Dog Days

1 ~ fire hydrant

I DIDN'T WANT TO WALK DAISY THIS MORNING.

Something about today didn't feel right. I couldn't pinpoint if the weather was too humid in this goddamn hour or I just woke up from the wrong side, but when Ace asked me to walk her out this morning because he stayed up all night to produce a new song, I had to accept it.

Daisy was zestful, making it hard for me to keep up. I let her take me a few blocks away, halting at every lamppost to pee. I was following her like a sleepwalker, my eyes half-open. Damn you, Ace.

Suddenly, I bumped into something, someone, and my chest burnt in contact with a hot liquid. I screamed in pain and it stunned the woman that I just bumped against. "I'm sorry," she said, looking between me and her now half-empty Starbucks cup. "But watch where you're going, okay?" That was tragic how her mood went from apologetic to passive aggressive in seconds. I parted my mouth to reply, but she walked past me in a hustle.

With my coffee-stained t-shirt and half-burnt skin underneath that I was too embarrassed to check, I walked in the opposite way. I wasn't watching where I was going, yes, but she should have apologized to me for emptying half of her tall drink on me. "Fuck people," I muttered under my breath and I focused back on Daisy as she pulled me forward.

I could relate to the fire hydrant Daisy pee-claimed on a spiritual level.

Our last stop was the park nearby. My out-of-shape body literally collapsed on a bench as I released Daisy to wander around. I buried my face in my hands. Did we run out of detergent? I could visit a store to buy one. I fished my pockets to find my cell so that I could ask Ace to check, but I remembered I forgot it on my bedside table. Each passing second confirmed my gut feeling about the day.

As if the universe found a new joke, I simultaneously heard Daisy bark at another dog. They smelled each other, drawing circles. She wasn't a dog that engaged with other dogs—my girl was tough. Ugh, Daisy. It's not the time to flirt.

I forced myself off the bench to go snatch her. As I stooped down to put her leash on, a human-form shadow dawned on me, blocking all the vitamin D's I was supposed to get. After dealing with vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy, I was paying extra attention to sunbathe and walk under sunlight.

I gazed up at the figure. My eyes squinted to adjust to the sudden change of light, and as they refocused, I blinked. No fucking way. People resemble each other. I cleared my throat and tried again as if the scene in front of me would change with the snap of a finger and the person in front of me would vanish into thin air. Of course, that didn't happen. In fact, my sound caught his attention.

"Hi," he said with a bright smile. When he didn't smile, I could believe that he resembled the person in my thoughts, but when he fucking smiled, the flashbacks of that night passed through my eyes and I just knew. I'd moved to another part of the city to avoid this moment. I literally moved to escape from this, but fate just shoved it under my nose.