The Beginning of After - By Jennifer Castle Page 0,38

this to Eve,” I said, waving the yellow paper.

“That’s me,” she said, reaching out to take it. She glanced at the notes and her lower lip jutted out, turned down. “Poisoning is rough. But you’re in good hands.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want me to run up an estimate of the costs?”

The costs.

Before I knew it I was crying again.

“Oh God, please don’t cry . . . ,” said the girl. “It’s going to be okay. There are ways we can help if it’s a financial burden.”

I sniffled and shook my head. “No, it’s not that. I mean, it is a little. But mostly I just feel so awful. This isn’t even my dog, but it’s my fault he got sick, so of course I should—”

“This isn’t your dog?” Eve asked, a new concern drawn on her face. She had long blond bangs that half-covered her eyes.

“Not officially. I . . . He lives with me, but he’s not . . .” I looked at Eve, who was listening, confused and interested. She did not know me or David or what had happened. This was why I’d come here. I realized it was the first time since losing my family that I was with people who didn’t know about the accident, which felt frustrating and freeing all at once.

“His owner can’t take care of him at the moment . . . ,” I finally continued, steadying myself. “So I took him in for a while.”

Eve’s wariness turned into a big smile, like now I was speaking her language. “Good for you,” she said approvingly. She stared at me for another few seconds and then said, “Hey, I don’t know if you’re looking for a job or anything, but we need someone to help out in the office for the summer. We have a current student, but she’s leaving next week.”

I stood frozen for a moment. A job?

“Or maybe you know someone. I was going to post something at the high school today. It’s just a few hours a week. I’m not sure how much time you have.”

I thought of Nana in the car and Meg at school and the wide, unstructured expanse of my bed. Then I asked, “Can you tell me more about what it involves?”

i want to c u! can i come dwn?

I texted Meg as soon as Nana and I got home. The sky had gone white and the air was hanging heavy in preparation for something. But after my morning, the punch of seeing Masher suffering and having to leave him at the vet’s, and then arranging to come in on Monday to start training as a summer office assistant, I didn’t feel like staying in the house.

r u kidding? get here asap! came the text back from Meg.

“Is it okay if I go over to Meg’s?” I asked Nana. Her eyes brightened. They had already sparkled a little when I’d asked her permission to start working at the vet’s. Anything that got me out into the world again, doing stuff, apparently caused some kind of power surge inside her.

“Of course. Just call me if you think you’ll be awhile.”

I nodded and headed down the hill to her house.

It was the first time since the accident that I’d walked the distance between our house and the Dills’, instead of driving, and it hit me: It’s summer. It had still been spring when my family died, the trees just starting to swell again, the grass patchy. Now, just seven weeks later, a thick fabric of green draped the houses in my neighborhood and fell in clumps along both sides of the road I’d walked so many times in my life. The wind blew everything this way and that, the buzz of cicadas rising and falling with the same rhythm. I was used to noticing scenery and landscapes because of my Drama Club painting. This time, it was like the landscape was noticing me.

I thought of Masher. Part of me wondered if he had done it on purpose, eaten the rat poison—probably at a neighbor’s house on one of his late-night outings—just to spite me into snapping out of it. It was as if he was saying, Therapy’s great and all that, but at some point you’re going to have to start paying attention to stuff.

Like my best friend.

When I got to Meg’s, I opened the back door and called for her, then walked in through the kitchen and past the cozy breakfast nook under which loopy embroidered letters spelled out