The Dog Who Knew

The multivitamin bottle sat on her kitchen counter, expiration date approaching like a deadline she kept ignoring. Sarah stared at it while waiting for her coffee to brew, thinking how friendship, like vitamins, was something you needed to maintain daily—small doses, consistent effort, not just when deficiency set in.

But she'd been deficient for months now.

Her dog Buster padded into the kitchen, nails clicking against linoleum. At twelve, he moved slower, but his eyes still held that desperate devotion that made her chest ache. He was the only witness to her mornings, her evenings, the long hours she spent running on the treadmill at 2 AM when insomnia made a mockery of sleep.

"You're a better friend than I deserve," she whispered, scratching behind his ears.

The phone rang. Elena.

Sarah hesitated. Three months ago, she'd stopped answering. The same week she'd learned Elena was sleeping with Mark, the same week she'd requested the transfer to Chicago, the same week she'd started running until her lungs burned.

"Hello?" The word came out rusty, unused.

"Sarah?" Elena's voice cracked. "He's gone. Mark left. Just... packed his things while I was at work yesterday."

The silence stretched between them, carrying years of unspoken words.

"I'm sorry," Sarah said, and she meant it. The surprising thing was how little satisfaction she felt. No vindication. No justice. Just two women who'd chosen the same wrong man, now both alone.

"Could you come home? Just for the weekend?" Elena asked. "I can't be in this house alone."

Buster pressed his wet nose against Sarah's hand. She looked at the vitamin bottle, the coffee maker, the life she'd built in Chicago—careful, controlled, solitary.

"I'll catch the morning flight," she said.

After she hung up, she took a vitamin. Just one. Small dose. She could learn to do this daily again. Buster wagged his tail, as if he understood that sometimes you had to stop running and stay put long enough for something to grow.