Corrupt Kingdom

He looks at me with his dark eyes. Dark eyes that have probably seen worlds of things I have no idea about, and then he turns his head away from me.

Not interested.

There isn’t much more to offer him.

“Cerberus,” I say again, and this time, I dip my finger in the peanut butter.

Again, he looks at me like I’m batshit crazy. As if he is trained too well to fall for my shit.

When he refuses to eat it, I lick my own finger, tasting the peanut butter. This is hopeless.

The weight of my situation comes crashing down on me. Here I am, so desperate for attention, for someone to talk to, for anything, that I’m trying to win over the dog that is named after the protector of the underworld.

There’s no way it will work.

Suddenly, my chest feels like it’s tightening. It’s like I’m suffocating. Standing from my spot on the floor, I run toward the front door and swing it open.

Air. I need air.

Before long, I’m sitting on the beach facing the ocean.

The chill in the air has me wrapping my arms around my body tightly.

In front of me, the vastness of the dark abyss reminds me how hopeless this is. There’s no way to escape. I’m at the mercy of a man, and I don’t even know why.

The water starts to blur as my eyes fill with tears.

No. I won’t cry.

I can’t.

Once I cry, there’s no coming back from that. I am stronger than that.

Inhaling, I try to force my walls up. The walls I have learned to erect over the years. When my mother needed me to care for her, I learned how to build these walls, and I refuse to let them go.

My mother.

Despite how hard I try, a tear slips down my cheek at the thought of her.

Does she know I’m gone?

Is she okay?

I’m the only one who can help her through her depression.

With me not around, are there any good days?

Or are they all bad?

Like a busted faucet, water leaks from my eyes until the tears come out strong and fierce. My breathing becomes erratic, hard, and choppy as everything I have been trying to push beneath the surface comes pouring out of me in breathless sobs. Every wall falls down. Crashing against the beach.

I’m not sure how long I sob.

But then I feel it.

Something I never thought I would feel, the gentle nuzzles of something. No, not something, it’s Cerberus.

I look up at him through tear-lined eyes.

His brown ones hold my gaze.

“I’m okay, boy,” I say, but he only cocks his head in confusion.

I don’t know how to speak to him, how to tell him I’m okay.

He continues to stare, and I continue to cry.

Looking away from the dog, I stare back into the horizon. It’s too far to that land. I have to wait.

But I am not the girl who likes to wait. I am the type of girl who never waits, who does it herself, which is why this is even harder.

I know I need to pull myself together and stop this bout of hysterics, but I can’t seem to get myself to. Each thought pops into my brain, making it harder.

I cry and I cry until I feel Cerberus approach me again.

This time, he stands directly in front of me.

Blocking my view as if he knows this hurts me.

He sits down and then lifts his jaw. That’s when I see a twig in his mouth.

Then he nudges it forward. I take the stick in my hand. “What do you want, boy?” I ask. He cocks his head. I really need to figure out what language he speaks. Because this is ridiculous.

He looks at the stick and then looks behind me.

“Do you want me to throw it?” I ask, knowing full well that he can’t answer, and he probably doesn’t even know what I’m saying. But I might as well try because when I lift the stick in my hand, I think his tail wags.

I saw it from the corner of my eye, but I think he wants to play fetch.

Without a second thought, I throw the stick back toward the path to the house, and off he goes. A smile breaks across my face.

That’s all he wanted.

Someone to play with.

When he runs back to me, stick in mouth, he drops it on the ground in front of where I am sitting. Once again, I pick up the stick and play. This time, my smile widens, and a laugh bubbles up.

Like me, Cerberus is lonely.

We play fetch, and I laugh, and he might not understand what I am saying, but we have passed that because he understands what I need—a friend—and he gives that to me.

Eventually, we move off the beach and back toward the house; I keep throwing, and he keeps fetching.