Stranded

The pit bull mix was trembling in the stainless steel tub, matted hair crusted with mud and what looked like motor oil. Elena worked the detangler spray through the knots, her hands remembering the rhythm of grooming even as her mind wandered to places it shouldn't.

"He's not yours anymore, is he?" Marcus asked from the front desk, not looking up from his phone.

"He was never mine," she said, though something in her chest twisted.

The front bell chimed. Elena's hands stilled. She knew that walk—the slight unevenness in the left step, the jingle of keys on a carabiner. She'd know it anywhere.

Sarah. The word tasted like copper.

Three years of silence since Elena had kissed Sarah's husband on what was supposed to be their girls' weekend in wine country. One mistake, one drunken lapse in judgment, and she'd lost the only person who'd ever truly known her.

"Hey, El," Sarah said, standing in the doorway looking older than Elena remembered. Grey threads threaded through her dark hair now. "Marcus said you could take Bruno?"

"Yeah." Elena's voice cracked. "You're—you're giving him up?"

Sarah's laugh was sharp and tired. "James left last month. Took the house, the savings, most of his dignity. I'm moving into a studio that doesn't allow dogs over thirty pounds. Bruno's eighty." She leaned against the doorframe. "He was Dan's dog, you know? James wanted nothing to do with him after. Funny how that works."

"Sarah—"

"Don't. Please." Sarah looked at the dog, then at Elena's hands buried in his fur. "I'm not here to rehash ancient history. I just need someone to take Bruno, and you're the only person I trust with animals. Even if you were the worst friend in the goddamn world."

The words landed precisely where they were meant to.

Elena kept brushing. "I'll take him."

"Good." Sarah turned to leave, then stopped. "He has separation anxiety. Chews his hair raw when he's alone too long. Can't imagine why." The bell chimed again as the door closed behind her.

Bruno whined, pressing his wet nose against Elena's wrist. She'd loved Sarah once, in that way that exists somewhere between friendship and something else. Before wine country, before James, before everything that couldn't be unsaid.

"It's just us now, buddy," she whispered, sliding her fingers through his damp coat. The hair came away in dark clumps, beneath which new growth was already beginning. Some things, she supposed, you could groom away. Others stayed knotted forever, just beneath the surface, waiting to be found again.