “I was all set for fashion college; I even did a term and it was amazing until... well. That was then. This is now. I can’t go to fashion college now, at my age. Maybe I could start wearing hats or something? Take up knitting?”

“It’s not too late for you to go to fashion college,” Rory says. “All you need to do is to go. To fashion college. Like you go to work, or I go to the park.”

“It’s not that simple,” I say.

“Why isn’t it?” Rory asks, grabbing Diego.

“I’m not sure, I just feel like maybe it’s not?”

“Well, I know one thing, and that is that hats and knitting are not going to get you back to the way you used to be with me.”

“The way I used to be with you?” I ask, confused.

“I know we are okay with hugging now, but you used to tell me you loved me alot,” Rory says. “And that used to make me feel happy and safe. But since I turned human, well, you are really kind and funny and youtryhard. But you never say you love me anymore. Even if I say it first. And I’ve been really uncertain about if I am a good boy or not for days. And I thought about it, and I think it’s because you have a much harder time showing humans that you love them, than dogs. Even human me, and I’m a terrible human. But an excellent dog.”

“Oh god, I think you are right,” I say, sighing deeply. “Rory, I know I said I’d do the quest, but maybe I’m too far gone. Maybe I am too messed up and not normal to make it.”

“Quests are meant to be hard, Genie,” Rory says. “And I don’t care if you are not normal, because normal is overrated anyway. You are the best person in the world to me. And I know you can do whatever you want to do if you are willing to try, and sometimes get it wrong and try again. Like me with not peeing in the sink.”

“I love you, Rory,” I say. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry that this happened. I can’t promise that things won’t be difficult, scary, and hard sometimes. But I do promise you that you will never be alone again.”

“Even if you get together with Miles?” Rory asks me. “And do the weird face-smooching and rub your butts together?”

“That might be a thing, but it’s not a thing I do,” I tell him. “And anyway, don’t worry. I am not going to get together with Miles. Maybe I can find myself but I can’t make a whole relationship happen just because I want it to. Love is about choices, and you have to let the person you love decide to choose you.”

“Or get Nanna to do a charm thing,” Rory says. “Five ninety-nine, or two for ten pounds.”

“I’m not saying those charms don’t work, considering you and the wish, etcetera,” I say. “But I am saying they are not ethical.”

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