Person Narrative

I am sitting cross-legged in my dark room, hands on my knees, rocking back and forth. My door is shut, my old dog is dead. Close to it. In three hours she will be, while I am at my aunt's house. I don't want her to come in, knowing that she will be gone in 180 minutes. I can't stand it that I know and she doesn't. She thinks everything is as it should be. She thinks she'll have tomorrow to do what she wants and I can't stand it anymore, just knowing that I know she won't be here and she doesn't. It's so unfair. She's only been ours for two years. When we were test-walking her, I was so fixed that I walked right into a tree, but I didn't even feel it. I just cry harder and close my hand around her collar. She must be surprised we took it off. I bite my lip and open up my fist and smell her collar. The world spins around me. Suddenly my face fills with a musty smell, like the collar hasn't been used in a long time, even though it is just her smell.

To me, she is already gone.

I close my fist again and throw her collar against the wall, where it bounces and then lands with an unsatisfying thud in the carpet, a sound that makes my teeth itch and curls my lips against them in a sick smile.

I press my hands against the cold, barren walls, smooth and lifeless. All I can feel around me is warmth and darkness and the faint, salty smell of too many tears. The only light I can see is coming from the slant of gold under my door, and there I can see two russet paws. Then a dry nose and a mouth filled with pink, slobber-covered cancer pushes its way in. Most would find that lump of visible cancer disgusting, but I don't care. She's mine. For now.

Rosie whines and lays down beside me, panting slightly. I rub my fingers through her fur until they have an oily feel. These last words are so common one could almost consider them cliche in an odd, twisted way, but there is nothing else important enough to say. I glance up at the clock. One hundred-and- seventy-two minutes. I bend over into her silky ear and for a second there is silence, and all I can feel is sadness and anger and the hairs on her head brushing my cheek, my lips. The smell of her fur spirals up into my nose and I breathe deep, knowing this will be the last time.

One-hundred-and-seventy-seven minutes. A ticklish feeling in my stomach erupts suddenly and bolts up to my head. I feel sick. I am so numb that I almost can't manage to spill the words before they turn to ash. I wind my fingers through her fur.
"I love you."

-Rebecca Wittman