“I’d rather just email it to you.”

“C’mon, Piper. Don’t be like this. I miss you. We’re both upset... we can talk.”

Closing my eyes, I count to five to give myself time to not let myself open up to him again.

“I don’t want to talk. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

“So you won’t even talk to me? That’s it?”

“Yes.”

Click, click of his tongue bar.

“All right, then.” Frustration and disappointment deepen his tone. “I’m not gonna beg. I’m glad you called. I want to be there. Does he need anything in the meantime? Medicine? I’ll send you some money.”

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the fact that Blue has money now. And probably a lot of it. To me, he’s still the cute guy playing in the park getting coins tossed in a jar who insisted on buying me an ice cream cone. And I’m still the girl who didn’t give a crap about any of it and only wanted to be with him. No matter what.

“Thank you, but I’m okay for money.”

“I want to send something. Maybe you can take Lyric someplace special or buy her something to kinda cheer her up? Maybe we can buy her a locket to keep a bit of his fur in? Or a picture of him? I dunno, I’m not good at this shit.”

For the first time, he just referred to us as a we regarding Lyric. We as in parents together of this little person. I sit in one of the wicker chairs on the porch and watch a wind chime blow lightly in the wind while I try to process how his words make me feel.

Confused. Leery. Hopeful.

The locket suggestion is also a surprise—one I wish I had thought of myself.

“The locket is a really sweet idea. I think she’d love a picture of him to wear around her neck. I’ll pick one up for her. I really have to go now, I don’t want to leave her alone for too long when she’s upset.”

“Got it. I’m sorry, Ladybug. For everything-”

I don’t let him finish. “I’ll email you when I have the information. Goodbye.”

I end the call and yank my hand away from the phone before I change my mind and call him again. It’s been almost three years since we last talked. Three damn years. Our feelings for each other should be gone. People break up, they move on; they stop loving and wanting each other. Why can’t we do that? What’s wrong with us that we can’t just end?

“Why would you ask him to come out here? Why get this shit all stirred up again?”

Josh’s broad frame fills my bedroom doorway. I knew he was going to react like this, which is why I waited until the last minute to tell him.

“It’s the right thing to do,” I reply, sitting on the chest at the foot of my bed to pull on my sneakers.

“I think it’s a dumb thing to do.”

“He loves Acorn. He deserves a chance to say goodbye.”

“He dumped him. That was his goodbye.”

“Will you stop, please?” I ask, rising to my feet. “This is hard enough on me already. I don’t want to see him, Josh. It’s going to open up all the old wounds again. I know that. But I also know how much Acorn means to him. I don’t expect you to understand it. People deserve closure, and so do animals.”

He shakes his head. “I think you’re being way too nice.”

“Well, that’s me.”

“Let me go with you, then, and have Ditra come here and stay with Lyric. If I go with you at least you won’t end up in bed with him. I won’t even go in, I’ll wait in the car for you.”

I glare at him. “I can’t believe you just said that to me. And Lyric asked for you to stay with her tonight while I did this. She wants you to tell her the rainbow bridge story again. Ditra doesn’t know anything about that.”

“I said it as your friend, Piper. Not as someone who’s interested in dating you. Blue makes you do dumb things.”

His comments hurt regardless of how he meant them. “As my friend and someone who supposedly wants to date me, I’m offended that you don’t think I’m capable of not sleeping with him without you babysitting me.”

His shoulder lifts in a shrug. “Are you?”

I hope so.

“Yes,” I reply. “Now please stop this.”

He follows me out to the living room where Lyric is sitting on the floor with Acorn reading a book to him. My heart shatters in a million pieces.

“Okay, sweetheart. It’s time for me and Acorn to go for a drive to the special place,” I say in as upbeat a tone as I can.

“To the bridge?” she asks.

“Yes.” To an imaginary bridge that takes pets up to heaven that I want to believe in just as much as Lyric does.

I do my best to hold back tears and keep this experience positive for Lyric, like I read about on a website for how to help children with losing a pet or family member for the first time. It’s not easy when I’m overcome with grief myself.

After Lyric says her sweet and heartbreaking goodbye, Josh helps me put Acorn into the back seat of my car, gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then I’m driving across town, tempted to turn around at every red light. I wish I really was driving Acorn to a special bridge somewhere serene and pretty with rainbows in the clouds and not to a sterile veterinarian’s office. I keep glancing at him in the rearview mirror, singing happy songs to him, and he meets my eyes in the mirror. His eyes have lost their spark. He is bone thin and looks exhausted. I know I’m doing the right thing for him, even though it feels awful.

The vet scheduled me for the last appointment of the night, so we wouldn’t feel rushed. I pull into a parking spot and reluctantly get out of my car and open the door to the back seat. The slam of another car across the parking lot vaguely catches my attention as I lean in to lift Acorn, and when I turn around the unmistakable figure of Blue, his familiar gait, hair blowing in the wind, comes toward me across the dark lot.

Wordlessly, he takes the dog from my arms and holds him against his chest, bending his face down to kiss the top of Acorn’s head. Acorn immediately perks up, tail wagging, and licks Blue’s face.

I can’t watch this reunion. I can’t watch Acorn summon up energy to love on Blue when we’re going to be ending his life just minutes from now. Turning away, I close the car door, wishing I could also shut out the sound of Blue talking softly and Acorn’s happy whimpers.

“Piper...”

I refuse to turn around. I don’t want him to see me crying, and I don’t want him to see I still care about him.

“Piper, look at me.”

I turn, but avoid making any eye contact with him. “Let’s go inside,” I say, reaching out to touch Acorn’s back. “You can sit with him for a little while.”

He follows me inside, and the receptionist takes us to a private room, advising us to press a button on the wall when we’re ready for the doctor to come in. There’s no exam table in this room, just two large leather chairs that match the ones in the waiting room, a big soft dog bed on the floor, dim lighting, and an electric candle lit on a small table in the corner. I can’t help but wonder how many sweet furry souls say goodbye in this room.

Blue gently sets Acorn on the bed and sits cross-legged on the floor next to him.

“He looks so old,” he says, shaking his head slowly in disbelief.

I sit on the other side of Acorn and we pet him together. He’s breathing heavier now, and his eyes have closed. “He is old.”

“Can I tell you something?”

Nodding, I grab a box of tissues from the table and put it in front of us.

“I found him when he was a little tiny puppy. I was walking around in the woods, getting high, and there he was. All alone.”

“Wait... I thought when I met you, you told me you had him for two years?”

“I said we’d been traveling for two years.”

That was so long ago I can’t remember the exact words he used. All this time I thought he found Acorn as an adult dog while he was walking from state to state.

“I took him home with me and my dad had a shit fit. We were already on bad terms cuz I was such a fuckup, and the last thing he wanted was an animal in the house. He told me to get rid of the puppy or get the hell out of his house. I refused to give up the dog so he kicked me out. I had nowhere to go, so I took the puppy to the shed in our backyard. It was freezing, and I was hungry, and I begged my father to let us come in and he fuckin’ refused. Even with my mom begging him to let me in. I ended up living in the shed with Acorn for six months until I moved in with a friend. I didn’t even have a job so I couldn’t afford to buy him real dog food or toys, so I just fed him what I was eating and gave him an old sock to play with.” A tear slides down his cheek as he strokes Acorn’s ears. “He was such a cool little dog. He never barked or chewed anything up. He seemed happy just hanging out with me, and he loved when I played guitar and sang. He’d sit and watch me for hours when I played, and he’d fall asleep with his head on my leg and I’d keep singing and playing. He was the first real friend I ever had.” He wipes his hand across his cheek. “And you told me he was Lyric’s first best friend, too. I kinda feel like he’s this little guardian that came into my life to take care of me and the two people I love.”