Chapter 55
Haiyden
It’s been five months and twelve days since she left. I know it before I even open my eyes. I’ve been counting—each day another brick stacked onto a wall I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to climb down from. But today, I don’t have it in me to add another. I just… can’t.
So I keep my eyes closed. I reach for my phone instead, my hand sweeping across my sheets until I find it. Cold. Familiar. I curl my fingers around it and exhale.
She changed her number when she left.
I tried calling—again and again—like an idiot, like I could somehow reach her through the sheer force of wanting. But the calls don’t go through. They haven’t for months.
Still, I hit the button every now and then.
Knowing it’s useless. Knowing no one’s on the other end.
I do it anyway, though. Some twisted ritual. A guilty habit. A last-ditch fantasy that maybe, just once, her voice will come through the static.
Like none of it ever happened. Like she never really left .
But I know that day isn’t today.
I finally open my eyes and stretch, reaching toward the small body curled beside me. I breathe into her messy hair and wrap around her, knowing it won’t be enough.
She sighs, shifting a little, and I let her go.
I stand, pull a shirt from the dresser, and slide it on. When I glance back at the bed, she’s still in her usual spot.
I huff. “Come on, Margot. We have to get up.”
The blankets rustle. Slowly, my tiny but mighty terrier peeks out, giving me a half-lidded stare like she’s questioning my entire existence. A mirror of me not that long ago—sluggish, unimpressed. Sleepy, with an attitude.
I grab a pair of socks and sit down beside her, tugging them on. The second I finish, her tail starts wagging like I’ve finally passed some unspoken test.
She crawls into my lap and curls up tight, like this is what she’s been waiting for all along.
I run a hand over her head and let my mind wander. Backward.
Like it always does.
The first few weeks after Calla left were dark.
Darker than dark.
I started losing control again—of everything, everyone, including myself. I drank. Stopped going to work. Locked myself in my room and let myself rot.
I deserved it.
It was my punishment.
Chase tried checking on me, but I kept the door locked, answering with nothing more than a grunt or a low moan—just enough to let him know I was still alive.
But I wasn’t. Not in any way that counted.
I don’t even remember the last time I spoke out loud.
Maybe it was the day I realized she was gone—when I showed up at her apartment and saw yesterday’s coffee, yesterday’s pastry, yesterday’s butterfly.
When I screamed her name through the door, begging her to open up.
That was it. That was the last thing I said: her name, wrapped in panic.
Maybe it was all I deserved.
At some point, I moved the ZZ plant.
Couldn’t stand waking up to it—alive, thriving—like life went on without her. Like the world didn’t stop for me.
So I tucked it away. Set it on the bookshelf, right next to the origami. Right next to the photo of me and Willow.
That’s where it belongs now. With the memories.
Weeks passed like that.
Then one morning, I woke up to Chase pounding on my door, his fist shaking the frame.
I shoved a pillow over my head. Didn’t help.
“I swear to God, Haiyden, if you don’t open this door, I will break it down.”
His usual charm was gone—no jokes, no sarcasm. Just steel.
“Go away, Chase,” I mumbled.
Silence. Then a sudden, heavy thud—his whole body slamming against the door.
I rolled over, face to the mattress, pillow back over my head .
Another crash. “Jesus, man.”
The door frame groaned, but it held.
I heard him stomp off. Thought I was in the clear, that he’d given up. But seconds later, keys jingled. The lock clicked.
The door swung open, and light poured in—like a knife to my skull.
I squinted as Chase stepped into view, breathless and pissed, surveying the wreckage. Without a word, he flicked on the overhead light. My head throbbed. I groaned, dragging the pillow back over my head.
“First of all,” he said, voice flat. “It’s fucking disgusting in here.”
I heard him moving through the room, probably clocking the half-empty bottles, the clothes on every surface, the takeout containers crusted over on my nightstand.
“Second of all—get dressed. We have somewhere to be.”
I didn’t move. “Not happening.”
The mattress dipped near my hip as he leaned in.
“Yeah, see, no. You don’t really have a leg to stand on here, Haiyden,” he said, yanking the pillow from my head and the blanket from my body.
“I’ve been covering your shift for weeks.
I’m paying your half of the rent. And on top of all that, I’m trying really fucking hard to keep my cool while you sit here drinking yourself into oblivion and won’t even tell me why. ”
He crouched beside the bed, forearms on his knees. No teasing grin. Just exhaustion—and something that looked a lot like fear.
Out of nowhere, he slapped me. Hard.
It stunned me. Stung like hell.
“I need you to get up,” he said quietly. “Because I promise you—you do not want to see me actually pissed off. And I’m close.”
I paused, weighing my options. But something in his voice told me he wasn’t bluffing. So I sat up, rubbing my face.
“Where the fuck are we going?”
He stood and went straight to my dresser, rifling through drawers until he tossed a t-shirt, jeans, and a clean pair of briefs onto the bed. Hard.
“Car. Twenty minutes,” he said, already walking toward the door. “And shower. You smell like shit.”
So I did.
And we drove.
He took me to the fucking shelter.
I stared at the building through the windshield of Chase’s car, my fingers tugging anxiously at the frayed hem of my t-shirt.
My stomach twisted with nerves. I didn’t look at him—but I didn’t need to. I could feel his patience thinning.
“You’re not leaving until you pick one,” he said, killing the engine.
I let out a dry, almost mocking laugh. “I can’t even take care of myself. What makes you think I can take care of an animal?”
He sighed, rubbing a hand down his face like he was already tired of me.
Believe me, buddy, I’m tired of me too.
“Well, if you’re not going to talk to me, maybe you’ll talk to the dog.”
He stayed at the front when we walked in. Based on the warm greeting from the woman at the front desk, he was in better company there anyway.
A middle-aged woman with an overly enthusiastic smile led me to the back, walking me through rows of kennels.
The air was different there—colder. Sterile. It smelled like a cleaner trying to cover up something older, lived in.
It wasn’t the kind of place you come to find peace.
But here I was.
The barking rang in my ears, but all I heard was the silence between. Heavy. Pressing. Loud.
The walls were lined with cages, each one holding a pair of eyes that ranged from hopeful to hopeless. Some dogs ran toward the gate, tails wagging, desperate for attention. Others huddled in corners, flinching at every sound, trembling at the sound of our footsteps.
Resigned to their fate.
I couldn’t connect with the hopeful ones.
But the broken ones? They hit too close to home.
A few barked their throats raw, pleading.
I walked past them all, trying to ignore the guilt, but with each step, the weight in my chest grew heavier—pressing into my lungs like I’d never be able to breathe right again.
They were all lost. Just like me.
Each dog felt like a mirror—desperate, empty-eyed, waiting for someone who might never come.
When we reached the last kennel, something stopped me cold.
The dog wasn’t like the others. She wasn’t pacing or crying. Wasn’t cowering in the corner.
She wasn’t asking for attention, but she wasn’t afraid of it either.
The others begged—strained at the bars for affection.
Her eyes held something different. Complacency, maybe.
Whatever it was, she wasn’t trying to win me over. And somehow, that felt like the most honest thing in the room.
She was curled in the center of the kennel, with fur sticking out in every direction—scrappy and unkempt. Her tan coat was mottled with darker patches, but it was the markings around her eyes that caught my attention.
Dark, arched eyebrows that made her look permanently skeptical.
Like she was trying to decide whether the world was worth trusting again.
I can relate.
My throat tightened. “What’s wrong with that one?”
The woman in the shelter-branded polo glanced at the dog, then at her clipboard, then back at me.
“Margot? She was abandoned.”
I swallowed hard.
We have that in common.
“She was a gift. A family thought their grandmother needed some company, but the woman passed…” She paused.
“Margot was alone. She laid by her side for days. Wouldn’t leave her.
I think the neighbors called for a wellness check when they hadn’t seen her outside for a few days. They all loved Margot.”
She cleared her throat before adding, “The family didn’t want to take her. Said it was too painful. So… they brought her here.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
“Can I sit with her?” I asked, my voice rough— like the question had been dragged out of me before I even knew I was going to speak.
The woman hesitated, then nodded. “Sure, but don’t expect much.”
The latch clicked. I stepped inside, carefully lowering myself onto the cold concrete. Margot lifted her head, expression unreadable. A little disinterested, maybe, but not entirely.
There was something underneath it, though—something guarded and familiar.
The same distrust I saw in the mirror every morning.
She didn’t move at first. Just watched me. Studied me.
Her eyes stayed locked on mine as she finally stood, every movement slow and deliberate—like she’d learned that hesitation was safer than blind trust.
I knew that lesson by heart.
She stopped just short of me, pausing like she was waiting for proof I was safe.
I held still. Barely breathed. Let her decide.
And then she moved. Just a little. Just enough.