The week I entered the sixth grade, my dog bit me.
It wasn't something he did on purpose, and he didn't mean it maliciously. I'd accidentally injured him on one of the outward jutting staples of our cheap apartment carpet, and he'd barked at me. My face was too close, and his tooth grazed the spot beside my eye.
He didn't mean it.
My parents didn't view it that way. My mom locked him in the bathroom, where my dad beat him senseless.
His injury was only discovered when he bled across the bathroom floor, at which point my parents struggled to discern if he was injured from the beatings or injured prior.
These beatings were not uncommon. My parents were quick to raise their hands at us both, and while I learned to grow docile, he learned to fight back.
That only made the beatings worse.
He was struck with nearly every item in our house. Slapped, punched, kicked, strangled. My father threatened frequently to hang him with his own leash, or to take him out back and shoot him.
My dog was the sweetest. He played nice, was great with kids, and let me do whatever I wanted to him. When you raised a hand, though, he became something else.
Towards the end, I grew afraid of him. I could not correct him if he misbehaved, nor did I want to ask for assistance, for fear of him getting hurt. He would chew shoes, get into the trash, take food from our cabinets, and I let him. The only other choices I had were risk getting bitten, or involve my parents.
It felt like betrayal. He was still my sweet boy every other time, how could I willingly give him up? Did he imagine I would, every time he snarled around a package of deli meat? Or was that his form of rebellion to the abuse, and him begging me not to get involved and make it worse for myself?
When we lost the apartment, we had to foster him out. I'm not sure what my mother was thinking, giving our Great Dane pit mutt with behavioral issues to an old lady half his size. I'm not sure what she imagined would happen.
He was euthanized within a year. We were not informed of this. I found out when I visited her home while she was gone, and left my number, eager to see my boy.
She texted me later that night with her confession, and the last pictures of my boy.
I deleted the conversation, and the last shreds of my boy, fearing what would happen if my parents found out.
Only months later, a family friend would lose his own dog, who he treated very well and loved despite the scarcity of what he owned. I had not cried for my dog, but the situation brought me to tears, and through sobs, I confessed my secret to my mother.
She did not mourn. She even joked about it later to my father, as though expecting he would find it funny. He did not. He cried in the truck for a long time. I think he knew it was his fault.
By now, it has been at least five years since my dog was alive. Roughly six since I have seen him, since I have felt his fur.
I never properly grieved him. He was long gone by the time I found out, and I had not seen him die. Maybe a part of me hoped he was still out there, that maybe I had been lied to, but I know it is wishful thinking.
I will never truly receive clarity for this. I believed so truthfully that our situation was temporary, that I would see him again, that I never said goodbye that night we handed him over. I did not appreciate our final day more.
Thinking back, there are many days I did not appreciate more. Times I shunned him from my room, ignored his calls to play, times I yelled at him senselessly, days where I only interacted with him when I was forced to take him outside.
I am grown now. It does not hurt less.
I'm not sure what I felt towards him back then. In a sense, he was my brother, and we grew up under the same circumstances. Maybe I was bitter that he got a chance to fight back, even if he was punished for it. Maybe I felt guilty for bringing him into the situation, and wanted to distance myself so it would hurt less.
I have begun fighting back, just like he had. In his honor, I will not let them retaliate.
I'm glad he bit me. I'm glad the wound scarred. I have a piece of him with me now, and that's more than anyone else can say.