Mornings are the stoic part of the day. Afternoons are fluid, changeable, and could contain a multitude of different activities depending on the weather, the day of the week and whether the big man in the sky is feeling generous. Mornings consist of me and the dog. The dog and me. I let her out to pee, give her breakfast and then we go for a run up the garden.
The dog is a four-year-old mongrel with a neat, sleek black body, gangly legs, amber eyes and massive triangular ears. The man at the pound said she was some sort of collie-Jack Russell-Labrador cross. Both her parents were mixes too, probably, so we’ll never know for sure. It doesn’t matter, anyway. We just call her Vix, or dog. She sleeps in a fleece-lined bed in the sitting room at night, and draped across my legs during the day. That takes up most of the morning: the post-run nap. I sit cross-legged on the floor and she rests her head in my lap, front legs tucked neatly under her chin, back legs trailing away onto the floor. She lets out a big sigh when she settles, her chest collapsing into the quiet rhythm of her sleeping. I wish I could fall asleep that easily.
We sit there anyways, her dozing, me staring absently out the skylight thinking about things I’ve thought too much about. At some point Mam comes downstairs to see what I’m doing. ‘I’d say your sheets could do with a change,’ she says, or ‘the sitting room window sills are looking very dusty.’ I’ll give a non-committal shrug or maybe an mm, depending on how long I’ve been thinking about things. Somewhere in my mind it registers that she’s not just saying these things to make conversation.
Today I shouted at a pop-up tent. I took it out of its bag, set it up to make sure it didn’t have any holes or tears, then folded it back up exactly the way it had been only to find that it didn’t fit in its bag anymore. No matter; I unfolded it again and refolded it. No joy. I unfolded it and kicked it across the room, calling it a stupid plastic fucker that nobody had wanted in the first place. The dog looked up from her spot on the couch and tilted her head at me, as if to suggest that I was taking the wrong approach when it came to tents. Sure what does she know.
Then Orlagh texted me and I forgot about the tent. Nine days it’s been; she got out of my car and I haven’t been able to get into it since. The look on her face was one I’ve never seen before. It was tired and disappointed and pissed off. Mostly it was hurt. I’ve hurt her more than anyone, I think. I promised her when we were sixteen, stupid, thinking we were the absolute shit, that I would never do anything to upset her, and she smiled and kissed me, wrapping her arms around me. Strands of her ginger hair blew across my face from the sea and it smelled warm and floral.
What a ridiculous fucking thing to promise, like. I’m just as stupid now as I was five years ago, just about different, more complicated things.
I’ve never moved so fast as when I saw her name on the lockscreen. She asked me if she’d left her earphones at my house last time she was over. It was like someone pulled out my stomach. I don’t know what I was expecting – I forgive you? I still love you? She might still love me but she won’t forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive myself. I don’t.
Vix loves Orlagh. Orlagh came with us to the pound when we were picking her up, and Vix wouldn’t leave her alone. She was jumping up on her and licking her, her tail wagging away so hard I thought it might fall off. Orlagh was laughing the whole time, even though she was a big pup with a hard skull. She grabbed her head between her hands and rubbed her ears and nuzzled her face, even though she’s a complete freak about germs. But she didn’t care with the dog.
Mam joked that Vix loves Orlagh more than me, more than any of us. The first time she said it I thought she meant that Vix loves her more than I do. I went mad. Nobody loves Orlagh more than I do, I bulled. Mam explained herself, laughing all the while. Orlagh was laughing too, but not in a cruel way. She told me it was lovely that I loved her enough to shout it at my mam.
Maybe Vix does love her more, though. When you love someone you’re supposed to really love them, even when you’re pissed off and tired and it’d be so much easier to just tell them to fuck off and leave you alone. If they’re really worth it, you love them through everything. She deserves to be loved that much, and she knows that. So she’ll stay away.
The dog keeps giving me this reproachful look, as if I’m keeping Orlagh away from her on purpose. I want to tell her that it’s not my fault, but that wouldn’t be true. She keeps nuzzling one of her hoodies and I want to shout at her, but I can’t. So instead I sit on the floor and she goes to sleep on me. I stare up at the skylight, and behind me the tent is still in a crumpled pile.
Laoise Ní Raghallaigh is an Irish writer living and studying in Galway, currently writing her first play. Her work has previously been published in Perhappened and Vox Galvia. Find Laoise at @laoise_nirrr.
