“Here,” I said, thrusting Brad toward him. I saw the Raptor recoil and I immediately liked him less, not that he was starting with a huge surplus, because Brad was clearly a very good boy.
“I’ll take him,” Mateo said, jumping in and taking the dog from me. He settled him in the crook of his arm and started scratching Brad’s belly, all the while looking at me like he was trying to figure out what was currently happening and why his normally silent stepsister was apparently losing her mind.
“Look,” the Raptor said, “I don’t have time for this—”
I burst into tears. Not quiet crying, with a single tear running down my cheek. Big, ugly, heaving sobs. I’d always been able to start crying at a moment’s notice. It was like there was an untapped reservoir of emotion just behind a door, and all I had to do was give it a nudge. “My puppy,” I sobbed.
“Oh my god,” the Raptor said, looking horrified.
“This is the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Alyssa whispered to Archie.
“I know. I wish we had popcorn.”
“Give her the dog back,” the Raptor said, sounding panicked.
I took a deep breath and then screamed for all I was worth, trying not to smile as I did so. You get to yell all the time when you’re acting, and there was just something so cathartic about it.
“Stop that!” the Raptor said, covering his ears as I started to cry again, this time in little shaky breathless sobs.
“I… need… my… emotional support animal…,” I gasped. Mateo widened his eyes at me as he handed me Brad, and the second that I had him in my arms, I stopped immediately, like a switch had just been flipped. I let out a breath, then smiled calmly at the Raptor, totally composed. “Thank you,” I said to Mateo, who was covering his mouth with both hands like he was trying to prevent himself from bursting into laughter.
“So are we good?” Archie called from the couch. “Inspection sorted?”
“Yeah,” the Raptor said, backing out of the room, looking horrified. He fumbled with the door handle, which seemed particularly ironic, given his nickname, and practically sprinted into the hall. “You guys are all set, just keep the noise down.”
He slammed the door behind him, and in the silence that followed, I suddenly started to feel embarrassed as I came back to myself again. This was why in plays, there was a curtain call—a moment to transition from pretending to being a regular person again.
“That was amazing,” Alyssa said as Archie started clapping. “Truly. How did you do that?” She frowned. “Wait, is that your emotional support animal?”
“No,” Mateo said with a laugh. “It’s my sister Mallory’s dog.” He looked at me and shook his head. “Impressive.”
“Thanks,” I said, brushing off my tears and hoping my eye makeup hadn’t smudged too much, very much wishing we could all go back to talking about something else. “So—”
“Oh, so you’re the actress,” Archie said. “That was brilliant.”
“I’m not an actress,” I said quickly. “I just do high school theater, that’s all.”
“Your dad’s always talking about how talented you are, but I figured that was just, you know, parent pride stuff,” Mateo said. “Clearly, he meant it.”
“What?” I asked, the word catching somewhere in my throat. My dad had never said anything of the sort to me, ever. And he’d never even made it to any of the Arcadia performances. Which was fine, I knew he was busy… but he always used to come. Somehow, since he moved, he couldn’t seem to travel the forty-five minutes back to Connecticut. And I’d given him the DVD of the performance, but if he’d watched it, he’d never told me what he thought.
“Right, now that that’s out of the way,” Alyssa said, jumping to her feet again, “what are we doing tonight? And does Brad live here now?”
“I’m afraid not,” Mateo said, and Alyssa’s face fell. “We might have been able to get away with that for the moment, but we can’t keep a dog. Stephanie here only got stuck with him because she got locked out of my sister’s apartment.”
“Right,” I said. Now that the Raptor was gone, the reality of the situation was returning to me—I’d barged in on Mateo’s Friday night for no reason and was still no closer to getting into the apartment. “Actually, would you mind if I made a call from your phone? Maybe Mallory’s super is back.”