Chapter Text
A fleeting symphony of colour glided through the sky, as a smothering orb sank below the horizon. The evening winds sauntered gently against Dogday’s fur, granting whispers of the sundown helios. Dogday looked in awe at the sewn colours of the atmosphere. He couldn’t help but see how orange and purple danced perplexingly with each other in the atmosphere, despite their stark contrast.
The school's playground was a riot of noise, with parents coming to pick their children up from the last lessons of the day, or, much rather, the year. It was the last day of school, at least for Primary Years. Dogday noticed how most of the children beamed and laughed as they played all kinds of games; make-believe, catch, statues, whatever entertained them.
They all spoke about their hopes and expectations for summer vacation, planning sleepovers and whatnot. He was different, though. He quietly sat still, calm within the sandbox, waiting patiently for something to happen; for his name to be called. At that exact moment, the thought crossed his mind, it was.
“‘Day!” A friendly, bright and high-pitched voice groaned. “You aren’t paying attention to my deep talk about how to make the PERFECT sandcastle.”
Dogday turned around, looking to his friend, ‘Nap (as he liked to call him), with a furrowed brow. He was wearing a t-shirt that was two sizes too big for him and a messy friendship bracelet that Dogday made for him out of orange yarn. Dogday chuckled at his cute, mockingly-angry face, and could only respond to his friend with a non-serious smile, “ ’Nap, I was paying attention, I swear! I was just watching the other kids and wondering…” He paused for a second to bite his dried lip, almost breaking skin.
“What are you doing over summer break?” As soon as Dogday asked this, Catnap tensed up. He rapidly whipped his head around, making sure nobody else was close enough to hear what he was going to say.
“Well, Momma married somebody new last week and…” Catnap began to quiver a bit. “That new person convinced her to make us move away to the big city.” Dogday’s heart shattered at hearing this, his smile crumbling as he looked at his friend to see if this was a prank. A thousand words and questions plagued his mind, and his tone and demeanour changed in a flash.
“What..? Why!?” he demanded.
Catnap could only help but frown. “He said we’d have more opportunities there.”
Dogday wanted to scream; he wanted to argue because he was angry. Furious. Not at Catnap, but at this man. “You’re my best friend, ‘Nap, I can’t bear being without you,” he argued.
“Neither can I, but there's nothing we can do…” Catnap sadly responded to Dogday’s woeful statement, his voice quiet and sad.
“Yes, there is! We can… we could…” Dogday tried his best at making arguments, but to no avail. His ears, flopped from his despondency, rose up as he thought up an idea. He grabbed on to his bag, rummaging through it.
Finally grabbing onto something and pulling it out of the pouch, he spoke. “Since you're being forced to leave, I want you to have this. It’ll remind you of me every day that you’re gone far away.” Dogday opened his paw and in it was… a sun pin. “Keep it close to your moon pendant.”
Dogday remembered the exact wording his father had told him when giving him that very same pin: ‘If you are ever to give it, give it to someone special. Someone you’ll want to remember you.’ Catnap looks at it in awe before taking it and pinning it to his shirt, just like a medal. A pin he would forever hold as one.
“I won’t ever forget you. You’ll forever be my best friend! I’ll write to you every day, and I’ll even draw a moon on the envelopes so you know it’s me!” The purple feline said this with soft tingles of hope and optimism radiating through his voice.
Catnap then pulled Dogday into a deep, clumsy hug. The two embrace each other, just like they have for many years before, for perhaps their last time. After that hug ended, the school bell sprung into action, chiming the last hour. Dogday’s mother showed up in her car, which was way too small and barely had space for four people. She nagged at Dogday to get in before glancing back at her phone.
Dogday got up from the sandbox, zipping his bag back up and grabbing onto it. Suddenly, Dogday came up to Catnap and kissed him lightly on his cheek. This unexpected action was followed by a quiet and delicate whisper: “Thank you for being my best friend, ‘Naps.” Catnap stared at him, perplexed, his cheeks tinted in a shady hue.
Dogday teared up, his face scrunching into a wet mess as Catnap, shocked, could do nothing as he watched Dogday run to his mom’s car, cleaning his tears, and getting in. He looked back, his eyes overflowing, and waved a final goodbye before his mother drove Catnap out of their view.
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That was the last time he had spoken to him. The last time he had seen him. It had already been seven years since that day.
July 28th… That date was ingrained in his mind. His alarm buzzed, quick and sharp. 5:20. He had set an alarm the day prior. Get up. He lay still for a moment, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird wanting to escape its cage. Get up. Dogday slowly sat up from his bed with bleary eyes.
His limbs were heavy and aching, and despite this, he extended his right arm, grabbed onto the alarm and turned it off. As much as he wanted to stay in bed, even for only an extra 30 minutes, neither the occasion of the day or his uncle would allow for that.
He stayed on the edge of his bed, letting his head hang low. His mattress was in a horrible condition and incredibly uncomfortable to sleep on. His stomach let out a hollow, painful growl. He hadn’t eaten since the previous afternoon's crust of bread. Dogday could smell the stale, sharp scent of floor wax and the damp rot of his bedroom’s ceiling. His room was a mess, and was unsuited for him, for any living being, really. As his uncle intended it to be.
There was little to no furniture, just his disheveled bed, and a very old nightstand with an orange-tinted lamp. A small light orange headboard was also present, and, inside the drawers of the headstand, were some unused fairy lights, a secondary lamp, a lighter, and photos (of Bobby, Dogday’s parents, and Catnap).
The entire room’s wallpaper was half torn down, with cuts and slashes bleeding through the faded yellow-orange remaining pieces of paper. The floor was made simply of dark-brown tinted wood, which Dogday had a specific theory about; this being that the closer you got to the room’s door, the creakier the woodboards got.
He had a small closet with very few clothes to the far left-side corner of the room. He arose from his bed and walked to his closet, taking out his clothes for the day with a quiet sigh of stony resolution. He remembered a meeting between him and his soon-to-be principal, Poppy, when she said that on the first day the dress code was relaxed.
His bedroom was absolutely freezing.
He was constantly being reminded of his uncle’s unwillingness to turn on the heater for his room, despite his constant complaints. His uncle justified this by stating what he always states: ‘If I let you have the heater on, that will make you less susceptible to the cold, and therefore weaker. I cannot allow you to be more of an excuse for a man than you already are.’ Just thinking about those words exhausted him even more.
He removed himself from the only thing giving him some semblance of warmth, plodding to the bathroom as he shivered slightly in the chilly air. Dogday turned on the lights and briefly glanced at the mirror. His fur was dishevelled, and he could notice the ever-so-slight presence of dark circles beneath his eyes. He stared at the splotch-like birthmark on his right hand. He had to hide it. He wasn’t the same Dogday as he was in Primary… he had lost his courage and his self-confidence.
He could only muster a sigh at the sight looking back at him and the thoughts that came with it before removing his garments and stepping into the shower. The water was warm. It was nice. As opposed to the rest of his bedroom. He put on his favourite, half-used vanilla shampoo (trademarked ‘Garnier Fructis: Vanille’) and a squeaky clean new shower gel, which had been gifted by Bobby just last month (and which Dogday had barely used).
Getting out of the shower, Dogday quickly dried off before returning to the depressing quarters he had left just a few minutes ago. The water didn’t help with the cold. Shivering, Dogday quickly changed into the uniform he had been given over summer break. Today was going to be his first day in a new high school.
His first day in eleventh grade.
After putting on his own slightly bleached beige hoodie, paired with a ratty and bleached pair of blue jeans, that covered his shoes nicely. The shoes, Dogday thought, were a bit too worn down for the place he was going to attend. He adjusted his sleeve to hide the birthmark on his right hand and proceeded to belt his pants tightly to keep them from slipping.
Before going on to get his light blue luggage, Dogday opened the drawer of his nightstand, taking with him the fairy lights, the photographs he had, and the lighter, just in case. He packed them all into his primary bag, his special leather satchel, before moving on. He grabbed onto his already packed suitcase and his bags, which he had packed the day prior, and moved across the room, being careful not to step on the ‘wrong’ woodboards.
He made his way towards the opposite side of his bed and opened the very creaky door he had at the front of his room with the utmost care, trying to stay silent and not to attract any attention or… wake up his uncle, Silas.
He hurried across the hallway, traipsing along its long corridors and making sure that his luggage made no sound. He walked atop the dirty white mat that covered this part of the hall, parts of it being shrouded in bits of dirt and small dried bloodstains. Silas hadn’t had time to get a maid to clean the mat, yet again. The stains were from this week. He remembered being shouted at and beaten on top of this very mat.
At the very least, the hallway was warmer than his room.
On the hallway’s walls, he could see the stark difference from his bedroom. They were very well decorated, barely lit by small lights jutting out from the walls above. Near every door that he passed by was a series of small drawers, each with an unlit lamp atop them, and Dogday was unsure if they even worked.
There were pictures and portraits of famous artists, which were very superficial, he thought to himself, that were mostly likely copies or works that Silas had ‘stolen’, and hand-crafted images of Dogday’s ‘entire’ bloodline. Relative after relative, whom he either knew little about or nothing at all. He was often condemned by his uncle for this.
Reaching the end of the hallway, Dogday descended the grand staircase, grabbing onto its wooden railing as he did so. He looked at the luxurious crystal chandelier at the centre of the vast room, the one his uncle always bragged about to guests. As he looked down from the chandelier and at the stairs, he noticed something. Or rather, someone. He immediately stopped in his tracks.
A dead silence fell over the room as tension built up inside Dogday. He didn’t expect to find him there, at least not this early. A figure stood on the bottom of the stairs, staring up at him with cold eyes that gleamed like a crocodile's gaze after spotting its next prey. His uncle.
“Where do you think you’re going? You still haven’t had breakfast.” His voice rang across the room like a bell, as his eyes pierced through Dogday’s only sliver of hope and confidence.
His uncle stood tall with his malicious and clinical demeanour. In between words, he took sips of his morning Martini. Dogday could hear the alcohol speak through his lips. He, as a stark contrast to Dogday himself, wore the usual dark-blue-tinted Italian linen suit.
“I’d rather not… with respect, sir. After all, I have to get going to school; it starts quite early, and you know I like being early.” Dogday tried to justify his reason for denying his uncle’s ‘invitation’ to breakfast.
“You still have plenty of time. We also need to talk about a few… topics.” Silas practically demanded that he come, using such a menacing tone that Dogday could feel his hands beginning to shake, his scars beginning to ache. There was no room for disobedience.
“Well, now that you bring it up, I assume that breakfast is indeed a luck-carrier for the first day.” Dogday finally responded.
Dogday picked up his luggage in a flash and finished making his way down the grand staircase, placing his things down near a very expensive vase of night-blooming Cereuses, which expelled the strong scent of vanilla to every corner of the large room. Without saying a word, Dogday slowly approached his uncle, his gaze fixated on the floor.
Silas led the way, his back as straight and as unyielding as an abiding tombstone. He sloshed the clear liquid from side to side, opening the door to the dining room as he did so. Food, prepared by the servants, was already ready on the long table. Too long, really, in Dogday’s opinion. Silas had been planning to confront him in the morning, no matter what, and he had been too stupid and naive to think that he would just let him leave early without being scolded.
The dining room was a cavern of polished mahogany and cold air. The large window on the right side of the room was all open, yet no sound from the outside could be heard. The intricate white curtains swayed against the dark browns inside the room. Light brown pillars and marble flooring falsely decorated the grave that this room was, this was the room that Dogday hated the most in the house. Every day, sitting opposite his uncle on the refectory table, being forced to watch and listen as his uncle scoffed, mocked, broke and tore Dogday apart while he ate.
His aunt did nothing but compliment his uncle and join in on the attacks; all she thought was that Dogday was spending more money than he should be. More money that could go to her. Outside of all of the times they all ate together, she barely even bothered to look at him, thinking of him as a mistake and a loss of money rather than a living being. At some point, he just gave up eating altogether in that room, until he began being forced to by his uncle.
Dogday just wishes he could leave. He wished Bobby would come sooner. She had offered to pick him up and bring him to Kingsbridge after Dogday told her that his uncle refused to provide him with a car. Dogday didn’t know how to drive because his uncle forbade him from attending lessons or even trying to get a license.
He wanted to control where Dogday went. His uncle, not wanting himself to get involved publicly with Bobby due to the drama and gossip that came with her being very popular, reluctantly accepted her offer.
Dogday’s breakfast was a dry piece of toast on fine china, so fine that it looked like it would shatter if Dogday breathed too hard.
There was also a glass cup with some water in it to accompany this great ‘meal’. Silas had given up long ago on trying to force Dogday to eat an entire set of breakfast, so now he only made him eat the simplest breakfast he could provide: a simple, plain old slice of cooked bread.
Silas seated himself at the head table. For his breakfast, he had a combination of red fruit jam, black coffee and his own toast.
There was a stretch of awkward silence, Dogday thought, as he mentally prepared himself for the inevitable monologue that his uncle would bestow upon him. It was unbearable. Dogday could feel the glare that his uncle was staring him down with, the coldness of it making him dare not look up.
He finally spoke, with the same mechanical voice as earlier: “Sit. Your friend in the red eyesore of a car will be here in a few minutes. Until she arrives, we can both ‘refresh’ our minds on what you will and will not be doing in that new school.”
“O-of course, sir.” was all Dogday could sputter in a monotone voice as he stared blankly at the toast. He couldn’t look his uncle in the eye.
Silas continued: “Remember that Kingsbridge does not just take anyone. You are there on a ‘mercy’ scholarship and, if you fail to maintain a 4.0 GPA performance consistently, or if you bring any… shame… to this household or to my name by associating with the wrong crowd, I’ll make sure you won’t just lose your education.”
Silas’s voice tightened at the last part, his voice getting lower to emphasise the meaning behind his words. He put down his Martini and began to drink his black coffee, looking at Dogday expectantly.
“I… won’t disappoint you, sir, nor my parents, nor the family name, I swear,” Dogday said. Silas leaned forward, the smell of gin and the bitter coffee wafting towards Dogday as he did so. The stench slowly overpowered the vanilla scent Dogday wore, and that was present all around the house, making him gag internally.
“Are you sure? Are you really so sure of yourself that you believe you won’t ever disappoint any of us? Well, if that’s the case. In the parent-teacher conference being held in October, I better see some excellent grades sticking out and no complaints coming from any of the teachers. Understood?" Silas spoke with sick, mocking pleasure curdled around his words, seeing Dogday’s hands begin to shake.
“Yes, sir.” Dogday whimpered out, his uncle’s figure looming over him, reminding him of all the times he got lashed and beaten, the same shadow over him at that time.
“Oh, and another thing…” Silas spat. “If you fail to do as I have so kindly asked you, do not only assume that there will be personal consequences, but familial consequences as well.”
“What do you mean by that, sir?” Dogday sprang up out of genuine curiosity and growing dread. Silas had never threatened any other family members before, just him.
“Your parents rely on my support to uphold their occupations; they work day and night. And yet, because of this workaholism, they pay little attention to taxes. I cover that up for them. It’d be a shame if word were to get out about the few incidents of your parents’ tax evasion, wouldn’t it?” Silas chuckled, his eyes as cold as a winter storm.
Dogday’s breath hitched. Had they really been avoiding taxes? “Y-You wouldn’t…” He muttered.
“Oh, but I think I would. I’d even be able to receive their money if they went to jail. There would be no one capable of stopping me from dealing with you in whichever way I want.” Silas finished off, his voice curling with poisonous intent.
Dogday's head jerked up, eyes locking on Silas's for the first time that morning, a flicker of real anger cutting through the fear. Just as he was about to speak, a loud engine coughed plumes of smoke outside, honking loudly.
“It seems that she’s already here. Sooner than I expected. Go along now, leave the estate and don’t come back if you fail. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir.” Dogday practically whispered, forcing the toast into his mouth before walking out of the room, grabbing his bags and luggage and opening the front door.
Silas called after him, “Oh, and Dogday. Pull your hood up. I don’t want the neighbours seeing you leave this house looking like a common runaway, or worse, a street vendor.” Dogday could only comply with doing so. As he opened the door, the emerald shades of the lush lawn grass came into view. His eyes scanned over the occasional fairly-cut tree along the narrow pathway of cobbles that extended between the flight of stairs at the end of the front porch of the entrance to the villa and the main gate. He remembered how his uncle forced him to take care of the grass, the trees and do several other jobs, all for him to ‘man up’.
Dogday walked down the short flight of cobblestone stairs of the front porch, dragging his luggage along towards the main gate, which was already swung open. As he neared the gate, he looked back at the villa. He saw its haunting windows empty, most of the curtains still being closed, except for the window of the dining room. Silas was watching him from afar. Dogday shuddered. He silently thanked God for this being his possible last sight of this place. This torturous place where he had been stuck for the last seven years.
Seven years of back-breaking labour just to earn a different kind of lash, sometimes a leash, sometimes a belt, just always whatever was closest to his uncle’s hand. He remembers sometimes being starved or isolated for his enjoyment. It would all be gone now; he’d never have to see this sickening building ever again. All he had to do was keep his grades up.
Dogday turned his back to the estate and looked at Bobby’s car. It was an early-2000s Volkswagen Golf, at least that’s what he believes she told her last month when she was buying the car. It was compact, rounded and was painted ‘Tornado Red’ (at least Bobby had said it was), but it looked more like a dusty, matte rose now. It also looked like it was held together by a mix of luck and stickers.
The rear bumper was a mosaic of fading vinyl. One for a local animal shelter, a ‘Save the Bees’ sunflower sticker, and several other peelable stars. A large, handmade sticker on one corner of the back window read: ‘I ♡ MY FIRST CAR!’ That explains the stickers. Bobby likes to overdo things from time to time, especially decoration and, as she puts it, individualisation. The front window squeaked open horribly as Bobby hurriedly pulled the car’s window lever.
“Dogday! Get in! We’re gonna be terribly late if you stare at the stickers on my car for twenty minutes!” Bobby pouted, her tone frantic.
“Alright, alright! If you’re that excited…” Dogday responded. He opened the trunk, which already had Bobby’s luggage occupying much of it, so he fit his main blue luggage into a corner and kept his sports bag and leather satchel. After closing the trunk, he briefly opened the backseat door, placing the sports bag securely on the floor, before carefully closing the door.
Bobby was wearing a chunky, cardinal-red knitted sweater, its sleeves permanently pushed up to her elbows. Dogday could pick up the slight hint of strawberry perfume and laundry detergent coming from it. She was also wearing high-waisted, light-wash mom jeans. Unlike his, hers are covered in iron-on patches, which include a sunflower, a small red bear and several other kinds of pins. She was also using scuffed, high-top red sneakers with mismatched laces, one being red and the other white.
On a more important and ‘Bobby’ note, she was wearing a few dozen ‘Best Friend’ braided bracelets climbing up her left wrist. Most of these were made of red and yellow yarn. She also had a small, plastic red bear charm hanging from her belt loop and, of course, her iconic heart necklace. Dogday would wear his necklace, if his uncle allowed him to. He constantly argued with him over that, his uncle calling it an unnecessary physical attachment and an embarrassment to himself and the family name every time Dogday decided to wear it.
He opened the passenger’s seat in the front, getting in and quickly putting on his seatbelt. He took a second to adjust his leather satchel and himself comfortably to the seat. This was the first time he was in a car like this.
Inside the car, it smelled like a combination of vanilla and strawberry-scented ‘little-trees’ air fresheners, old french fries, and the faint sweet scent of Bobby’s strawberry lip balm and refreshing perfume.
The dashboard could only be described as a graveyard of shared memories and memoirs.
There was a bobbing sunflower figurine that stood next to a stack of Polaroids held down by multiple strips of scotch tape. One of the photos showed a twelve-year-old Dogday with a toothy grin, holding a dead frog he and Bobby had ‘rescued’ from a pond. Bobby had looked at the frog with hopeful eyes.
The seats, from what Dogday could see, had the grey fabric covered by mismatched, bright red seat covers that didn’t quite fit with the size or shape of the seats themselves. The floor mats were also hidden under a layer of crumpled gum wrappers, empty juice boxes, and stray ‘Best Friend’ ribbons that Dogday assumed was from primary and middle school.
“Oh, ‘Day, don’t worry about that, I’ll clean up the car at some point. Probably when we have some free time this weekend.” Bobby remarked almost absentmindedly as she noticed Dogday looking at the floormats.
Dogday turned back to face Bobby and the front of the car. He noticed a mess of things hanging from the rearview mirror, including a set of plastic ‘Best Friends’ necklaces (the ones with jagged hearts), faded red ribbons, and a tiny handmade orange yarn bracelet that resembled the same one Dogday had given to Catnap, but had made another and given Bobby.
“Is that where the bracelet I gave you went?” Dogday asked her as he looked into the rearview mirror. Bobby promptly responded, a slightly nervous tone wavering in her voice: “Oh! I just keep it there for safekeeping. You know how unorganised I can be sometimes.”
Bobby continued. “Anyways, how was your morning? Did you have breakfast? Did your uncle lecture you again? I’m assuming that because of the way he keeps staring at the car.” She grabbed the key, turning it.
The engine cleared its throat. It had a sort of rhythmic, metallic cough that Dogday found strangely comforting. He assumed it was because it was the sound of something that refused to give up. The car vibrated with a cheerful energy that the estate lacked. It was messy, but in a way that felt like it had life and that someone actually cared for it. It felt as if the car hadn’t been neglected.
All the while, his uncle’s foyer was a museum where you were absolutely forbidden from touching anything of value to him, and if you were Dogday, anything at all.
In contrast, Bobby’s car was the kind of place where every stain was likely to have a story and a reason to be there. Dogday could feel the springs in the worn cushion groan, and despite this, the seat was warm, comforting and inviting.
“Well, it was like every morning in the past month. Boring and nauseating. He forced me to have breakfast, and as usual, it was only a shrivelled and burnt toast.” Dogday said, his voice flat and emotionless at the mere thought of his uncle.
He thought for a second before continuing, “And to answer your last question, he did. But he didn’t only threaten me… He threatened to put my parents in jail if I failed at the new school, and that would leave me completely at his mercy… I-I don’t even want to think what he would do to me if t-that would happen.”
Bobby cranked the wheel and checked her mirrors with a wide, toothy grin. She looked at the reflection of Silas staring at the car before he retreated deep into the estate.
“Well, buckle up, Sunshine! If we stay in this dirty driveway for one more second, I’m going to start convincing myself that the depressive thoughts that this building gives out are going to spread to my car.”
Without any time for an answer, she grabbed onto the steering wheel and took off, peeling away with a spray of gravel that felt like a parting gift to Silas’ hedges. He was finally leaving that damned estate. As they followed the paved pathway down to the main road, Bobby took something from the storage compartment next to her door. She shoved a crumpled, half-empty bag of gummy bears into Dogday’s lap.
“Eat, please,” Bobby said, her voice tinged with worry. “I saved you the red ones, because they say that they are especially lucky! You need to eat more than toast for breakfast. If you want more, I can try to figure something out.”
Bobby continued on with her talk, as Dogday began to pick up gummy bears and put them in his mouth, chewing quietly.
“He’s a parasite,‘Day. He feeds on making you feel small because he knows that if you ever realised how much better you are than him, you’d leave and never look back. He can’t touch your parents as long as we’re at Kingsbridge. Principal Poppy is the one in charge there, not him. You’ll have power over yourself, and I will not allow anyone there, no matter their status, to have the same power over you as he did.” She spoke in a soft, caring tone.
Dogday let a small smile grace his face. “Thank you for caring about me, Bobby. I can’t stress that enough. Thank you for being my friend after all these years.”
“Dogday.” She looked him in the eye. “You shouldn’t be thanking me. It’s what friends do, we look out for each other, we care for each other.” She looked at him with her cheeks puffed up. “Now, what do you want to listen to?” She looked out onto the long asphalt road in front of them.
“Anything would be nice, really.” Dogday responded.
Bobby started up the radio in the car panel and turned the volume up so that it would be somewhat loud. She wanted to ease the tension in the car. After following some advertisements, Concept Without Proof by Madds Buckley began to play, although Dogday, (nor Bobby, he believed) particularly liked the song, although it did what it was supposed to and helped ease the tension in the war.
As the first few strings began to play, the car approached a part of the road with a large, elegant stone marker (almost that of the sign of a regular billboard), reading: 3.7 Miles/6 Kilometres. Kingsbridge Memorial.
Part of the bottom of the stone marker, probably where it was supposed to say ‘High School’, was a wooden plank with ‘Excellence is Expected’ carved into it. Were there people trying to vandalise school property and sabotage the school?
They stopped for a few seconds to look at the stone marker and the wood planks.
“That’s… interesting, don’t you think?” Bobby remarked with a slight tinge of disgust at the wooden plank. It’s partially rotting, most likely because of exposure to the elements. It must’ve been here for a long while. Just then, an obsidian-black car overtook Bobby’s. It glided across the road in complete silence, much unlike Bobby’s car, whose engine coughed up every two minutes.
The windows of the car were tinted with a black/nightshade hue. As the car overtook them, it spattered the contents of a large puddle onto Bobby’s car, wetting the stickers on the left side of the car.
Bobby could only look in a mix of disgust and anger. She lowered the volume of the radio.
“Who do they think they are? Purposefully splashing water on people’s cars…” Bobby muttered angrily under her breath.
Dogday tried to comfort her; “Bobby, I’m sure they didn’t mean to do it on purpose, and even if they did, the best way to avoid any future conflicts is by ignoring them. I’ll help you clean up and dry your car once we get there.” Bobby huffed. “Yeah, you’re right. Thank you for the offer, ‘Day.”
Bobby jump-started the car again, its distinct engine coughing back to life. They continued down the road. The further they went, the more ancient, towering oakwood trees appeared. Dogday hadn’t been told their campus sat inside a forest, so he looked at the trees in surprise.
Bobby continued. “It’s just that I don’t want either of us to be harassed or targeted by the rich hooligans on this campus. I want to make friends here, not enemies. Of course, it’s bound to happen at some point. I’d just like it not to start on the very first day.”
“It’s alright Bobby, if they mess with you, I’ll be there to get your back!” Dogday tried to comfort her with a somewhat genuine smile. “Anyways, are you excited to maybe make new friends there?”
“Of course I am! I’ve been preparing all summer! I spent half with my therapist aunt to get a grip on understanding how the mind works! I got batches of friendship bracelets, chocolates and whatever someone could ask."
Dogday could only help but chuckle at Bobby’s response. “Oh, Bobby, you never change, do you?”
“Never!” She responded with a smile on her face.
“What about you, ‘Day, what are you looking forward to?” she asked. Dogday’s small grin disappeared. His eyes fixed on Bobby’s orange yarn bracelet on the mirror.
“Do you think he’ll even recognize me, Bobby?” She paused, thinking for a moment.
“He’d be a blind idiot not to. Besides, you’re wearing your orange yarn bracelet, and that thing is like a homing beacon for nostalgia.” Her voice softened. “But ‘Day… be careful. People change. Sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. Let’s hope it's the latter.”
“Bobby, do you mind if I take a quick nap? I didn’t sleep very well tonight and your car is very soothing…”
Dogday looked at her with puppy eyes. He felt guilty for feeling sleepy on the first day of school and also in his friend’s car. “Day! Of course not! I’ll wake you up when we reach the gate.”
Dogday nodded and as he leaned back in the cozy seat, darkness overcame him.
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