The Broken Friendship

Reyna’s hands shook as she unbuckled her seat belt. She startled as she felt a thick substance coating her fingers and realized she was bleeding. One look in front of her told her the windshield had broken and a piece had pierced her bare leg

She turned her head slightly to her left and inhaled sharply at the gruesome sight. Her mother’s head was motionless against her window, cracked from the tree they’d rammed into. From what she could see there was a trickle of blood going steadily from her forehead into her lap.

Against her better judgment she decided to reach over to check her pulse. She shifted uncomfortably in the wet seat and stretched her arm over the center console to place fingers gently on her mother's carotid artery.

No pulse.

Woof! Woof! Woof!

Reyna felt as if she was moving in slow motion as she turned to look at the amber colored labrador retriever in her backseat. Bandit barked again, disrupting the eerie silence with his echoing yaps.

Reyna had never been a fan of dramatics. She’d always rolled her eyes at character’s responses to seemingly traumatic moments in movies, always figured that they were just a ploy to make stories seem more climactic and theatrical.

As she made eye contact with the large mutt though, all the memories she’d made over the years came flooding back to her. Almost as though she was in a movie herself.

She remembered being 11 and throwing her first ever birthday party. She’d handed out invitations the previous month, one to every kid in her sixth grade class. She’d sat fully ready in her Macy’s dress even though the party didn’t start till 6:00PM. Despite her initial excitement her smile had drooped with every hour that surpassed the beginning of the party, her heart growing heavy and eyes turning misty as she realized that nobody was coming. She remembered how utterly alone she’d felt until her mom brought out the honey colored puppy from the garage. Her disappointment was quickly replaced with childlike joy as she pet and tickled her new companion. She’d decided then and there that the only friend who mattered was her new pet Bandit.

She remembered getting ready for her first date at 13. She’d carefully attempted to curl her straight brown locks and applied a bit of lip gloss before letting Bandit lick her neck as a form of goodbye. She’d walked back from her local park not an hour later, her normally bright hazel eyes now foggy and the tips of her nose and ears red from standing in the cold wind. Now looking back on it, the hurt was more from the humiliation of being stood up rather than the actual guy not liking her, but at the time it felt like her first heartbreak. She’d brushed off her parent’s questions and locked herself away in her room, opting to lay in bed without brushing her teeth or changing her clothes. The tears had only subsided when Bandit had crawled up next to her, licking at her already wet cheeks and shedding dog hair all over her pale blue duvet. She didn’t really get over the heartache for a few more days but in that moment it was easy to ignore her pain in favor of the soft snores of her best friend against her chest.

She remembered sitting confused and frustrated on her bed at 16. It was her second year of high school and she was quickly realizing that getting into college was not as easy as it seemed. With the combined stress of trying to make the lacrosse team, keep her minimum wage paying job as a barista, and ignoring her parents’ constant arguments, failing chemistry felt kind of inevitable. However, she’d known all her hard work wouldn’t pay off unless she had the grades to prove that she was somewhat smart, so she’d sat on her bed at 3:00AM, gnawing on the eraser end of her pencil trying to figure out what an atomic structure was. She’d felt so frustrated she could cry and could barely keep from her eyelids drooping. She’d been just about ready to give up and call it a night when Bandit had woken up from his dog bed and trotted over next to her. She’d giggled when he licked her face and felt more awake than ever when he left her side just to return with a chew toy. She’d given in after a few minutes, playing fetch until she felt some of the anxiety leave her body. She didn’t end up finishing her studying until hours later but reading about nuclei and electrons felt more manageable with her furry friend next to her.

She remembered being 19 and quietly sobbing into her pillowcase. It had been the first weekend she’d been home from college since the semester began and while she knew her parents’ arguments had been getting nastier lately even she hadn’t seen this coming. The steady thrum of we’re getting a divorce had rang in her ears, her heart constricting every time she’d thought of the soft words spoken at the dining table. She’d heard Bandit barking as soon as she’d hauled herself downstairs, pointedly not meeting her dad's eyes. She’d quickly grabbed a granola bar and escaped to the backyard, Bandit hot on her heels. As soon as she’d collapsed into one of the lawn chairs she’d found herself with a lapful of labrador and couldn’t help but coo at the sight. Bandit, blissfully ignorant to the crumbling household around him, nuzzled into her neck. She’d let herself close her eyes and lay against the dog. Even through her state of depression she’d known that the loud, shaggy tail-wagger was the most important family she needed. 

Reyna was startled back into reality by sirens growing closer. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that someone had probably called 911, trying to get them help, but all she could focus on in the moment was Bandit. 

Bandit, who’d started barking right as her mom was about to make the turn.

Bandit, who her mom had turned back to check on him.

Bandit, who’d just caused the first accident she’d ever been in.

Bandit, who had just killed her mother.