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I wasn't going to put this up here originally, but oh well. It's been a while. I've been working on something that isn't going to go up here (message me if you want to read them; it's in the same series as One to Remember), as well as planning my NaNo, which also won't show up here. I'm looking for a good beta reader for my NaNo, so if you're interested and can commit to it, then message me. XD
Anyway, this was written a few days after my 16th birthday (yay me), which just so happened to be the day that the new Lifehouse CD was released. The title of this story comes from two separate songs on the CD, "Broken" and "Storm" (OMG). I will put them on my main page here after I post this. Really good songs, amazing CD.
And now, enjoy.
Because the thing is, I want the world to go away. I want to walk outside and be the only person on the street—something that will never happen in New York City; that bobbing mass of heads you see on television is what I see every time I look out my window. I am not agoraphobic, and I fear being alone, but I just want them all to go away. They have done so much to me all my life; it would be what was coming to them if they all got wiped out in some terrible plague, while I was safe inside my apartment with my Susanna. We would survive together—man and dog—and we would rule the world.
But there was not a chance of that happening anytime soon, so I stayed inside as much as I could, and when I went out, I took Susanna with me. It was strange, but as much as I was frightened of being alone, I enjoyed solitude. Maybe with Susanna, I wasn't truly alone. Was it bad that I was twenty-seven, attractive (according to my sister), and in love with someone who only came up to my waist? At least I wasn't in love with the bottom of a bottle or the edge of a blade.
My sister came to my apartment on my half-birthday, and I hummed "Sweet Caroline" as she came through the door. She hated when I did that, but she did not want to linger in the doorway to stare at me; it was late September and there was a chill in the air. Susanna licked her hand when she removed her gloves.
"Hey, Susanna," Caroline said, scratching the dog's head. Then she turned and gave me a hug. "How are you, Nikolas?"
"I'm good, actually, thanks to Susanna." I smiled for her sake. "And you? How's Mom?" I mentioned before that Susanna was more work than any of the other women who had been in my apartment. Truth is, the only other women who had visited my apartment were Caroline and our mother.
"Mom's good." She led Susanna to the living room, where she took a seat on the couch and scratched her neck, playing with her perky, dusty brown ears. "What are you doing for Christmas?"
Leaning against the wall, I gave her a look. I always spent Christmas with her and our mother.
She smiled and alternated lifting Susanna's ears as she said, "Your daddy doesn't like going places, but I have an offer he can't refuse. Yes I do. Yes I do."
I sat beside her and patted the cushion between us so Susanna jumped up and settled between our thighs. "It's a little early, isn't it?"
"I found this place in Wyoming, in the Rockies. I was thinking you, Mom, and I could rent a cabin for a week and stay there over Christmas. Susanna would love it, wouldn't she?" Caroline petted the dog's head. "We could go skiing, snowmobiling—a whole bunch of things. And it'd be fun."
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. "Driving to Wyoming?"
She laughed. "No. We'd fly. I know you don't like it, but it's much faster and safer than driving."
"Wyoming?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Wy-not?"
"I don't want to put Susanna on an airplane. It's inhumane."
"What's inhumane is you sitting in here all day. You need to get out, Nikolas. Especially around this time of year." Susanna huffed and rested her head between her front paws. "No offense, Susanna, but Nikolas needs to find someone he can communicate with."
"Can you find somewhere closer? Maybe in New York or Pennsylvania? Somewhere we can drive to?"
Caroline sighed. "If I do, will you come?"
I nodded. "Do you want to look now? We can use my computer." My computer was how I made my living—I was a web designer. It was an occupation that allowed me to stay home and have little face-to-face human interaction.
"Okay." I took her to the computer, and within ten minutes, we had found something in the Appalachian Mountains. It was only a three-hour car drive away, and it allowed animals.
---
The thing about animals is that, no matter how much they love you, they still have instincts and they still act on them. No matter how trained an animal is, deep down inside, it's still an animal.
While we were walking through Central Park, Susanna spotted a cat across the lake, and took off after it. She pulled her leash out of my hand and I could not catch up with her. She disappeared around the Museum of Natural History, and was missing for a week.
I admit, I was heart-broken. Susanna was my baby, my only one. I called Caroline and my mother hysterical over a dog, as silly as it sounds. They helped me look for her and even called the police and SPCA to keep a lookout for her. Caroline's ex-boyfriend was a cop, so he took extra care to search the areas she may have been.
Six days after she went missing, I woke up to scratching at my door at three in the morning. The night was bitterly cold for October, but Susanna stood outside my door, her frayed leash in the fist of my sleepy landlord. I managed to contain my relief until my landlord finished his tired speech about evicting me if I did not keep my dog in check.
Once he left, I took Susanna inside and hugged her tightly despite the dirt and grime all over her. I took her to the bathroom and washed her off in my robe and slippers, my eyes wide open now that she was home. She was quiet, subdued—she reminded me of myself. I wondered what she had been through, if it was as bad as what had been done to me.
The water coming off of her was a uniform brown, but once she was clean, she was the beautiful Husky and German Shepard mix coloration she had arrived as. When she shook the water off her coat, I laughed at how fluffy she was, but she didn't seem amused.
We fell asleep on the couch together.
---
I was not able to get Susanna to the vet for four days. I wanted to have her checked for any wounds I missed or any infections she may have caught. The veterinarian was young, only a couple years out of vet school. She was pretty, like a humanoid Susanna; she was at least part Japanese, with beautiful dark hair and eyes.
Susanna was calm for the first part of the examination; she lay on the table and stared at me the whole time. When the vet lifted her to her feet, she began to growl, and she let out a low bark when the vet felt her stomach.
"Has she had any contact with male dogs that you know of?" the vet asked, scratching Susanna's ears apologetically.
I knit my eyebrows. "Not that I know of. I didn't know she wasn't fixed. Maybe she did when she was missing. Why?"
The vet felt her stomach again. "It may be too early to tell, but I think she might be pregnant."
"Pregnant?" I stared into Susanna's eyes and she looked at me shamefully, as if she knew, as if she were some teenager whose mother had just found out.
"Other than that, she's fine," the vet told me. "I'm amazed that she isn't injured, honestly; she seems like such a soft-natured creature."
I made an appointment for Susanna to have an ultrasound, and a few days later, we returned to have the procedure done. I felt strangely like an expectant father, and I guess in a way, I was. The same vet did the ultrasound, and found signs of life within Susanna's body. She said the babies would be born around Christmastime, and arranged for more appointments to keep track of Susanna's progress. She said it was important to keep an eye on Susanna, since this was her first pregnancy.
"Well, there's something we have in common, Susanna," I said as we drove home. She looked up at me from the passenger seat with big blue eyes. "Don't worry. I'm not mad. You could help it just as much as I could. Just take it easy until the puppies are born."
---
"I don't think I can go to the cabin." Caroline was rushing around the kitchen making coffee while I sat feeling helpless at her kitchen table. Susanna was lying on my feet, one big, living slipper.
"I'm sure she'll be fine," she replied. She was certainly persistent—something she got from our father, unfortunately. "It'll be like a getaway for her, just like a real mother."
I sipped at the coffee she set before me. "I'm not sure the traveling would be good for her."
"She's a dog, Nikolas. Not your wife." She crossed her legs as she sat down.
Glaring at her, I stood and slid my sneakers on. "She's the closest thing I have," I snapped. Whistling, I led Susanna out of Caroline's house.
She called a couple of hours later. The machine picked it up while I worked diligently on a Web page for a food manufacturer. I didn't check the messages for another two hours, and as I sat on the couch with the handset, Susanna paced nervously.
"I'm sorry, Nikolas," the message said. "I shouldn't have said that. It's just…It's that time of the month. I'm sorry."
Covering the mouthpiece as if there was someone on the other line, I mouthed, "She's sorry," to Susanna, who came to me and laid her head in my lap.
"I did some research on the area around the cabin," Caroline went on. "There's a vet twenty minutes from the cabin, if you still want to go. Give me a call."
---
Come Thanksgiving, I had decided to go on the trip. Caroline had been right: I needed to get out of the apartment and get a life outside the confines of my safe seven-hundred square feet of comfort. As Susanna and I drove to my mother's house for the Thanksgiving meal, I kept telling myself that it was for the best, and that Susanna would be safe. She whined quietly and shifted on the passenger seat to lay her chin on my leg. Briefly scratching her head, I came to a stop outside my mother's house in the suburbs of the bigger city.
My mother is the average Italian-blooded woman: Short, plump, always smiling. The house smelled wonderful as she came at me with a wooden spoon in one hand and gave me a tight hug. "So good to see you, Nikolas," she said. She had no accent despite being raised by two Italian immigrants. She squatted and offered the wooden spoon to Susanna. "Good to see you, too, Susanna. How are the babies doing?"
I smiled—she called them babies as if they were her grandchildren and not puppies. "The vet says they're healthy. All five of them."
"Five?" She hugged me again. "Congratulations, Nikky."
"Where's Caroline?" I asked, pulling out of her arms.
"In the kitchen, making a pumpkin pie. Come, come, come." She waved Susanna and I into the kitchen, where she shoved my hands beneath the sink and dried them before powdering them and setting me to work on kneading dough.
"Nikolas, what kind of kitchen attire is that?" Caroline exclaimed as she bumped shoulders with me. She looked at my dress shirt and slacks in mock disgust. "Here." She grabbed a light pink apron from a hook in the pantry and hung it around my neck, tying it behind my back. Mom rushed into the room with a camera just in time to catch me flinging flour at Caroline.
Thanksgiving at the Alessandri house is loud—louder than it should be for three people and a dog. The only time there was complete silence was when Caroline and my mother bowed their heads in prayer at the table. I took their hands and bowed my head to be respectful for the day, but even though I said "Amen" at the end, the prayer did not sink into me.
"Your father called before you arrived," Mom said as she scooped herself mashed potatoes.
And that was the reason the prayer did not sink in.
"He said to wish you guys a Happy Thanksgiving."
I fell silent and stared at my plate. Caroline stared at me. Susanna seemed to realize my discomfort, because she sat on my foot and nudged my leg with her nose.
"I'm sorry, Nikolas," my mother said, laying her hand over mine on the table and squeezing. "I shouldn't have said anything."
Slowly, I sank back into my comfort zone and began talking. After dinner, we all drank wine and danced in the living room to oldies on the radio. It was late when we all finally went to bed.
---
Susanna kept growing with each day that passed. I vaguely remembered seeing this neat slideshow my mother made when she was pregnant with me, where she had my father take a picture of her every day to show how much she grew. I have always been glad that my father is not in any of the pictures.
As I watched Susanna, I realized I should have done the same thing with her. I hate to admit it, but she was much cuter than my mother was when she was pregnant. She looked excited to almost be a mother, and I could not help but share the excitement.
"Just think, Susanna," I said as I packed my suitcase, "we may have puppies by the time we get back." She wagged her tail as she pulled another shirt out of the suitcase. "Come on, Susanna," I said, laughing as I snatched the shirt from beneath her paws. "I need to get packed. Then we can do you."
Half an hour later, we were lying on my bed; I was fully dressed and Susanna had her head and paws resting on one of my shirts. We were both exhausted and excited. In a day, we would be leaving for the cabin.
---
Caroline picked us up at eleven in the morning and we arrived at the cabin by three in the afternoon: Lunch and snowy roads delayed us an hour. Traveling with two women and a pregnant dog means lots of bathroom breaks, too. I tried my hardest to focus on the trip and not Susanna's impending birthing. Halfway to the cabin, it struck me in my gut that this was not a good idea.
"Look at this place!" Caroline gasped as I drove into the lot of the resort. There were evergreens and snow all over the place, and all around us were the Appalachian Mountains. Caroline climbed out of the vehicle to get the key to our cabin, and my mother turned on the radio.
"Complete static," she said, smiling. "This place really is a nice getaway."
When Caroline returned with the key, we drove for another half an hour over snowy country roads until we found the cabin. The Ford Escape stayed nicely on the roads, for which I was glad—if Susanna went into labor, I wanted to get to the town with the vet as quickly as possible.
"This is amazing!" Caroline said as she rushed through the snow to the front door of the cabin.
"It's so cold," Mom complained as she pulled her coat tighter around her body. "Turn the heat on, Caroline."
I collapsed on the sofa in the living room, exhausted. Susanna came up beside me and laid her head on my lap. Planting a lazy hand on her head, I said, "So this is home for the next seven days. Don't worry, Susanna. I made sure Santa knows where to find you. He's probably got something for the puppies."
She raised her eyebrows at me skeptically.
"Nikolas, you have to see the bedroom!" Caroline had not just driven for three hours, so she was puttering around the cabin like the Energizer bunny. "I love log cabins. Smell that wood!"
Mom sat beside Susanna and laid a hand on her furry back. "I've always wanted to retire to someplace like this," she said.
"You are retired, Mom," I replied, my eyes closed.
"There's no food in the fridge," Caroline said, walking into the living room. Her eyes lit up when she noticed the fireplace and hand-made rug in front of it. "Look at the fireplace!" She sat on the rug like a little kid and spun to face the sofa. "This place is better than I thought it would be!"
---
We got settled in and rested for a couple of hours before driving into town to get dinner and food for the next week. The town was near the base of the mountain. It was a small place, the type where everyone knew each other. The storefronts all displayed names like "Jim's Meats" and "Maria's Jewelry", personal names unlike those in the Big Apple.
Wanting to blend in, we parked the Escape in a parking lot and walked up and down the streets. Susanna was a hit among the people walking, especially the children, and she gladly welcomed their small, gloved hands on her body. They all wanted to see the puppies when they were born.
After browsing the shops on Main Street for an hour or so, we found a restaurant and Caroline and Mom went inside to get something for Susanna and I to eat. The restaurant's owner came out a few minutes later and told me to bring Susanna inside. She was a sweet old woman, plump like my mother, an apron tied around her waist.
As we sat at the bar eating hamburgers, I fed Susanna French fries and spoke amiably with the manager. Caroline's idea that this would be good for me seemed to ring true at that moment. But maybe it was only because the people here did not know me, and I did not know them. It was the same in Manhattan, but I did not want these people to disappear. So long as the town was there, the world was peaceful and carefree.
"Is this Susanna?" someone said as they took a seat beside me. She reached down and pet Susanna.
I looked up to see the Japanese-American veterinarian. "Hi," I said awkwardly.
"Hi," she replied, smiling. She offered her hand. "Kaede Saito. I don't think we were properly introduced before."
Hastily, I wiped my hands on a napkin and shook her hand. "Nikolas Alessandri," I replied. I realized Caroline and my mom were gazing around me at her. "This is my sister Caroline and my mom Gloria."
She smiled at them. "Are you staying here, too?"
I nodded, feeding Susanna another French fry. "We just got here today."
"Really? Well, then. Margaret," she said to the manager, "have you given them the house special yet?" She laid a twenty on the counter and said, "On me."
"I like you," Mom said bluntly, smiling wildly.
Margaret returned a few minutes later with four glasses of thick pink liquid. She slid the twenty back to Kaede, saying, "On the house."
"Thanks, Margaret." Kaede sipped at the drink. "This is Margaret's family recipe: Just the right portions of banana, strawberry, blue berry to be Heaven in a glass, with just a touch of alcohol to even out the odds."
I took a sip of the drink, tasting first the blend of fruit, then the bite of the alcohol. Susanna nudged at my elbow for a taste of the drink, but I told her she could not have any. I had never been a fan of anything alcoholic except wine, but I managed to finish the fruit drink. Mom downed hers and Margaret brought another one.
Kaede walked us to the Escape, where she petted Susanna and said good-bye. She gave us her cabin number in case we wanted to visit, and we gave her ours. "They're close!" she said excitedly. Then she turned serious when she looked at me. "If you or Susanna need anything, feel free to come over, okay?"
---
News of the storm came via the owner of the resort. A nor'easter was fast approaching, and it was expected to dump a lot of snow, especially in the higher elevations. It had surprised the National Weather Service, so they had been late in getting the word out. Mom and Caroline rushed to the town to get supplies with no idea of how close the storm was.
Kaede came over while I was building a fire. I invited her inside to sit in the heat. "I came to check up on you and Susanna," she said.
I glanced down the hallway into the bedroom, where Susanna was still asleep on the bed we were sharing. "She hasn't been up all morning."
"Really?" She followed my gaze. "Would you mind if I went to check on her?"
"No. Go ahead." She went to the bedroom and I continued with the fire.
"How long are you staying?" I called for the sake of conversation. I set another log on the fire, nudging it with the poker.
"Till the thirtieth," she replied as I entered the room behind her. "Was she lethargic yesterday?"
I shook my head. Susanna's eyes were closed, her ears drooping. "Is something wrong?" Susanna raised her head a few inches and whimpered.
"She's in labor." Kaede smiled. "She's going to have her puppies soon."
"What?" I stared at her open-mouthed, then turned to Susanna.
"Come on," Kaede continued. "Help me get her to the living room. She'll be warm then if the power goes out in this storm." Quickly, we made a nest of blankets on the rug and moved Susanna to them. After circling the nest a few times, she settled down on it and watched Kaede and I. We sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa.
Outside, snow had begun to fall. It was coming down hard, in small flakes. I recalled the meteorologist on the local news: "Little flakes, big snow; big flakes, little snow." The storm had come in.
"Look at that." Kaede was staring out the window. "Can I be honest with you?"
Casting her a strange glance, I nodded slowly.
"I came here hoping someone would be here. I hate the dark, and this storm is likely to knock out the power, especially up here." She watched Susanna as she made another circle of the nest. "Your mom and Caroline should be okay in the town."
"What?" I said.
"You didn't know? They block all traffic leaving the town when storms like these come in. Looks like it's just going to be us until it passes."
I pushed myself to my feet and ran to the door, panicking. Outside, I called Caroline's name until Kaede came and forced me back inside.
"What is your story?" she asked as she directed me back to sit. "Now you're all wet." She went and got a pile towels from the bathroom, throwing one over my head and setting the rest beside Susanna for when the puppies came. "Honestly, what is your story? This dog goes with you everywhere. Why?"
"She's not just a dog to me," I replied, drying my hair. "She's my everything. Like a wife, sort of."
"Don't you have a girlfriend?" she asked.
I shook my head. "I only leave my apartment to take Susanna for a walk or to visit Caroline or my mom."
"Are you agoraphobic or sociophobic or something?"
"That's…sort of a long story." The lights flickered and went out as a gust of wind blew outside. I jumped and drew my knees up, wrapping my arms around them. Susanna looked as if she wanted to come to me, but she remained where she was.
"You, too, eh?" Kaede smiled and moved to milk the fire for more light. "Tell me the story? We've got plenty of time."
I watched her as she came back and sat down. I had not ever had the chance to tell the story to anyone who could respond, so I did not know what I was going to say.
"My father used to play with Caroline and I very day when he got home from work," I began. Susanna turned her head as if she was listening. She had heard the story before. "But he started coming home later and later, and it eventually led to my parents' divorce. My dad wanted custody of me, but my mom feared what he would do to me. I was twelve."
Susanna twisted around and began licking between her legs. "I think this is a puppy," Kaede said. We moved closer to the nest, Kaede suspending a towel between her hands. "Keep talking. I think she likes the sound of your voice."
"I-I was twelve," I stuttered awkwardly. "He refused to give up the fight for custody."
"All right," Kaede whispered to Susanna. "Keep going, Nikolas. I'm listening."
"He took my mom to court, but there was more of a chance for my mom than for him. It was all rumor, but he apparently had been having sex when he didn't come home." I heard a tiny squealing sound and looked to Kaede. She was watching as Susanna chewed at something dark brown and wet. Then she lifted the first puppy gently into the towel, wiping away afterbirth with the help of Susanna. I was surprised at how calm Susanna was, considering how protective she had been of her belly during the first vet appointment.
"Look," Kaede said, motioning me closer. I gazed in awe at the tiny puppy in the towel. Kaede carefully placed the puppy in the nest, close to one of Susanna's nipples. The puppy took hold, and Susanna laid her head down on the blanket.
"Keep going," Kaede whispered to me.
"My father realized he wasn't going to win." This was where it had gotten hard when I had told Susanna the story. "So during one of my visits, he put me in his car and drove away. I knew instantly that we weren't going to his house."
Susanna began chewing the umbilical cord of another puppy. Then she laid her head down, ignoring the wet puppy. Kaede lifted the puppy into the towel slowly. She did a few things to it, but I did not hear the squeal like the first puppy had.
"It's dead," she said quietly. Solemnly, she wrapped the towel around the body and set it aside, her eyes lingering on it. Outside, the snow blew in little tornados. "Keep talking."
I hesitated for a moment before continuing. "He told me to be quiet and refused to let me out. He essentially kidnapped me and took me to an abandoned house he had fixed up partially." I folded my hands in my lap and stared at my thumbs. "He hit me over the head with something and when I came to, I was naked in a bed."
Kaede mouthed something, but I don't know what.
"I—"
Susanna cut me off with a whine, and Kaede checked beneath her tail to be sure everything was going okay. She allowed Susanna to chew another umbilical cord, then lifted another silent puppy into the towel. The next one came terribly soon after, and since it whined, Kaede turned her focus on it. When Susanna was done, she lifted it into a clean towel and wiped it off before laying it with the first puppy. Then she folded the towel over the dead puppy and set it with the other.
"I tried to get away, but I had no clothes and the door was locked." I swallowed thickly. "He still refused to let me go. For almost a month, he kept me there. He barely fed me, and by the time the police found me, I never wanted to see him again. I was his sex slave for one month." I could feel myself blushing. "He wasn't my father by the time I was rescued."
Susanna whined again, moving to chew at another silent puppy. It was the fifth one, the last. Two had survived. Three hadn't. Kaede wrapped the final puppy in a towel and set it carefully with the other two. Then she went to the kitchen, where she washed her hands.
I watched Susanna caring for the two remaining puppies, and jumped when I heard something clatter into the sink. I rushed to the kitchen to make sure Kaede was okay, and found her crying, gripping the edge of the sink.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I thought the pregnancy was going fine. I knew—"
"Kaede." I pulled her into my arms, swiveling on my feet as she sobbed into my shoulder. "It's okay. Susanna's fine. The other two puppies are fine. That's all that matters. Come back out." I led her to the sofa, where we sat and she collapsed into my arms again. The impact of my story on myself seemed to be gone, possibly because of its backdrop of Susanna and her puppies. But that was okay. I did not want my story to bring me pity. I never liked it.
I do not know how or why it happened, but I was suddenly kissing her, and I felt comfortable doing it. I barely knew her, but something in some distant part of me felt right.
Susanna yelped, interrupting the gesture. The sound was absolutely gut wrenching, because it meant she was in pain. I moved quickly to her side and stroked her head. Her eyes were closed, her ears floppy.
"What's wrong?" I asked Kaede.
She wiped her eyes hastily, then looked beneath Susanna's tail. "She's bleeding," she told me.
"Can you stop it?" I asked, feeling my throat tighten. I remembered hearing about women dying from bleeding like that.
"It's internal," Kaede replied, her voice quiet. "She would need surgery. I…I'm so sorry, Nikolas."
A moment or two passed before I could speak again. "How long do you think she has?"
She shook her head sadly. "I don't know. It's pretty bad. It may be what killed the three puppies."
I turned my eyes back to Susanna, the movement releasing my first tears. I lay down beside Susanna and stroked the side of her head. She gazed at me with her beautiful blue eyes. They were pained, and all I wanted to do was put her out of her misery. Instead, I just lay there until she closed her eyes. I do not know how long passed, but it must have been at least half an hour. I tried not to let her see me crying, because I thought it might have upset her.
When she finally went, I could feel it. Her body became light beneath my fingers, and her fur felt bristly, but it might have been my mind. The puppies continued to nurse from their mother, but I had to roll away from the scene.
Kaede laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, dragging me up to her when a long whine escaped me. She held onto me as the snow swirled outside, beautiful and deadly at the same time. In the white purity, there was a sinister danger. The broken storm inside us all rages on, our fears falling as snowflakes, whipped up by the winds of change, spinning into tornados of doubt. Everything starts out fine and clear, but the storm moves in quickly; however we know that eventually the storm will end, and then spring will come and melt away the bitter cold, bringing with it new life and new hope.
A friend of mine pointed out a similarity between the last paragraph and the manga Fruits Basket, but I have never read the manga. End my disclaimer. XD
