SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
“So?” Craig asks, his head snapping up as I exit the consultation room. “What’s the verdict?”
I’m pretty sure he can work it out well enough for himself, just from the look on my face. The vet’s words are beating at my skull, and I can’t make them stop. I also can’t bear the thought of having to repeat them. Crossing the small waiting area, past the reception desk, I drop heavily onto the plastic chair beside him and shove the sheet of paper I’m crumpling into his hand.
He drops his gaze to it, scanning over it. Studies it, staying silent and staring for far longer than the list of text and figures warrants. Until, finally, “Shit, Bas,” he blinks back up at me.
“Yeah.”
When Ashleigh called me, even as she told me Dobby had been found, I could immediately hear in her tone that the news wasn’t without a sickening twist. I anticipated the worst, and honestly, once she’d disclosed the whole of it, my relief was overwhelming. The mutt’s alive; there’s nothing else matters more than that. But now, all that I’m feeling is drained and utterly powerless. Because he’s hurt — bad. Apparently, the last two insurance payments for him bounced. He’s not covered by the farm’s livestock policy, so this is wholly on me, and I’ve got squat.
Some absolute bastard hit Dobby with their car and didn’t bother to stop. His hind legs have taken the worst damage, especially his left, although it’s the deep gash along his side that’s most immediately concerning. He’s lost a lot of blood. The vet has already stitched him up, a charge which pushed the limit of my emergency credit card. I’ve been assured he’s now stable, but it’s not nearly enough.
Lyndsay’s the one who found him. Thanks to Craig, putting the word out through Alex. She spotted a post about him on some Yoverton social media page and made contact with the poster. His collar was missing, and who knows how long he’d been there, left on the roadside halfway to Totnes. The concerned passersby had refused to allow the injured and bleeding animal in their car, but they’d stayed until Craig got to them. And Ashleigh’s the one who was first notified. Due to my mindless finger-pointing of blame, he couldn’t bring himself to tell me directly. Yet another screw-up I feel guilty for.
Craig had already got Dobby here, in with the vet, when I arrived. I tried to send him away, the crimson staining his white shirt making my head swim. He refused and, instead, stubbornly took a seat in the waiting room, where, two and a half hours later, he’s now holding the itemised bill for my best friend’s life.
“I’m cut off,” he says, slamming me thoroughly off-guard.
“You’re—?”
“Totally cut off.” Hunching forward, elbows propping on his knees and the paper loosely held between his thighs, he’s no longer turned to me. He nods at his feet. “I just couldn’t… not anymore. Not after…” His jaw ticks, lips pulling tight. “I hit Gary. Then grassed him up to the Principal. For everything. In front of our parents. I came out to them, and I stormed out on them. It’s kind of a blur. But now… Now, I have no home, no money… Nothing.”
“Shit, Craig.”
He huffs out a bitter laugh. “Yeah.”
I have so many questions; so much more needs saying. This is something worthy of my distraction. It’s something well beyond any of the speculations I lost sleep to last night. I lean in beside him, nudging my foot against his. He slides me the barest glance. But before I can even begin to wonder where the hell I should start, the shock of his hand closing over mine is almost enough to have me flinching away. And he almost withdraws.
Except, I’m not about to let him do that. My palm flips under his, our fingers lacing. He’s so warm, and I can feel him tense on a sharp intake of breath as I press my weight against him, shoulder-to-shoulder. “Are you okay?”
His head dips lower, and he shakes it. “I could’ve helped, Bas,” he says, fisting the invoice in his free hand. “I really want to help. And this, it wouldn’t have been a problem if—”
“Craig—”
“If only I thought things through before acting, then none of this—”
“Craig, no!” I cut him off again, my hold tightening perhaps a little too much. The crack in his voice is what snaps me. “Stop.”
He’s frowning at our entwined fingers between us as if my squeeze is the first he consciously registers the touch. He doesn’t let go, though. Blood is caked beneath his thumbnail, and I’m swift to jump my focus back to his face.
“None of this is your fault,” I’m careful to keep my voice even. “I was wrong to make you feel like it was, okay?”
“Sure.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
We both fall into a strained silence then, hands joined and arms flush. The pulse in his wrist beats alongside mine, his every slight movement pricking my awareness. I hate the sensation of being out of my depth, and it hasn’t escaped my notice that he’s yet to give me an actual answer to my question. He closes his eyes, shutting me out and losing himself to his own private thoughts. My attention drifts inevitably back to the consultation room’s closed door. Knowing Dobby’s somewhere behind it, in a room beyond that one, drugged into an oblivious sleep — so near, yet so very far — kills me over and over again in a never-ending loop.
The receptionist clears her throat and taps busily at her keyboard. The phone is bleating beside her, and she picks up the call without a pause to her work. A guy is sitting across from us, his face covered in tattoos and piercings, with six cats in six separate carriers. Wearing neon green headphones, I haven’t seen him lift his head once from his iPad. And a few chairs along from him, an older lady desperately tries to keep her yapping Chihuahua under control. Posters are plastered over every wall, from medical advice to missing pets. I should call Ashleigh, update her, although there’s little enough I can say.
I’m just about to pull my phone from my pocket when Craig’s head suddenly bolts up, his eyes locking on mine, so close that I can see the flecks of silver in them. “Scotty,” he says.
“What?”
“Scotty. He’s our answer.”
That name rings an instant and discordant bell inside my head. “What?” I repeat.
I know with absolute certainty that I won’t at all like where he’s headed with this, and on his very next breath, he confirms it. “Roxy is the one thing the prick wants that he can’t have.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.” My head shakes.
“He’s got notes enough to burn, Bas. And this is Dobby we’re talking about here. I could have the cash probably within the next hour.”
“No.”
“It’s a guaranteed bet. One short call. That’s—”
“No!”
“She… it’s a car, Sebastian. Just a fucking car.”
“Absolutely not!” I rip my hand from his, and the wounded look he fails to hide from me stabs an acute pain through my gut. But, no. Damnit, what the actual fuck is he thinking? “This is not on you to fix, you dolt, haven’t you been listening? You’ve done enough already, Craig. You’ve sacrificed enough for me already. Christ!”
His expression hardens in a blink. “What have I sacrificed for you, huh? Seriously, what? Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for myself. And right now, you dolt , you don’t get to tell me that I should do nothing when I know I can do something !”
The scrunched bill is tossed roughly back at me, and as he makes to stand, I seize his arm. “If you give up that fucking car of yours—” my grip’s a vice— “I’ll never forgive you, Craig, and that’s a promise. Dobby’s going to be fine. I’ll fight for him just as I always have done. We’ll think of another way, trust me.”
He yanks himself free of me, jolting to his feet and taking a step away. “I need some air.”
I can’t make Craig stay with me any more than I could make him leave in the first place. But if he thinks there’s even the remotest chance I’d consider accepting money from him, no matter how he came by it, he’s sorely mistaken. Crowdfunding is an option, or the vet mentioned a possible payment plan. Judy will help as much as she can, although I’d hate to ask it of her, and Ashleigh’s a genius at problem-solving under pressure. There’s absolutely no way in hell I’m letting him take the burden of this on top of everything else he’s dealing with, however much he might be aggrieved by it.
The receptionist glances up at him as he passes, flashing a warm smile. I don’t know if he returns it. His shoulders are taut, his stride purposeful, and it’s an unsettling feeling, the acute chill of his absence even as he’s still in the room with me.
“Hey, Craig,” I halt him at the automatic doors leading out. “It’s brave, what you’ve done, you know? You should be proud.”
“Yeah,” he replies, “I am.” And then he disappears.