By Heart
an excerpt

“I like your dog,” I say with a cracked voice. Roscoe doesn’t notice but immediately crouches down and begins to scratch his back. I follow his lead and pat the dog’s head. He licks my hand. He’s always liked me.

“So, it’s October now,” Roscoe says without any trace of awkwardness. He looks up into the bright, cool sky.

“Yeah, it’s nice, isn’t it?” I respond naturally, trying not to think too much about the situation. The longer I am with him, the calmer I become. I sit down on the curb and his dog, Milo, follows me and lies down on my feet. The space between me and the mailbox is small but Roscoe decides to squeeze in anyways. I am staring at the street and my eyes widen in panic. I move over slightly. Even just the sleeve of his t-shirt brushing my shoulder is noticed. He reaches over to pat Milo and his arm brushes against mine and I feel every cell of contact.

My mind blanks for a moment, and then is suddenly filled with thoughts and images. Such a rush of emotion comes like a lake through a broken dam and crashes against the walls of my skull that I double over for a moment. Roscoe doesn’t notice as he is now staring at the house across the street because some squirrels are running in circles around its trunk. Milo perks his ears.

For all this time where I have been a void of emotion, ever since about a month after Roscoe returned from rehab, suddenly I am happy that he is back. That something is happening. That there is at least something instead of nothing inside of me. Even if it means never becoming intimate with someone else ever again, I am glad that I know that I can feel, that I can love, that I can long so strongly that it pains me physically. My eyes black out for a moment and I see nothing but my past, and then Roscoe bumps me with his shoulder and I return to the present. I blink several times rapidly and look over at him. He is grinning at me and my heart drops onto the pavement.