save up for first and last month’s rent, I’d have to quit my job at the animal hospital to get another one that pays better. I could move in with someone, like Jasmyn’s friend, but then I’d only party all the time. And for sure I’d end up dropping out of school. And then what?
I turn onto a side street to take a shortcut. This car speeds past and—SPLAT!—a squirrel appears from beneath the tire. I can’t believe it! It’s horrifying! A black blob is lying on the road about twenty metres up ahead, and just as I’m about to rush out to see if I can help it, I see this little baby squirrel, all patchy fur and twitchy tail, tentatively move toward the body. It pauses and then approaches slowly to nudge the mother with its little nose. It pokes and nudges and steps back, then climbs right on top of her and nudges more, carefully inspecting. An approaching car scares it away up a tree, but then it comes back again, climbing up on her.
“Ooohhhh!” I shout, and hurry my pace, worried that the baby will get run over too. When I reach the body, the baby runs up the tree again and waits on a low branch, watching me inspect the remains: eyes bulging out, lower body squashed, blood coming out of its bum. Totally dead.
I don’t want to touch it, but I don’t know how to move it, so I end up pushing it along the ground with my foot to the gutter. I look up to the baby, who is now halfway down the trunk, watching me closely. Poor thing. But what can I do?
I step back and let the baby examine its mother’s dead body once more. It nudges and pokes with its nose, climbs on top again, and sort of sits there. Another car whips past, but it doesn’t scurry back up the tree ’cause it’s safely by the curb now. I watch the baby for about ten minutes before I walk away. It’s the saddest thing to see. The baby just doesn’t understand what happened to its mother. And it won’t leave the useless carcass because it doesn’t know what to do without her.
I decide to walk the extra few blocks to the subway station. Mother Nature has a funny way of sending me messages. It’s not the first time something coincidental has happened to me like this. It’s strange, because just before the squirrel got hit I was starting to think about my mom and having to tell her about the group home, and I was imagining how upset she’d be. Even though I make her life hell, I think deep down she knows she’d be lost without me. I was thinking I’d feel too guilty to leave her alone and then—BAM!— this baby loses its mama but it can’t let her go, even when it must in order to survive.
Forty-Four
For some reason I get all clingy with Fortune. I hate losing control and I hate myself for being that way. Even when I’m doing it, I’m aware that I’m being an idiot, but I just can’t stop myself. It’s like I have this addiction, this yearning in the pit of my stomach that needs its hourly fix. I call him a thousand times a day, I walk by his house hoping to bump into him, I email him and text him. The more I do all this, the less he wants to see me. And even though I know this, I still do it.
My thoughts are crazy. I think he’s found someone else. I think he’s avoiding me. I think he doesn’t like me anymore. One afternoon I wait outside his house till he gets home and then I show up at his door and basically jump him. I give him such amazing sex he’s bound to want me more. Then, when he goes to shower, he leaves his jeans on the floor and I get the phone out of the pocket to check his text messages. It’s just what I thought: full of messages from girls. Baby. Honey. Miss you babe. Want you. Kiss …
When he comes back, I confront him, holding the phone up in the air, reciting the messages. He grabs it out of my hand and starts erasing.
“Don’t bother! I’ve already seen them!”
He whips the phone down onto the bed and then pauses a second, like he’s thinking about what to say next. Then he