Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
It was late when Gayle let herself into the kennels.
She hadn't meant to come down. She'd been upstairs in her apartment trying to sleep. But sleep hadn’t come and the silence of the apartment had become unbearable. The only thing worse was the knowledge of what was sitting in the third kennel down from the back, waiting.
She flipped on only the soft overhead lights so she wouldn't wake the other dogs. Most of them were already curled up, sleeping. A few lifted their heads as she passed, then settled again. They knew her footsteps.
Presti was awake.
He was lying at the front of his kennel, chin on his paws, his eyes open and watching the door at the front of the building. The way he'd been all week. Even now, in the middle of the night, when no one was coming.
When she stopped in front of him, he turned his head slowly, hopefully.
Then his ears flattened slightly. Just her.
Gayle sank down to sit on the floor in front of his kennel. The concrete was cold through her jeans. She didn't care.
"Hey, buddy," she said quietly.
His tail thumped once against the kennel floor.
She'd done this to him.
She'd watched him bond with Corey. She'd sat at fundraisers and taken pictures she'd known were going to make him adoptable.
And then when an actual family came forward, the kind she'd told herself she wanted for him, she'd panicked and moved as quickly as she could, because if she didn't do it fast she might lose her nerve and admit she didn't want to do it at all.
She'd told herself it was about Corey's condo. About logistics and what was practical.
But sitting on the cold floor in front of Presti's kennel now, watching him stare past her at the door, she couldn't pretend anymore.
She'd done this because she'd been afraid.
Of what, exactly, she still couldn't entirely name. Of being loved maybe. Or of Corey choosing her and then realizing, the way Daniel had, that her life was too much. That she was too much.
She'd convinced herself that pushing him away first was a kindness. It would spare him from her chaos.
But it didn't feel like that now. Sitting here with a puppy who'd been waiting at his kennel door all week, who'd given up on the world but hadn't quite given up on his person yet, it just felt like the worst thing she'd ever done.
She reached through the bars of the kennel and stroked his ears.
He didn't lean into the touch the way he usually did. He just lay there, accepting it.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
His tail thumped again.
Gayle pressed her forehead against the cool metal of the kennel door and closed her eyes.
The Beaumonts were coming at noon. They were good people. Everything about the placement was right. At least on paper.
But sitting here, with this puppy who was clearly grieving, Gayle couldn't shake the feeling that she was about to send Presti to a house full of strangers when he belonged somewhere else.
He belonged in a small condo even if it was against the terms of a lease. He belonged with the person whose footsteps he'd been listening for all week.
She'd known that when she’d watched him interact with the Beaumonts and that night when he’d whined for hours.
She'd known it on Wednesday, when she'd stood in the Beaumonts' family room looking at the dog bed they'd already set up, and felt sick.
She'd known. She just hadn't let herself admit it.
Because if she admitted that Presti belonged with Corey, she'd also have to admit other things.
That Corey didn't seem to mind the chaos.
That he'd organized fundraisers and called HVAC repairmen and put up flyers around town because he'd wanted to, not because he was being polite.
That the way he looked at her wasn't the way Daniel had looked at her.
That every reason she'd given herself for pushing him away had been her own fear wearing a kinder face.
And if she let herself admit any of that, then what she'd done and what she was about to do tomorrow at noon, was wrong.
Presti shifted in his kennel and let out a long, quiet sigh.
She kept her hand on his ears.
"I don't know what to do," she said quietly.
Outside, the December wind pressed against the shelter windows. Inside, the heater clicked on. The shelter was warm and the animals were safe. And by this time tomorrow, Presti would be in a new home, with a new family, sleeping in a new bed.
Everything would be exactly the way she'd designed it.
And it would be unbearable.
Gayle sat on the floor in front of his kennel for a long time. Long enough that her legs started to go numb. She watched Presti look at the door, and she let herself feel, all the way down, the truth she'd been holding off for days.
She'd made a mistake. Two really.
She didn't know how to fix either of them. Would Corey even take her call, after everything? She didn't know how to talk to the Beaumonts' tomorrow and tell that lovely family she'd changed her mind.
But she knew, sitting here in the soft light of the kennels with a puppy who'd been waiting all week for someone she'd sent away, that she wasn't going to be able to live with what she was about to do.
Gayle finally pulled her hand back through the bars. Presti's eyes closed slowly and he finally drifted off for the night.
She stood, her legs stiff from the cold floor, and walked back toward the stairs to her apartment.