17. Bennett
SEVENTEEN
BENNETT
It has been a while since I found myself just cuddling with a woman. And I’ve never done this with someone I barely know. Yet, somehow, everything with Marley has felt right. I’m trying not to question it and trying to keep myself present. I’ve had more on my plate since her arrival, but I’ve felt better than I have in years. She hasn’t felt like a stranger since the first time she smiled at me. During one of my last conversations with my nan, she reached out to pat my chest and said, “Find someone who relaxes your heart, Benny.” Then she laughed softly and raised her hands to my forehead, running her fingers lightly across the frown lines I’d had since childhood. “And this forehead of yours.”
I feel the last bit of tension leave Marley’s body as sleep takes hold of her, and I resist the urge to let myself follow. I start making lists of things that I need to get done. The vet is scheduled for next week, so I should probably reach out about the road. While it will likely be fixed by the time the appointment rolls around, I’ll give him a heads-up. I’ve also got to follow up with the company I’ve hired to fence in one of the larger fields. I had hoped to have it done before winter, but at this rate it may be a spring project.
Marley sighs in her sleep, and I’m pulled away from my checklist. She smells like my shampoo, and there is something incredibly hot that I’ve claimed her with my hygiene products. I pull back a little bit to look down at her and take in how peaceful she looks. Most of the time she looks like she’s on high alert. Not so much like she’s about to run away, but she definitely is aware of what’s happening around her at all times. I can’t imagine having to be on guard constantly like that. I can feel my anxiety start to ramp up as I imagine how one wrong step could change everything. I have the sudden urge to hold her tighter and refuse to let go. But I do manage to slide myself away from her and walk as silently as I can from the room, allowing myself one more long glance at her sleeping form before I close the door.
I head to the living room to spend a bit of time with the dogs before heading to bed. My plan backfires, however, as I sit there and think about how she responded when I let them in the house. Her smile and then the way she looked up at me. I stared back at her, soaking in her attention, knowing it could fade just as fast. But we’d ended up locked in some dream-like staring sequence. I’d half expected some symphonic music to build the longer our gazes met. Now I’m flipping through my memory and trying to remember someone else smiling at me like that. Trying to remember wanting someone to smile at me like that.
Yogurt stands from where he was curled up on the armchair and stretches and makes his way over to me. Part of me wishes that the dogs didn’t respond to Marley the way they did. If they didn’t like her, this would be so much easier. Yogurt in particular seems to be taken with her, and he’s usually not quite as enthusiastic about new people as some of the other dogs are. But if someone asked me what I liked about Marley, I know the dogs liking her wouldn’t even make the list.
I sit there listening to the sleepy grunts and snores and think about what she said about her job. Learning about medicine was a passion for me, though I don’t know if practicing it would have been. Running a dog shelter had never been in the cards, and yet here I was living a dream I had never considered. Knowing my grandfather would be pissed was only a tiny piece of what made me love it so much. Marley was right, though, that I hadn’t really allowed myself to think about my usefulness. She made me see the nonverbal cues the dogs have been giving me for years. As I head up to bed, I wonder if she would ever see her own usefulness beyond her viewfinder again or figure out how to tap back into her humanity. Although, from where I’ve been sitting, it’s there, shining through. Maybe she just turns it off when she gets on a plane for work.