Page 36 of Home Between Homes

“I hear you.” Jack planted a soft kiss on my head. “Itisunfair, Noah. I’m so sorry.”

I lifted my head and looked at him. “Thank you for listening and not judging me.”

“Why would I judge you?”

His gentle smile made me want to melt.How could he be so kind and understanding? How could I be so lucky that I met him again?And why does it have to end this soon already?Our lips met in a soothing kiss. My situation wasn’t any different, but it felt less of a burden now.

I smiled at him as our lips parted. “Well, that’s the whole truth about how I ended up with the FDA job. I needed to do the adult thing. Pay off my debts and move on somehow. So the desk job it was.”

“Thank you for sharing this with me. It means a lot that you trust me so much.”

“Of course I trust you. You’ve been nothing but kind to me.”

I stared into his eyes, wondering if his story was similar to mine.Was it okay to ask?We had already proven that we could be vulnerable with each other. If there was ever a time for vulnerability, it was now. “Why didn’t you become a vet?”

He looked off into the distance before looking back at me and shaking his head. “This evening has been sad enough.” His eyebrows knitted together. “It doesn’t matter.”

The thing I was most certain of about Jack was that he always looked out for others while not considering himself as equally important. Whatever he was hiding had to weigh heavily on his shoulders.

“It’s your life. Of course, it matters. Just by looking at you, I know you’re still hurting. I don’t care if it’s sad.”

Jack pressed his lips into a thin line and tilted his head to the side as if his eyes were a bucket of water that would overflow if he wasn’t careful.

I grabbed his head and pulledhimtomyshoulder for a change. “I can only offer to listen like you did for me. But if you really don’t want to talk, we can... justbe.”

Even though Jack had allowed me to guide his chin to my collarbone, there was still some resistance in his neck. It took half a minute for it to melt away. “I like to ‘just being’with you,” he said, dipping his nose deeper into me.

“Me too.”

Another minute of silence and holding each other before he lifted his head just enough for his mouth to be free to speak. “I still remember the dog that gave me my love for animals. It was my aunt’s border collie, Lucky. Whenever we went to her house, I would play with Lucky for hours until I was so tired that I fell asleep in his fur—every single time. I loved the dog so much that I wanted to visit her every weekend. I became so obsessed that my parents stopped taking me for over a month to calm me down. So you can imagine what a shock it was when we went the next time, and Lucky wasn’t there.He had gone to a better place,they told me, and I didn’t understand. What place could be better than my aunt’s house? She had a big backyard with the woods right behind it. She loved the dog more than I think she loved our family. It made no sense to me. I cried for an hour when we got home that night. But young as I was, I let it go eventually. At least Lucky was happy, I told myself.”

He took a deep breath and collected himself. I got it. I could already sense that we weren’t even close to what was eating him up.

He cleared his throat. “A few days later, I started asking whywecouldn’t adopt a dog, but that was quickly shut down when my dad told me he was allergic. I was so depressed that my momhad an idea. There was an animal shelter in town, and they had a program where, every Sunday, you could take one of the rescued dogs for an hour’s walk so they didn’t spend all their time in their cages. It was probably more to allow people to see if they could maybe connect with the animal, but still, even though we never adopted one, it was a good thing.”

“At least the dogs got a little bit of love.”

“Exactly. I walked all of them as if they were my own. Bruno, Jasper, Lucy... I still remember their names because after I came a few times, they seemed to remember me and were just as happy to see me as I was. I...” Jack paused for a moment. “I was so happy when I came, and one of them was gone, and they told me they’dgone to a better place.” His voice broke. “I didn’t understand that sentence until I was twenty-two, and I feel so stupid for it.”

His chest shook as he breathed heavily, trying to hold back the tears. He pressed his palms deep into me, clinging to my body as if trying to hold on to the memories of the lost dogs.

“When… when I was older, I started volunteering at the shelter to do a little more than just walk the dogs. They had a vet they worked with, and soon, I was thinking about it as a career. I researched it with my mom, applied, got in, and was on the fast track to becoming a veterinarian. I joined a pre-vet club, worked in animal care, and continued to volunteer at the shelter. The vet then offered to let me shadow him and do an internship while I finished my undergraduate degree. Vet schools love that, so of course, I took him up on it. In the beginning, it was even better than I thought it would be. Lots of work for the shelter, local stables, and farmers, but also office hours for pet owners. I met a lot of nice people and their cute cats, dogs, hamsters and so on. It was a Wednesday in the sixth week of my internship. One of the dogs, an old Labrador, was already very slow when his owner, a very sweet man in his seventies, brought him in. Itwas obvious that the only thing they had was each other. The dog was nearly blind, incontinent, and would only eat if fed. Only two options: very expensive drugs that wouldn’t do more than suppress the pain, or...” He shook his head.

“Oh, Jack.” I held him as close as I could.

Tears rolled down his face, and no more words were needed. This was one of the sad truths of the profession. It wasn’t an everyday thing, but something that could weigh heavily on our minds.

I tried to rest my eyes on the Christmas tree lights, but my vision also became blurred, so I closed them.

“I watched the whole thing, Noah. I watched the old man cry over his dog’s last breath, and it wasn’t until he said,‘Well, he’s gone to a better place now,’that I understood those words. It was like the sky crashed down on me. All the dogs I loved... they wereall gone, forever. After the old man left, the vet told me I had to get used to it. It was only a matter of time before I would do something like this. But I couldn’t, Noah. That day, my dream died with all those dogs.”

Jack cried in my arms.

I tried my best to keep my composure, but after a minute, I was crying too. I felt his sadness with him as he felt mine with me. It was hard but cleansing at the same time. I didn’t know how long it took, but eventually, the tears stopped, like everything else.

We simply swayed in each other’s arms like trees in the wind. Our breaths became the new music to which we danced.

After five minutes of not crying and just being together, Jack lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes were red, but they seemed relieved. A small smile played on his lips as he looked at the record player. “Shall we turn the music back on?”

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