The Dog Days of August

The cable guy found me in the kitchen, eating cereal straight from the box at 2 PM. I'd been hiding from the silence all week—since Mark packed his things and left, leaving behind his dog, his baseball cards, and me.

"Box is on the porch," I said, pointing with my spoon.

He was young, maybe twenty-two, with the kind of face that still believed in things. As he worked behind the television, Einstein—Mark's elderly Golden Retriever, named because he was smart, not because he looked smart—watched him with the intensity of a creature who understood that entertainment was essential to survival.

"Your boyfriend around?" the cable guy asked.

"Ex."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. He's not dead."

"Sometimes that's worse," the kid said, and I almost dropped my cereal bowl.

When he left, the cable worked again. I watched baseball highlights for three hours, the same plays repeating, the same outcomes predetermined, the comfort of ritual. Baseball was the first thing Mark and I had bonded over—that Fenway Park dates were cheaper than dinners, that we both loved the stupid mathematics of it.

Einstein whined at the back door. He wanted to go swimming in the complex pool, even though dogs weren't allowed. Mark had always snuck him in after midnight, and for the first time, I understood why. Sometimes you just need to break something small to feel like you're still alive.

At 2 AM, I carried Einstein past the gate. He swam joyless laps while I sat on the edge, dangling my feet in the water, thinking about the difference between a friend and a lover, and how sometimes you lost both at once.

The next morning, I called Mark's sister. "Tell him he can come get his dog," I said. "Or I will."

Because that's the thing about heartbreak—it doesn't kill you. It just leaves you with cable you don't watch, baseball you can't enjoy, and a swimming pool full of strangers. Eventually, you have to choose: drown or dog-paddle your way back to shore.