in his pockets and stared down at his Converse as he walked, while I tended to admire the scenery and the stars.
“Yeah,” I grimaced.
I had a whole paper due on the War of 1812, and I hadn’t done anything.
In fact, the only thing I knew about the war was that it had happened in 1812. If Milo and I had been on better speaking terms, I’d probably go home and bug him about it until he just gave in and did it for me.
“So what time do you have to be home?” He kicked a stone with his foot, reminding me very much of a little boy who had just been told he’d have to go to bed early because he’d been bad.
“I don’t know. Before midnight, I guess.” That really wasn’t that much earlier than when I normally went home, but Jack sighed and grumbled something unintelligible. “What?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled, still looking at the ground.
“Did you have some big plans for tonight?” I asked, trying to figure out what had him so depressed. I was the one that had to get up at seven in the morning, not him.
“No. I just don’t like it when things are finite.” He sighed again, then looked up at the sky. That seemed to comfort him, since the stars were completely endless.
“That’s kind of weird,” I commented. Milo had a phobia of wet sand, and Jane hated the word kumquat (it sounded too perverse, even for her), but it was pretty strange to dislike anything that had a definite ending. “Everything ends.”
“I know. I mean, we don’t hang out forever anyway. It’s just…” He shook his head, then stared off at the Basilica of St. Mary. It was this huge, beautiful cathedral, and we could just see the top of it, arched out into the sky above the trees. “Mae wanted to get married there.”
“What?” I asked, confused by his sudden topic change.
“My brother’s wife.” He nodded at the church. “But Ezra didn’t want to.”
“Why not?” It was a stunning piece of architecture, so I understood the urge to marry there. I personally wouldn’t want to, but most of the time, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to get married. It felt really traditional, and I wasn’t sure exactly what traditions I wanted to uphold.
“They’re not Catholic, for one thing.” There was more to the story, but Jack seemed hesitant to tell me about it. I couldn’t imagine what telling me about his brother’s wedding could implicate, so I just waited for him to finish.
Finally, he continued, “It just didn’t seem right. It was Mae’s second marriage.
So they found something else, and it worked out better anyway.”
“How long have they been married?”
“I’m not really sure,” he shrugged.
“Its colder than I thought.” Pulling my hoodie tighter around me, I shivered. Jack glanced over at me, and he didn’t seem even slightly bothered by the cold. Nothing really seemed to bother him, except my bedtime.
“Do you want my sweatshirt?” He started pulling on his sleeve, like he was going to take it off, but I held up my hand to stop him.
“No, I’m okay.” Since he had actually bothered to put on something warmer today, I knew it must’ve been for a reason. I wasn’t about to take it from him because I thought my jacket was ugly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I insisted. Flipping up the hood over my head, I smiled up at him. “See? Fine.”
“If you say so.” Jack had started pulling down his sleeve, so he adjusted it back to normal. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“I know,” Jack said, sounding a little exasperated. “You never change your mind about anything.”
“You haven’t known me for that long,” I scoffed. “How can you be so sure?”
“I’m just very certain of things,” he replied simply. That was true enough.
He didn’t always have an answer for everything, but the things he knew, he really knew. I was about to ask him what the deal was with his sixth sense about everything, but then his head shot up sharply. “Watch out.”
“Watch out for what?” I tried to keep my voice even, but the instant he got nervous, I was terrified. He had stepped in front of me to shield from me something, but I peered around him, looking into the dark for some lurking danger.
Then I saw it. At first, I thought it was a giant grizzly bear barreling towards us, but then it ran underneath a lamp on the path, and I saw it was just a massive brown dog. There was a dog park on the other side of the park, so I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if Jack hadn’t been on such high alert.
“It’s just a dog!” I told him, hoping that would somehow relax him.
“I know what it is,” Jack hissed. He seemed to be debating something, probably whether or not he should run or stay put, but the dog was approaching quickly, making his decision for him. “Ah, hell.”
The dog snarled at us, but it never even slowed down. Drool and slobber spewed from its mouth, and its eyes had this crazed, intense look I had never seen on an animal before. Without any provocation, it suddenly lunged at Jack.
He held one arm behind him, trying to protect me more from the dog, and he held his other arm in front of him, using his forearm to block the attack. The dog latched on it with a loud crunching sound that made my blood curdle, and I screamed. With one swift movement, Jack whipped his hand around, grabbing the dog by the back of the neck.
“Go back to the car!” Jack shouted. He had pinned the dog to the ground by kneeling on its back and wrapping his hands around its neck. There was blood streaming down his arm, and all the while, the dog was snapping and growling viciously. But I stayed frozen, gaping at Jack and the dog. “Alice! Go back to the car!”
“Why?” I felt incredibly nauseous and dizzy, but I didn’t want to leave Jack. If I did, I knew that something bad would happen, although I didn’t even know what that meant.
“Alice! Just do it!” Jack growled.
Adrenaline surged through my body, and my feet were happy to comply when I started running back to the car. Before I had even made it there, I heard the dog yelp, and my stomach dropped. My heart pounded erratically in my chest, and I wanted to throw up. I tried not to think about what was happening and just kept running. When I made it to the car, I fought the urge to just keep running and collapsed on the ground next to it. Jack had the keys, so I couldn’t get inside. I just sat on the pavement, gasping for breath.
When I saw Jack walking towards me, I felt instant relief, but also this intense sadness. I stood up and hurried towards him, but I stopped sharply before I met him. Part of me really wanted to hug him, but another part of me knew what he had done, and it scared the hell out of me. Irrational tears streamed down my cheeks, but I tried to ignore them.
“Jack, what did you do?” I asked plaintively, wiping at my eyes to erase the tears. “What’d you do with the dog?”
“Alice…” He closed his eyes, as if it would hurt him too much to watch me react. “I didn’t have any choice. You saw him. He was going to kill somebody!
What if you had been here by yourself or with Milo or a little kid?”
Everything he was saying was completely true. The dog had looked insane and probably rabid, and even before I left him, I knew that Jack was going to kill the dog. But it didn’t change anything. I’m one of those ridiculous people that sobs every time they play that ASPCA commercial. Hurting any animal for any reason would always reduce me to tears, especially when I had been some part of it. If I hadn’t been there, I know that Jack probably would’ve acted the same, but I still had to think that he’d done it to protect me. He had killed that dog for me.
“I don’t care!” I was crying harder now, and I wished I would just stop. It really seemed unfair to me that I would be angry with Jack for saving my life, but I couldn’t help it. He moved awkwardly, and I knew that he wanted to hug me, but he also knew that I would push him away if he tried.
“Alice,” Jack exhaled deeply, looking away from me. He wasn’t crying, but he had this agonized expression on his face, and he took a small step back from me. “Everything just got so much more complicated.”
“What are you talking about?” Finally, I was able to stop crying. I felt something shift, and a whole new fear ran through me. As upset as I had been over the dog, I hadn’t hated Jack, or even really been mad him. I was just upset because a dog had been killed, and I felt partially responsible.
