but imagine just moving into a little house on the edge of town with your small dog right after your significant other had broken up with you. even though your life was all over the place with school, work, feelings, moving into a new place, and everything else life could throw at you, you always made it a priority that after you eat dinner (or had something after you got home for the day, whatever you had energy for), you let the dog out. If you couldn’t take care of yourself you could at least take care of the dog, right? It made you feel like you were somewhat organized and prioritized even though you were far from it.
every night you let the dog out, he would just pee or shit, bark, bark some more, sometimes even bark some more, then come inside. it was annoying, but you thought that he was just adjusting to the move just like you. he felt the need to be extra protective. it was just a little over a month and a half after you had moved in and you’d gotten tired of it. you were tired and wanted to go to bed and were sure that the dog could live without doing another 3 minutes of barking.
neighbor!michael never really acknowledged anything in his neighborhood. he never made any friendships or even got acquainted with his neighbors so he could party whenever he wanted without having to worry about ruining relationships with being “reckless” or if he needed to move, he wouldn’t be attached to anything.
when you arrived, he thought nothing of it. he’d seen plenty of moving trucks on his street both unloading and loading boxes out of the back. nothing about his neighborhood ever bothered him, until you came. it wasn’t you, but the barking that seemed non-stop every night.
one night, michael had enough and had just opened his window to yell at your dog to shut up. but then you opened your backdoor, stuck your head, looked around, stared at your dog and said (sarcastically) “wow, a leaf? thank god i have you i would’ve been a goner if you didn’t scare it off with your annoying barking.”
michael was surprised to hear a more youthful voice rather than hear the voice of his other, older neighbors who he usually overheard yelling at sports, game shows, or presidential debates. he just laughed to himself, closed his window, and crawled into bed, satisfied with the silence.
this went on for months. it almost became a routine for michael to listen closely for your voice when your dog was barking to see what sarcastic riposte you had come up with tonight. it became something that he looked forward to laughing at when he got home after a bad day or something to cap off a perfect day. sometimes on your drunken nights, he laughed at you just sitting on the back step and barking ineptly into the night with your dog.
he’d made small conversation with you when you’d been outside at the same time, usually complimenting you on your nightly snipes at your dog. he learned that you moved here to get away from the business of the city, your ex, your parents, and to be able to have a dance party without anyone telling you to turn your music down.
one night when he opened his window to listen for your voice stopping the sound of barking, it never came. he waited through 3 minutes of extra barking, but you still never poked your head out from your house to let you dog in. your dog finally got tired and sat at the door, crying after a while because you didn’t come. michael was immediately concerned and rushed over to your house.
michael knocked, rang the doorbell twice, but no answer. he finally cracked open the door and slid into your house, leaving his shoes at the door to be respectful enough to not get the floor dirty even though he was entering your house without permission. he quickly let the dog, who immediately ran past him further into the house, so michael followed him to where he hoped you would be.
sure enough, the door that your dog sat looking up is where he heard your muffled cries coming from behind. he opened the door and your dog trotted over to you in hopes of helping, and he followed suit.
michael didn’t know what was wrong and he wanted to let you talk when you were ready, so he just wrapped his arms around you and let you cry into his chest in hopes that he would be able to make you smile and make your bad day better as many times you had done for him. maybe, he could also make you fall in love with him just as you had made him.
