Warmth Part 1

This is part 1 of 4 of the book I wrote. Warmth is kind of hard to describe. It has elements of drama, psychology, and humor. You will probably like it if you like dogs.

I

West Virginia is an interesting place. Among other things, it’s sometimes called “the northernmost southern state and the southernmost northern state.” Due to its location, it doesn’t really belong to any of the big groups of states, like the Midwest or New England. It also has a climate that doesn’t fit into a neat category or description. Due to how much it varies in elevation, the temperature and average rainfall can be widely different across the state. Most of the area is mountainous or forested. Like all places to live, West Virginia isn’t for everybody, but I’m happy here.

I’m not originally from West Virginia. I was born and bred in Alabama and had to move here after college because of my job. That was around four years ago. I missed my family and my hometown, but there were things about my new location that I was glad to get used to. Besides the colder weather, the people around here are different. Next to the classic charm of the Deep South, the people in West Virginia are more laid back and quiet. Also, at least compared to where I grew up, the communities weren’t knit nearly as tightly. Being an introvert myself, I didn’t mind that at all and grew to love the peacefulness of the area.

It was moving to West Virginia that led me to develop a new hobby with hiking. I’m an inside person for the most part. My body is lanky and clumsy and not really athletic, but I discovered that I quite enjoyed hiking. There was a sort of solitude in it that appealed to me. I started out small, sticking to easy trails that were close by, but over the years I got better at it and allowed myself to branch out, finding tougher and longer trails all around the state. I was doing just that on that one Friday in September.

I woke up early to go try out a trail I hadn’t hiked that was a moderate distance away from my house. It was so long that going up and down it was going to take a majority of the day. I had a normal, full-time job, but we were given every other Friday off. In fact, this was the Friday before I used a week of the vacation time I had saved up. I figured that a good hike was a fitting way to start off all the time that I had to myself.

The trip up the trail went without anything too noteworthy happening. I was early enough that I didn’t cross paths with many other hikers, and aside from the occasional airplane or helicopter, it was quiet. The walk wasn’t taxing as much as it was time consuming. I paced myself and took a break about halfway up, so it took several hours to reach the place where I wanted to stop and have lunch before turning around.

Once I was finished eating, I decided to explore the nearby forest before I made the trip back. Careful to keep in mind where the trail was, I walked around the woods a little bit. It was at a clearing around a quarter mile away from the trail where I noticed something that made me stop and stare.

There was a man on his back in the middle of the clearing, sleeping on the grass.

Considering where I was, it was a strange sight indeed. I walked closer to get a better look and saw a few other things that struck me as odd. He wasn’t dressed properly for hiking. All that he was wearing was a simple white t-shirt and jeans. He didn’t even have shoes on. I thought that maybe he just decided to put down his stuff and take a nap, but looking around, I didn’t see any indication of that. I took a closer look at him. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties, close to my age. He had a very fair skin tone, much paler than mine, and his hair was even lighter than his skin. It was such a pale, almost icy shade of blonde that it was nearly white.

Aside from the general dirtiness that comes from laying around on the ground, he also just had an unkempt look to him. He had a stubbly beard that appeared about a week old. His fingernails had grown out quite a bit, much longer than most men would let them get. His hair was tangled, matted, and so long that it looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. He didn’t look like a hiker. He looked like a passed-out homeless man, except we weren’t in some alley. We were pretty far up into the mountains.

I normally keep to myself and try to stay out of other people’s business, but the whole situation raised a lot of red flags. I figured that the best thing to do was wake him up, just to make sure everything was okay.

“Excuse me,” I said. He continued sleeping.

“Excuse me,” I repeated, this time a little louder. I still got no reaction from him.

I lightly nudged him with my foot. “Hey man, wake up.” I was almost shouting now to absolutely no effect.

I tried a few more times, getting louder and more physical, but he didn’t even stir. I was starting to worry. If I listened, I could hear him breathe quietly, so I knew he wasn’t dead, but that didn’t grant me much relief. I was starting to wonder if he had overdosed on something or was even in a coma.

Don’t ask me why, but for whatever reason I thought that giving him some water would help the situation. I had an unopened water bottle in my pack, so I got it out and broke its seal. I knelt down next to him, raising his head up a bit so I could more easily pour the water in his mouth.

I can’t really say what I was expecting the water to do, but it was extremely effective. It seemed that the moment the liquid touched his lips, he snapped awake, jerking up to a sitting position and scaring the hell out of me. I cursed and stumbled back a bit, but when I recovered, I could see that he had fully returned to the world of the living. He was just sitting there, looking me up and down.

The way he sat was definitely strange, cross-legged and with his palms down on the ground in front of him, but what really grabbed my attention were his eyes. His right eye was a bright sky blue and his left eye a warm, rich brown. The overall effect was so distracting that I felt like I wasn’t even making proper eye contact and could only look at one eye at a time.

It was after almost a minute of silence that I realized he wasn’t going to say anything. He was just staring at me with the most unemotional look on his face. I decided to try and get a conversation started.

“Are you okay?”

He didn’t reply. I tried asking that question again, as well as some others, like “What’s your name?” and “Are you even awake right now?”, but all he did was slightly tilt his head to the side, never changing his expression or averting his gaze. I wondered if he was deaf. I scooted closer and stuck out my hand next to his head. He continued staring at me, so I could tell when my hand was completely out of his vision. When I sharply snapped my fingers, he flinched and slightly turned in the direction of the sound. Well, that ruled that option out. He could definitely hear me.

It occurred to me that he might not speak English, but considering where we were and what he looked like, that didn’t seem likely. Besides, he wasn’t acting like I was simply saying words he couldn’t understand. He was acting like he didn’t even know what words were.

My initial idea was that he was messing with me, feigning his lack of comprehension as some sort of joke.

“I heard you mumbling in your sleep,” I said, lying through my teeth. “You can stop pretending that you can’t talk.”

If that fazed him at all he didn’t show it, so I tried calling his bluff. “I have a knife in my pack,” I lied. “If you won’t talk to me, I can just make you talk.”

All he did was scratch his scalp with his long nails.

“I also have a rifle,” I continued. “I could just blow your head off if you want.”

He didn’t even blink. I had never met anybody so catatonic before. He also had one hell of a poker face. Whether he could understand what I was saying or not, I couldn’t discern anything about what he was thinking. I quietly accepted defeat, determining that he either couldn’t communicate, or wouldn’t, no matter what I said.

It was then that I noticed him shivering slightly. It was no wonder, he was barefoot and wearing short sleeves. It was a problem I knew I could fix, so I jumped on it. I didn’t have any extra shoes, but I could afford to take off my jacket, and he needed it more than I did. I tried to hand my coat to him and he just stared at it. It was then that I lost my patience and just walked over to give it to him myself.

He acquiesced, allowing me to manipulate his arms and put the jacket on him. In fact, he resisted so little that it was kind of strange. Moving his arms made me feel like I was handling a mannequin. Once he seemed less cold, I pondered what I was going to do next. I had no idea who this man was or what was wrong with him, but I couldn’t just walk away and leave him to his own devices. I didn’t know how he got there, but I doubted he could just walk back down on his own. He wasn’t prepared. I figured I should at the very least help him back to civilization.

I stood in front of him, offering a hand to help him up. He just stared at it. I don’t know why I expected otherwise. I shook it a bit, and he actually did reach his hand out. I thought he would grab my hand, but instead he just touched it with his fingertips. I had no idea what he was doing. He just lightly probed at my hand, like he wanted to examine it but was scared that it would explode. After a few seconds I sighed and grabbed his wrist, trying to pull him up.

I let go too soon and he fell forward. He landed on all fours like he was doing a push-up, but with one knee tucked under him. He just held in that position, too. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him up until he was standing. Thankfully he was able to do so without help. Now that he was on his feet I saw that he was a little on the short side, maybe 5’8”. He was definitely a good deal shorter than my 6’2”.

I walked a little and saw that he followed me. Soon we made it to the trail and began our trek down the mountain. The whole process was kind of a pain. Every few minutes I would hear his footsteps stop behind me, and when I turned around, he was doing that strange light touching thing he did with my hand to something else he found interesting, whether it was a tree or a rock or whatever. He would stop when he noticed I was looking at him and continue following, but that didn’t prevent him from slowing everything down a fair amount.

Being later in the day, I crossed paths with many more hikers than I did on the first trip. I smiled and nodded like I always did, but most of them gave me strange looks when they saw who I was walking with, which was understandable. What I didn’t get was the reaction he had to them.

Every single time we came across other hikers, whether on their own or in a group, he took care to make sure I was always in between him and whoever it was. He got a little bit closer to me as well, like he was trying to hide behind me. I had no idea what to make of it.

Eventually I realized that I was getting tired, which I figured meant that my companion was probably dead on his feet. When I found a place to stop and sat him down, his knees sort of buckled and he almost fell. I was shocked that he let himself get that tired without saying anything. That was when I suspected he legitimately had no concept of communication at all.

I gave him the rest of the water and he drank it slowly, taking a sip and then waiting a few seconds before taking another. I made the break longer than I would have otherwise, letting him finish the water and taking my time checking him for ticks. After I let him rest, I got him up and we continued walking.

The hike continued the way it had been for about an hour. It was then that I once more heard his walking stop. I turned, expecting to see the same thing I saw the dozens of other times, but what I saw almost made me jump out of my skin.

His body language had changed drastically. He was hunching over and bending his knees slightly, like he was ready to pounce. He turned his palms up and curled his fingers to show off his long nails. His normally blank face was contorted into a scowl, and I could hear a low rumble coming from his throat, the first sound I’d ever heard him make. The way he held himself combined with his dirtiness and scraggly hair to horrifying effect. He didn’t just look crazy, he looked dangerous.

It took a few seconds to realize that he wasn’t looking at me, though. I turned around, following his gaze until saw something just as unnerving: a black bear that was standing near the edge of the trail. It was definitely looking back at us.

Black bears are plentiful in West Virginia, so much so that they’re the state’s official animal. Even still, you could usually avoid confrontations with them as long as you kept to the trail and didn’t do anything stupid. It was rare to have a bear take interest like that. My hiking partner decided what to do before I could even think. He stepped in front of me, placing himself between me and the bear, and started screaming at the top of his lungs. The sounds he let out gave me chills; they were howling, primal cries that I could tell had no words underneath them. I’m not sure what the bear would have done otherwise, but when it heard what he was doing it must have decided we weren’t worth the trouble and walked off.

He held his stature, growling and snarling until the bear was completely out of sight. When it was, he stopped and immediately went back to acting like he did before as if somebody flipped a switch in his body.

He turned around to face me with that blank expression I was used to. Realistically, I can’t say how much of a difference his actions made, but I knew that he had tried to protect me from the bear. I chuckled nervously.

“Uh, thanks, man.”

He reacted by not reacting and we continued hiking, making it to my car without further incident. For some reason, he still cowered at any people we passed, despite having no problems facing a bear earlier.

When we got to my car and I had checked us both for ticks one last time, I realized that I had no idea what I wanted to do next.

I was aware that I didn’t really have any obligation involving him. I could have just left him with the police and he wouldn’t be my problem anymore. Still, considering how he put himself on the line to help me, I knew I couldn’t just ditch him at my first opportunity. I still didn’t know what the best choice was, though. I looked at my watch and saw that it was late afternoon. Mostly I just wanted to go home. I looked at the man with me, without any doubt the strangest person I had ever met. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to bring him home with me, just so that I had until the morning to decide what my next move was. I buckled him into the passenger seat of my car and began the long drive back to my house.

 

II

The car ride took about eighty minutes. I usually listen to music while driving, but I opted to instead spend the entire ride in silence so it was easier to think. It wasn’t like the man riding with me was going to interrupt, either. As expected he was quiet the entire time. Occasionally he would play with his hair or lightly touch his seatbelt like he had done to so many other things that day, but for the most part he just sat still, dozing off for the last thirty minutes or so.

I’m not a shrink. I don’t know that much about the brain, but I spent a sizable length of time trying to think of any disorder that matched with the symptoms he had shown me. I couldn’t. He was something that didn’t line up with anything that I knew of. The only theory I could form was more abstract, but the idea was so bizarre on the face of it that I wanted to dismiss it entirely. Even so, all my observations supported it, and it was the only idea I had that made any sort of sense.

I also wasn’t able to wrap my head around how he got to where I found him or why he was there. He didn’t seem to know the area, and it was unlikely that he got to where he ended up all by himself. If he had been put there, I couldn’t imagine that whoever had done it wanted him to be found. It was through pure coincidence that I came across him myself.

More than anything else, I just wished that I could talk to him. It would have taken a two-minute conversation to answer nearly every question I had, but I knew that that wasn’t possible, at least not for the time being.

I tried to push all the details inside and look at him more plainly. He didn’t seem like a bad or dangerous person. Without being asked, he put himself in danger to aid somebody he had just met. Still, he didn’t exactly strike me as happy. He either didn’t feel emotions or did everything in his power to hide them, but the way that he would never indicate or hint at his needs disturbed me. I had to make him take a break from the hike. If I had waited any longer to do so, he might have collapsed. It was like that in other respects, too. I had to notice that he was cold or thirsty and do something about it because he wouldn’t. I wondered what had happened in his past that made him that way.

I was pondering, analyzing the day’s events for the whole trip, but eventually we had arrived at my house. It wasn’t big or fancy, but I didn’t need it to be. At that point in my life I was perfectly content to live in a small suburban house alone. I was sure that my new guest wasn’t going to complain, either.

I woke him up and let him follow me into my house, taking off the jacket of mine he was wearing. After I did that he started walking around freely, and I realized what he was after when he went in my bathroom. Letting him do his business, I went to the den and sat down on the couch, completely exhausted physically and mentally. After a few minutes, he came out and walked into the room I was in. It seemed that time after time he did something new to confuse me. He was perfectly capable of going to the bathroom when the need arose but let himself walk without complaint until he could hardly stay on his feet.

I was pulled from these thoughts when I suddenly realized that he was standing right in front of me. A moment later he hesitantly held out his hand. Slowly and haltingly, he lowered it until it reached my knee and he touched it, using that gentle probing motion of his. After a few seconds of that, he got on the couch next to me, but instead of sitting he laid down, curling up on his side and putting his head on the armrest. It was certainly quite a sight and did more to give credence to my theory from the car ride than anything else he had done prior, so much so that I decided to stop discounting it and make it my working theory, at least until something better came along.

As far as I could tell, he was physically a normal person, 100% an adult human male, but mentally, he seemed more like an animal, likely a dog. He wasn’t a human with a dog’s brain, he was somewhere in the middle. He walked like a human, wore clothes like a human, even used a toilet like a human, but many of his other actions seemed more like those of a pet. I’ve never had a dog myself, but growing up some of my friends did, and the way he would lightly touch things with his fingers had an uncanny similarity to the way dogs would sniff things they were interested in. He also growled and barked at danger, putting up a vicious front when he saw that bear. He could hear, but couldn’t find any meaning in words, just hearing them as random noises. So many of the things he did lined up with this idea.

It also made me realize that he had taken an interest in me. From the moment I woke him up, he followed me around, did what I wanted him to do, and wouldn’t keep his eyes off of me. Considering how scared he acted around every other human we had come across, the way that he behaved towards me made me think that he had attached himself to me in some way, whether he saw me as his master or his parent or something else.

I knew that the concept was a strange one. I had no clue how that could even happen to a person. Still, it made sense, and for the time being it was the only idea I had.

My stomach growled, and I realized that I hadn’t eaten since lunch, which felt like an eternity ago, and I had no idea when he last ate. I went over to the kitchen and got out a 14-inch frozen pizza. I was unwrapping it and setting the oven when my guest heard the commotion and walked over so he could sit down on the kitchen floor. I was finally able to realize why the way he sat looked so strange to me: he was leaning forward slightly, folded in his legs, and had his hands on the floor in front of him, just like how a dog would sit.

He just stared intently at what I was doing, sometimes throwing sharp glances at other things in the room. He didn’t make a move to go after the pizza when I took it out of the oven, he just sat there and looked at it for the entire process of cooling and cutting. I had to sit him down at the kitchen table and put a slice of pizza on a plate in front of him before he started eating. He must have gone longer without food than I had thought, because he ate like he hadn’t seen food in days. He didn’t chew with his mouth open or make noises, like everything else he did he ate quietly, but he wasn’t tasting as much as inhaling. The large slice was gone within twenty seconds. As I put another piece down in front of him, I took one for myself and watched as he continued to eat furiously.

The process repeated itself a few more times. His pace did gradually slow, but his method never changed. He ate greedily and messily, grabbing the pizza wherever was convenient and not caring how much debris got on his face and hands. When we were done, I had eaten two slices and he the other six. I got up to get him a glass of water, and when I returned I saw that he was licking the residual food off of his fingers. I knew I had seen enough when he used his still messy hands to brush his hair out of his eyes. After I grabbed both of his arms and pulled them away from his face, I looked at him up and down and saw how dirty he was all over. He needed to get cleaned up, and I could tell that I would have to do it for him.

Once I was done clearing the table, I grabbed him by the wrist and led him to my bathroom. I initially turned the shower on extra hot the way I liked it, but after a moment’s thought I turned it down to merely warm. While waiting for the water to heat up, I took off his clothes. As I thought, he had no reaction, even when he was completely naked in front of me. I probably could have broken his leg and he wouldn’t have cared.

I discovered that he had gone commando, so the only two articles of clothing he had on were the t-shirt and jeans. I folded those and set them aside, knowing that I wanted to examine them more closely later. I didn’t really need to be naked myself, so I just stripped down to my boxers before getting us both in the shower.

The first thing I did was use soap and a washcloth to scrub him down from head to toe. In the process I was forced to become very familiar with his body. He was built like a swimmer: muscular, but not bulky anywhere. He had some body fat, but just enough to soften his overall shape. In spite of myself I felt a twinge of jealousy. I’m not normally one to be self-conscious about my body, but my tall, skinny frame was unimpressive compared to the one in front of me. I noticed a few other things, too. He barely had any freckles or marks anywhere on him and aside from congregating in the normal areas, any body hair he had was thin and fine, a sharp contrast to the thick curls I had on most of my body.

The cleaning process was simple, only getting difficult at his hands and feet. His hands were filthy, and it took a while to scrub under his long nails. His feet were even worse. They were rough, callused, and absolutely caked in dirt from walking outside barefoot all day. When I was finally done scouring, his feet were clean, but they were still so hard and tough that I guessed he had spent much of his life without shoes.

The entire time I cleaned his skin he just stood there passively, letting me move around various parts of his body like he was a puppet. Only when I started washing his hair could I get any reaction out of him, thankfully a positive one. He had so much dirty hair that I had to get aggressive, and when I was scrubbing his scalp with my fingers he actually indicated that he was enjoying himself. His eyes closed slightly, and I felt him lean into it. I remembered how he scratched his own head a few times before, but he must have gotten more pleasure from somebody else doing it. After I finally got all the shampoo and conditioner out of his thick mane, I tried a little experiment, vigorously scratching under his hair with my fingernails. He slightly moved with it, his eyelids fluttering. I scratched harder and I saw his lips form the barest, vaguest hint of a smile. I kept going and he slowly lifted one of his legs until only his toe was on the floor before doing that slight leg shake most people can do without really thinking about it. I was reminded of dogs thumping their legs when they got their bellies scratched and I had to stop what I was doing because I was laughing so hard.

Once he was clean I dried him off and brushed his teeth for good measure. I just put some clean boxers of mine on him before shooing him off so that I could take my own shower. After I was clean, dry, and dressed, I grabbed the clothes I had found the strange man-dog in and walked to the den, seeing him curled up on the couch like before. I sat down and looked over the two articles of clothing.

They told me absolutely nothing. There were no tags, no labels, no words of any kind, not even on the jeans’ zipper. I checked the pants pockets, turning them inside out and searching through them a half a dozen times before I was able to accept that they were empty. It all struck me as suspicious. It seemed like the clothes were custom made. For the life of me I didn’t know why, but what mattered then was that they were useless to me. In disgust I went to my laundry room and threw them in the washer.

Aside from doing laundry, I spent the rest of the evening digging through the internet for missing persons reports in my area, casting a wider and wider net as my pulls kept coming up empty. I probably looked through a hundred cases from as recent as the current year to a decade prior. I still couldn’t find anything. I didn’t know who the man was or where he was from, but he wasn’t being looked for by anybody close by that I could find. In the hours that I spent searching on my laptop I kept glancing up at the mysterious person on my couch. Who was he?

It took a while for me to give up and turn in for the night. I had a guest bedroom, but my visitor seemed so content on the couch that I let him sleep there, giving him a pillow and blanket so he could be more comfortable. I went to bed, eager to finally end the longest day of my life.

About an hour had passed before I was awoken by a strange sound that I didn’t recognize. After a bit, I realized that it was clawing and scraping against the bedroom door. When I opened it the man-dog took a step back. His expression was neutral, but his body language was embarrassed. He grabbed his arms and wouldn’t meet my gaze. He glanced back and forth between me and my bed a few times before I was able to put together what he wanted from me.

“Are you serious?” I asked, knowing I might as well have been talking to myself.

He just stood there. It was dark, so I couldn’t see that well, but I was starting to pick up that he was sad, even scared.

I groaned. “Ugh…fine.”

I walked over to the far side of my bed and lifted up the sheets. He slowly got into the bed and I lay the covers over both of us. I had a king-sized bed. There was more than enough room for the two of us to sleep comfortably, but he was right on the edge, tightly curled up in a ball and facing away from me. It was like he was trying to take up as little space as possible.

Once again, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy. I was starting to get the impression that he wasn’t as cold and emotionless as he appeared. It seemed more like he had normal feelings and needs but just buried them because he didn’t want to bother anyone. When he was thirsty, starving, or exhausted beyond his limit he wouldn’t let it show. How he was acting made me think that he saw his simple request for a little company as him overstepping his bounds.

As I lay there, looking at the strange person in my bed with me, I remember wishing that he would get a good night’s sleep before I slowly drifted off.

 

III

I woke up alone in my bed the next day, and it took me a moment to realize that that was suspicious. I walked into the den to see that my guest had returned to his spot on the couch, and I noticed that he was holding something in his hands. As I got closer I could see that it was a scented candle I had left on some piece of furniture in my house and forgot about soon after. He was holding it right up to his face and really getting into the smell. I didn’t really understand what the big deal was, it was just a candle that smelled like a Christmas tree, but he was all over it.

I returned to my room to get dressed and when I came back he was still doing it, so I gently took the candle away and put it on the coffee table. I took a seat on the couch and just watched him for a while, not thinking about anything in particular. Eventually, the reality of the situation began to sink in and I knew that I had some decisions to make. It had been a whole evening and night. I had had more than enough time to mull things over. What was I going to do with this person?

The obvious thing would be to notify the authorities and file a police report. It seemed like the logical step if I wanted him out of my hair and back to wherever it was he came from. Maybe he didn’t even have that option, though. Nothing about his demeanor or actions indicated that he had other friends or people looking after him. If he did, he wouldn’t imprint himself on some random person who found him by chance. My brain took that thought and ran with it. Obviously, he saw me as an ally of some sort, going as far as trying to scare off a bear for me. Did I have any right to abandon him?

No, that was ridiculous. He wasn’t a lost puppy, he was an adult who just had something important rattled loose in his brain. He wasn’t my responsibility, and it’s not like I would have been better for him than actual professional help. I still pushed back at that thought, and it occurred to me that I was acting like I wanted him to live at my house with me.

The rational, sensible part of my mind tried to shoot that prospect down. There were so many reasons why him living with me wasn’t a good idea. I had no idea how to take proper care of him. It was unlikely he could get a job, and I already had to support myself. I hadn’t wanted a roommate or a pet prior to this and letting him in would be like getting both at once. I was sitting there, trying to talk myself out of what I was thinking when the man in question slowly crawled closer and sat next to me. He then did something that caught me off guard. Using the hesitant, halting motions he used when he touched my knee the previous day, he slowly leaned over to me. He then lightly nuzzled my neck with his nose, just gently rubbing his face against my skin for a second. When he pulled away, I saw that little smile from when I scratched him in the shower.

It was such an oddly affectionate gesture that my entire train of thought was brought to a screeching halt. All I could do was stare at him. His facial expression was still pretty neutral, but there was some emotion leaking through, something that from another person I would probably describe as…happiness.

My heart softened. I was on the fence about the matter, but his mind was clearly made up. All my doubts were fading away at a dangerous rate. I knew it was unwise. I knew I would have no idea what I was doing. I knew that it was just going to add a bunch of extra work to my life. I knew that he likely would have felt the same way about somebody else if they had been the one who woke him up. I knew I was being selfish. I didn’t care. I imagined the logical and emotional parts of me at odds with each other, and the logical part was starting to concede.

Do you really want this? I asked myself.

Yes, I do. God help me, I want this.

Are you sure?

I don’t think I’ve been more sure of anything in a long time.

I had made my decision. I had found myself a new housemate.

I suddenly realized that I had never felt the need to introduce myself to him. Hell, I never even thought he needed a name. That would have to change if he was going to be living with me. I looked at the candle he was fawning over a few minutes prior and got some inspiration. I stood us both up so I could look him in the eye and address him properly.

“Your name is Pine. My name is Zach. It’s nice to meet you.” I held out my hand like I wanted him to shake it. He didn’t get the message, so instead I stepped forward and hugged him. Initially he stiffened up in shock, but after a few seconds he raised his hands and hugged me back.

I held for as long as I could, only pulling away when I felt his nails slightly dig into my skin. I stepped back and looked at Pine. He wasn’t dirty anymore, but he still had claws for fingernails and long, messy hair. His appearance certainly didn’t match up with how docile he had been. The previous night I had wanted to clean him up, and I realized that I still had work to do in that regard.

After we finished breakfast, I pulled out his chair and got some supplies, which included the candle he liked so much. This was going to take a while and I wanted something to keep him occupied. I sat Pine down and got to work.

The first thing I did was cut his nails. He was pretty handsy and could do some damage otherwise. He clearly didn’t like the feeling. He let me do it, but he flinched with every clip. He even seemed a little disappointed when he stroked his arm with his newly shortened nails. I tried to cheer him up by scratching him and giving him the candle before moving on to the next step, which was brushing his hair.

Pine wasn’t a fan of that part, either. The conditioner from the previous night had done some of the detangling already, but the hair still gave me some trouble. I tried to be as gentle as I could, but there were some knots that I had to fight against. Eventually, after what must have been half an hour, his hair was smooth, and I could actually see what I was working with. Since he was shirtless, I saw that his hair extended below his n*****s. I got some scissors and cut it until it was shoulder length. I had had exactly zero experience cutting hair. I was way too cautious, snipping off little bits at a time because I was scared of cutting too much at once. It took forever, but I did manage to get his hair at the desired length and at least moderately even. After that I used a rubber band to tie what was left up into a ponytail. There were a few shorter pieces of hair in the front that stuck out, but at least most of it was out of his face.

The last step was shaving him. This was the part I was nervous about. I was almost certain that I would end up cutting him, whether due to error on my part or him doing something unexpected, but I didn’t even nick him. He seemed to like getting shaved almost as much as he liked getting his hair washed. I guess that made sense, it was close enough to scratching his face. He held still, so I took my time, gently and carefully stroking him with the razor until he was clean shaven. When I was done cleaning things up, I got the clothes I had found him in, freshly washed from the night before. I put them on and stepped back so I could admire my handiwork.

It’s kind of astounding how much difference a shave and a haircut can make for a man. Pine looked so different when he was clean and trimmed that I was able to notice two things I couldn’t before. Firstly, he was a lot younger than I had thought. When I found him in the woods I pegged him to be around twenty-four or twenty-five, but with a bare face I could see that he was most likely college age, maybe nineteen or twenty.

The second thing I realized was that he was kind of handsome. He wasn’t a model or anything, but without the distraction of wildly grown-out hair he wasn’t bad looking. I liked to think I had an okay face myself. I’ve had girlfriends in the past and they thought I was cute, but he was much more striking in appearance. His colorful, rich eyes stood out prominently against his pale skin and hair. Compared to me with my short reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes, Pine was the one you’d be more likely to look twice at. Still, what I was most pleased with was that his look meshed with his personality better.

“Well, Pine, I’m glad that you don’t look like an escaped mental patient anymore.” I knew he couldn’t understand me, I just wanted to keep saying his name until he recognized it.

Even though he did look better, it still bothered me how emotionless he acted. I kind of wanted to see him smile again. I scratched his head and he responded by nuzzling the hollow of my throat. It tickled a little and I laughed. When I looked at him again he had that slight grin, but it was gone just as quickly. Oh, well. Baby steps, I guess.

I knew full well what I had signed up for. Having Pine live with me wasn’t going to be easy. It would be a process, and there were plenty of things I would have to get used to. I had no clear idea what to do, and it wasn’t like he was going to help me, but I wasn’t afraid of the challenge. I was willing to do the work.

Even so, I knew that the next week would be a long one.

 

IV

Taking a whole week off of work wasn’t something I did on a whim. I had prepared things to do besides that initial hike: trying some restaurants, different hikes, even a hotel stay, but I ended up cancelling all of it so I could stay home and get accustomed to Pine.

Realistically, I should have spent most of that time making sure that he knew the ground rules, “training” him, for lack of a better term, but I never made much progress on that frontier. Most of the biggest things he either already knew or picked up easily. He learned to recognize his name by the end of the day I gave it to him and the commands of sit, come, and stay were painless as well. He also knew how to use a toilet long before I came into the picture, so I never even had to worry about that, thankfully.

Any other more complicated things he learned were not many, and they were things he liked doing anyway. He liked getting rubbed with a towel, so he was able to pick up drying himself off right away. He also seemed to get cold easily, so by the end of the week I was able to just hand him clothes and he would put them on himself. That’s about where the list of accomplishments ended. The two biggest things he could never get the hang of were eating and personal hygiene.

No matter what the food was, if it was a solid he would use his hands and if it was a liquid he would pour it into his mouth. He looked totally normal eating foods that were meant to be held with the fingers, but things got ridiculous when he was eating anything else. We had spaghetti one night and he went right to scooping it up with his hands. I couldn’t watch it for more than a few seconds. I just used a fork to feed him the rest of it myself. That started the trend of me feeding him anything I didn’t trust him not to make a mess eating, more for my sake than his if I’m being honest.

I was also the one keeping him clean: washing his hands, brushing his teeth, showering him, and making sure he had clean clothes. I didn’t mind doing it, though. In a strange way it was kind of relaxing.

He didn’t learn too much that week, and I’ll admit that that was mostly my fault. I hadn’t really taken care of anything or anyone before, but I realized that I liked it, even if I wasn’t sure how good a job I was doing.

Most of the learning during that period of time happened on my part, finding the ins and outs of Pine, and I was discovering new things constantly.

One thing that I had underestimated when I first met him was how much touch factored into every single aspect of his life. He seemed to use his tactile sense the way an average person used their sense of sight. He couldn’t just look at something, he had to feel it. If it was small enough he would pick it up and roll it around in his hands. If it was too big for that he would do the gentle tapping on it. The way something felt was always the thing that mattered most to him.

Aside from gathering information, he just seemed to want to keep his hands busy at all times. One of his habits was playing with his hair. When it was down, he would rake his hands through it or twist it around with his fingers. When it was up in a ponytail he would play with the little chunks in the front that stuck out.

His hair was only Pine’s second favorite thing to touch; his absolute favorite thing to put his hands all over was me. It was something that increased instead of decreased with familiarity. It didn’t matter what I was doing, about a dozen times a day he would approach me and do that light touching on my skin, hair, or clothes. He never got tired of it.

I had no clue what it was about me that he found so fascinating, but it made me more than a little uncomfortable, especially at first. I’m not a person who likes being touched in general, and Pine had no concept of personal space. He was also absolutely relentless. So many times, I would push him away, and when I did, he would take the hint and stop, but he would usually come back within an hour and try to pick up right where he left off. The nuzzling also increased in frequency over time. I didn’t mind the way it felt, but it was incredibly weird before I got used to it.

To be fair, as much as he liked touching me, he liked me touching him even more. I got a taste of that pretty early on with the head scratching, but it didn’t stop there, not by a long shot. He seemed to appreciate any instance where my hands came into contact with his skin. For a time, it was the only thing I knew of that could consistently make him smile. Aside from scratching his head, he had some other favorites that I discovered during that first week, each with different reactions. Often when I took off his shirt, my hands would skim his sides, and it would make him shudder slightly. Whenever I put up his hair he would warm when my fingers grazed his cheeks. My personal favorite response of his was when I scratched his back. My nails grazed against it by accident one day and I saw a tremor run through his body. Experimentally, I scratched right at the spot in between his shoulder blades, probably the hardest part on the body to reach. When I did so, he corded all of his muscles at once, making him arch his back. I stopped because I seriously thought the pleasure of it would make him pass out or something.

I grew to learn that touch wasn’t just the primary source of information for Pine, it was his method of communication, how he expressed himself. It was quite different from how I saw the world, but I already knew that his brain wasn’t wired the same way mine was. That’s why, despite the how odd the constant closeness felt, I got used to his ministrations, and learned to respond in kind. It was like learning a new language, but I was able to get the hang of it with practice.

It was through this line of reasoning that I let Pine sort of commandeer the sleeping arrangement. I think I was expecting him to only want to be in my bed with me on that first night, but he followed me to my room the second night and every night after. On night two, he was still trying to make himself small and kept close to the edge, but he had relaxed somewhat. With each successive day, he unfurled himself slightly and moved a little bit closer. I wasn’t sure how far he would take it until night six, when he was right against me, almost on top of me. We both slept on our right sides, and his entire back was touching my chest. I tried to push him away, but he resisted, refusing to budge. Considering how thoroughly submissive Pine had been with me moving his body around prior, I was shocked. At the time it might have been the most conviction or desire he had ever displayed about anything.

Because of that, I decided to let him have his way. I tried to adjust my position, but I had no idea what to do with my free arm. The only thing that felt right was to just to lay it on Pine, and when I did that he was asleep so quickly it was almost comical. He clearly loved it, but mentally it was a lot for me to take in at once. I could feel his every breath. I was so close that I could smell his natural scent. It was probably the most intimate way that two people could sleep in a bed together.

I had to remind myself that Pine didn’t see physical contact the way I did. Pine just wanted this because it was what he found most comfortable. I had to admit it didn’t feel bad on my end, either. Once I started to imagine him as just a really big, really warm stuffed animal, I was able to relax a bit and fall asleep.

From that day forward, Pine would insist on being the little spoon every single night. Unlike the touching, which I mostly just got used to, I grew to genuinely love spooning with Pine. He seemed to be the optimal height for it and was always willing to share his warmth with me. I’m a skinny guy, so my body temperature can change pretty easily. In my life, there were countless times where I would go to sleep comfortable and wake up chilled to the bone. That never happened when Pine was in my bed with me.

That was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Pine’s psyche. It was fascinating to learn so many new things with every passing day. One of the strangest things about living with him is that there were both times that I’d forget he wasn’t actually a dog shaped like a human and times when I’d forget that he wasn’t just a normal person.

There were so many little things about him that made me look at him the way I would a pet. Much of his body language was very canine, the way he sat with his hands in front of him or lay on the couch curled up on his side. He appreciated smells much more than the average guy, in fact I would find him somewhere with that candle at least once a day. He loved being petted, scratched, and held, but one very human type of touch, tickling, did absolutely nothing for him. He seemed to sleep more than I did, as well as just lay around with his eyes closed sometimes. He loved it when I would take him on walks around my neighborhood, and one of the most doglike things about him was the way he would react to seeing an actual dog in person.

Often when we were on a walk I could tell a dog was nearby before I could even see or hear it because Pine’s entire body would light up. Whenever we came across one of my neighbors walking a dog, I’d have to grab his arm to keep him from running up to them. He absolutely loved interacting with the dogs, so much so that he was even willing to get close to the human owners that he was normally so frightened of. Thankfully, none of the dogs’ owners minded him or thought it was strange how into it he’d get. He’d stroke them and pat them and nuzzle them until I had to quite literally pull him away before things got weird. The dogs themselves also had an affinity for Pine. I was starting to think that on some level they could sense that he was more like them than any other human they knew.

On the other side of the coin there were attributes of Pine that were strikingly human. He had fine motor skills no dog could even dream of. To my shock, he was fine using doors, turning on lights, and even opening packages of food. He was completely okay with wearing clothes, even shoes. When he was sitting on the ground or laying down he looked like a dog, but when he walked, ran, stood, or sat in a chair he looked like any other human. He was much better at blending in while out in public that I would have expected.

Definitely the most human thing about Pine was that he was totally capable of getting bored. As much as he made me think that he could just touch me or play with his hair all day and be satisfied, often even that wasn’t enough to keep his attention. Whenever he got bored, he’d sulk. Okay, maybe “sulking” isn’t the right word, but he would sit down and gaze listlessly off at nothing for a while. We live in an age with so much technology and entertainment at our fingertips that most people can relieve boredom pretty easily, but Pine had some serious limiting factors to him. He couldn’t watch a show, read a book, or even have a conversation with another person. At first, I was at a loss at what I could do to help him. I thought about it for a while and the only thing that came to mind was that he might enjoy clay, since he loved using his hands so much. I went to a local art supply store and looked around until I found something. It was an oil-based clay that didn’t dry. It was firm but became more malleable when warmed up in one’s hands. It sounded perfect, so I bought some.

Pine was fascinated when he first handled it. After watching him play with it long enough that I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t try something cute, like eating it, I walked off and was able to have thirty minutes of peace. To my surprise, when I got back I saw that Pine was actually making something. It wasn’t very well defined or detailed, but it was a human head, possibly mine specifically. When I looked at him he had a glimmer in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before.

As silly as it was, I felt a weird surge of pride at that moment, probably like the pride a parent would have if their child made them something. Without really thinking, I leaned in and gave him a little kiss on his forehead. I was mortified when I realized what I was doing and pulled back, but to my delight it made Pine smile a little.

In the weeks and months ahead, it was moments like that that made all the extra work worth it. I’m not saying that I didn’t get annoyed when I’d have to wash his hands ten times in a day. I had to spend almost all of my spare money buying stuff for him like clothes and extra food. There were times when he’d go to bed at 7 PM and insist that I’d go to bed with him. But the idea, the simple thought that I could get happy just by seeing him happy was…nice. I’ve felt that way about other people, my parents, friends, girlfriends, but with Pine it was different. There was something more nurturing about it.

The relationship wasn’t without its struggles, however. My least favorite thing about Pine, something that I truly hated was what he would do at night every few weeks, starting at one of the last nights of my vacation time. It was the middle of the night and in my groggy state it took me a moment to even realize that I had been woken up. It didn’t take long to figure out why, though. Pine was wriggling, squirming next to me, and it was getting more intense with every passing second. I sat up to get a better look and saw that all of his limbs were twitching and he was breathing heavily. When he let out a whimper I realized he was having a nightmare and shook him awake.

Pine was not in a good state when he came to. His face broke out into a cold sweat. His eyes nervously darted around the room. Even though he was panting, gasping for air, he clamped over his mouth and nose with both hands to stifle his breathing. It looked like he was having a panic attack but was even more scared of somebody hearing him.

I did the only thing I could think of, which was just to hug him tightly and not let go. Eventually he relaxed, in five minutes enough to lower his hands and actually breathe, and in five more minutes enough to return the hug and bury his face into my chest. I felt wetness on the shirt I was wearing and realized he had started crying. The whole time, I didn’t move a muscle.

It was definitely one of the endless number of moments where I wished that I could talk to Pine. I had no way of knowing what he was dreaming about or how I could help him. All I could do was hold him and try to comfort him with my presence. I didn’t think that that was enough.

By the time Pine had calmed down I was in no mood to just go back to sleep, so I brought us to the kitchen for some water. As we sat there at the table, I was relieved to at least see that he didn’t look so damn distressed anymore. I think that was when I realized that my favorite part about getting to know Pine was watching him open up emotionally.

When I found him in the woods, he had blocked himself off from the rest of the world. He had set up walls, determined to hide all emotion and never show weakness. I compared the blank expression he always had to a poker face, but I’m starting to think that that was a better analogy than expected. It was like a mask, one that was thick and rigid and fixed to his face.

But as he spent more time with me, I could see cracks begin to slowly form in that mask. He became more and more comfortable showing affection to me and letting me know when he was happy. That night he had let me see him in a very dark place, when he was at his weakest and most vulnerable.

It’s not like all the walls got torn down completely in a week. They didn’t; he still wasn’t very expressive and often acted like it was a huge inconvenience when he wanted anything, but progress was being made. He was starting to come out of his shell, and I was happy about that. The more I got to know Pine the more he revealed himself to be a very warm person, tender and caring.

I was lost in these thoughts when I heard a thud that made me jump a little. I turned and saw that Pine had fallen asleep on the table. I had to stifle a laugh. Quietly I got up and pulled his chair out a bit so I could get underneath him. I straightened up until I was holding Pine on my back and carried him back to the bed.

Once I turned out the lights and put everything away, I returned to my room, though I guess it was our room by then. Before I got into bed with Pine I took some time to just look at him.

I couldn’t pretend that I clearly understood what was wrong with his brain or how he worked, but I could tell that Pine was fundamentally a simple person. He just had a lot of love to give, only asking to feel some of that love in return. I was more than happy to do that for him.

I carefully lay down behind him and gave his hair a little kiss before trying to wrap as much of my body around him as I could.

At that point I didn’t know that the night terrors would be recurring. I wasn’t aware of how many more times I’d have to calm him down, or how I would never be able to get used to seeing Pine that scared, trapped in some awful place I couldn’t follow him to.

At the moment I just held him protectively, hoping that in my arms Pine could feel safe.

 

V

When the alarm on my phone went off, my eyes snapped open and I scrambled to turn it off as quickly as possible. When it was quiet again, I looked at Pine. If he was awake, he showed no indication of it.

I got out of bed and began all the preparations for the day. As I was doing them, though, I was spending much more of my energy worrying. It was my first day of work since I’d found Pine and I was nervous.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about Pine starving himself while I was gone. I’d done some experiments the past week and knew that Pine treated his spot at the kitchen table the way a dog would treat their food bowl: if he was hungry and there was food there, he’d eat it. I’m not sure what I would have done if that hadn’t been the case.

What I was really worrying myself sick over was how he would react to me being gone all day.

I’d left the house multiple times in the days before that one. I had to, to get extra food, buy clothes for Pine, and stock up on other provisions, but with all those times I was gone for an hour at the most, and Pine was always excited to see me come back. After a few times, the first thing he’d do when I’d return is walk up to me and give me a big hug. It would be one of the highlights of my day when it happened, but it made me nervous. I know he liked me a quite a lot, but I had no idea how that feeling would manifest itself over the course of ten hours.

I had a few more things to do that day than I normally did during the morning before work: making a second lunch for Pine, laying some clothes down at his spot on the couch, making sure that there was a fresh slab of clay waiting for him on the kitchen counter, but it all seemed to go by way too fast. Before I knew it, I had done all I needed to do and it was time for me to leave. I figured the worst thing to do would have been to make Pine think that I vanished while he was asleep, so I got him up and dragged him to the front door so I could see him off.

“Okay, Pine, I’m heading to work now. I’ll be back by evening. You’re going to be fine, everything is okay.” I was reassuring myself more than anything else.

I gave him a kiss on the cheek before I left.

The entire work day I was unfocused and distracted. I did my job, but my mind was mostly somewhere else. All I could think about was each passing hour being another hour Pine was alone. I had considered going home for my lunch break, but instead I just cut my lunch short so I could leave work a little bit earlier. On the ride home, I was some of the most stressed I had ever been. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so busy worrying about Pine and tried to do more to prepare myself for this. My mental state was a disorienting mix of never wanting to know what had happened and wanting to know what had happened immediately. After both an eternity and no time at all, I had made it back to my house.

I called out Pine’s name as I opened the front door and only had time to put down what I was holding before he pounced. He ran to me and leapt into a bear hug that knocked the wind out of me. I tried to stabilize myself by getting down on my knees before I realized that that was a horrible mistake. Before I could even process that something was happening, Pine had pushed me down onto the carpet. I was laying on my back and he was crawling all over me.

He was smelling me and touching me and nuzzling me as if my body was a powerful drug that he was in withdrawal from. I had missed him, too, but the charm of him being so happy to see me had worn off completely by the time he had done it for two uninterrupted minutes. Not so gently I pushed him away and he seemed to finally calm down enough for me to get up again.

Now that he was further than one inch away from my face, I noticed that he was wearing the clothes that I had set out for him. That was a good sign. When I got up and walked to the kitchen I noticed that he had eaten his lunch. That was a good sign, too. When I walked over to the counter to see a halfway decent clay replica of the tree in front of our home I finally allowed myself to breathe a little easier. I didn’t have any reason to worry so much. Pine was able to function normally while I was away; he just missed me. I turned to him and saw that after his frenzied greeting much of his hair was splayed out over his face. I laughed at the sight and got one of the dozens of hair-ties I had bought that were scattered all over the house. After I put his hair in a ponytail I kissed his exposed forehead and he nuzzled my cheek.

The rest of the day went without incident and I went to sleep feeling much less anxious than I had twenty-four hours before. The next morning went just like how the previous one did, except for the very end. When I moved to leave this time, Pine widened his eyes and grabbed my arm. I gently removed his hand and walked out the door. I was almost to my car when I heard some noise and turned around to see Pine hit the ground and wrap his arms around my ankles. As I looked closer I saw the blood and I swear my heart stopped for a second.

I rushed him inside and was able to put together what had happened. When I left, Pine must have gone out the door to run after me. He wasn’t even dressed yet, he was in his underwear, and the damage to his exposed legs painted a vivid picture. He had either tripped or dived while running and he slammed down onto the driveway, skidding to a stop. He had bruises on his knees and nasty lacerations on the tops of his feet where it scraped against the concrete. I did my best to clean the wounds and bandage them up. When I finished I looked at the clock and saw that I was going to be late.

I ended up leaving for work soon after, although I almost couldn’t do it. Pine grabbed me and used a desperate look to beg me to stay. I knew that he needed to accept the fact that I had to leave occasionally, but by the time I had made it out the door and locked it behind me I was almost in tears. It felt like I was abusing him.

The morning’s events had haunted me without pause for hours by the time I took my lunch break at work. I ate in silence, feeling horrible about myself. I had done something wrong. I had hurt Pine.

The self-loathing was going strong when I heard something that got my attention. It was just two of my coworkers talking in the breakroom. I looked over and saw the person whose voice made my subconscious set off an alarm.

He was a man a few years older than me named James. We didn’t work in the same department, so I wasn’t really friends with him. I wasn’t exactly friends with any of my coworkers, come to think of it. Even at work I tended to avoid unnecessary interactions or reaching out to anybody, but it’s not like I wasn’t listening. Over the many months I had worked at the engineering company where I was employed I had spent hours hearing snippets of conversation and learning tidbits about the dozens of people during various parts of the day. For some reason I liked listening in, not to eavesdrop, just to distract myself for a few moments. I didn’t think I absorbed any of the information, though. Apparently, I was either listening much closer than I thought I was or I had dug deep into my memory to pull out some information about James. One of the things that he liked to talk about a lot was dogs.

He had been at the company the entire time I had been, so over the years I had heard enough to put together that he absolutely loved dogs. When he was growing up, his family owned a kennel and when I would walk past his cubicle I saw pictures of the dogs he owned. He had worked with them for most of his life. I tried to quell the foolish hope that started building up inside me the second I put that together.

What was I thinking? Why would some random guy I barely knew help me with my problems, and why did I think he would be of particular help to me? It wasn’t like Pine was actually a dog. But…that was a huge part of him. I tried my best, but I had no experience actually taking care of a dog before Pine. I was aware that it was a big blind spot in my knowledge.

I thought it over some more. Somebody like James would provide some perspective that I lacked, and I couldn’t think of anyone else I had an immediate connection to that was better suited for that. It was a long shot. It was desperate. It was blindly grabbing at anything I could find, but the thought of Pine hurting himself made me willing to try anything. I figured it at the very least couldn’t make things worse.

My resolve wavered when reality started seeping in. The simple idea of me going up to somebody who was basically a stranger and asking him to give me advice about taking care of my mentally impaired man-dog hybrid made me want to laugh cruelly. I didn’t have a normal problem. It was possible that I was the first person to ever have the troubles I was having. I didn’t have a dog. I didn’t know what Pine was, but he wasn’t a dog. If I couldn’t even explain it to myself, what hope did I have explaining it somebody else?

I tried to look at the situation objectively. If somebody had come up to me a month ago and told me about a situation identical to mine, what would I think? My mind started judging that hypothetical person so quickly it made my head spin. It was all so weird in so many ways. I hated confrontation. I hated the idea of people looking at me and making judgments.

Still, the way that Pine looked at me when I left that morning did wonders to make me cow myself into submission. Shyness, self-consciousness, and pride were luxuries I couldn’t afford anymore. If I wanted things to get better, I had to get out of my comfort zone.

I needed a strategy, though. I needed a way to make James believe me and actually want to help me. That wouldn’t be easy. If I didn’t know Pine, I wouldn’t believe anything about him myself.

It was with that thought that I got an idea. Not a great idea, but probably the best idea I could work with.

I looked up and realized that while I was busy thinking myself into another dimension James and the person he was talking to had left the break room. I looked at my watch and saw that lunch was almost over. He had likely gone back to his cubicle, so I got up and walked to where I remembered it being.

Thankfully it didn’t take long to find him. I stood there for a second, questioning everything, before pushing the doubts away and walking up to his desk. When he heard me approach, he turned and nodded in greeting.

I tried to smile. “Hey, James. I don’t know if we’ve been properly introduced yet. I’m Zach Nathanson from Design.” I held out my hand and he shook it.

“Yeah, I think I know you. You’re that really quiet guy, right?” He was talking like we were friends and he was teasing me. “So, what’s up? Does Design want to talk to me about something?”

He thought I had come on behalf of my department. I shook my head. “No, I actually came over to you for some advice. It’s not about work.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? What’s bothering you?”

I swallowed, praying he couldn’t hear me do it. “Well, I’m having some dog-related struggles and I wanted your input.”

He looked interested from the moment he had heard the word “dog.” He leaned back in his chair and lifted his chin slightly.

“Well, I am the local expert on that subject. What’s your problem?”

He was acting so friendly and normal towards me that I felt the tension wracking my body ease up a little bit. Maybe he just had that effect on people in general. He seemed outgoing, confident, and always willing to lend an ear: in other words, like the opposite of me.

“Well…that’s the thing. It’s sort of a weird problem. I don’t know if I can explain it properly to you. I was actually hoping you’d come over to my place and see it in person.”

The brightness that James had in his eyes clouded slightly and his brow furrowed. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

“I know it’s a lot to ask from somebody you barely know.” I admitted. “But I really need some help.” At that moment I decided to go all out and lay down as many of my cards as I could.

“I’m afraid that I’m doing something really wrong. I haven’t got any experience before this and I’m scared to ask for help, but I need to fix what I did and I don’t know how. Please, help me out.”

I felt my face heat up and knew I was blushing at how intense I got all of a sudden. Every fiber of my being wanted me to run away and hide, but I forced myself to stay and wait for him to respond.

He blinked a couple times and eyed me curiously.

“Okay, then. What’s your address?”

It took me a few seconds to comprehend that he had taken me up on my offer and had asked me a question. I quickly told him my address and he nodded.

“I know that street. That’s not far from me at all. I live in the neighborhood next to yours, so that won’t take long.” He got out a post-it note and wrote it down.

“Thank you so much,” I said.

He shook his head. “Don’t mention it. I’ll come over after work. How does 6:00 sound?” We both got off work at 5:00.

“That sounds great,” I said, way too much relief leaking into my voice. I started walking away before he stopped me.

“Hey, Zach.”

I turned around.

“Do yourself a favor and stop worrying so much about every little thing. You’re gonna give yourself an ulcer.”

All I could do was nod and walk off.

When I got back to my desk I just sat there, wallowing in my own embarrassment.

I try to ignore it, but I had known for years that I had social anxiety. I wasn’t very outgoing growing up, mainly keeping to my family or a few close friends I had had since childhood. I thought I had gotten better during college. I was branching out, making some more friends and even getting some dates, but it wasn’t until I moved to my own place and started living alone that I realized that I had only done it because I felt like I had to. Given the choice between getting lonely occasionally and putting myself out in the world, I quietly accepted that I’d rather be lonely.

I didn’t completely close myself off. I tried to make a few friends and even attempted dating every once and a while, but I still tried to live under the delusion that interacting with others wasn’t a skill that I had to pick up in order to be happy. The conversation I’d just had made me painfully aware that I was full of crap. I was horrified of what people thought of me and it showed.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why I was able to get along with Pine so easily. He didn’t care about how inexperienced I was at being a caretaker or friend, he just knew that I cared about him and latched onto that fact.

One thing I knew for sure was that I was going to have to start improving, not just for my sake, but for Pine’s as well. I could ignore my own needs, but I couldn’t ignore his.

This was a good first step. I knew that getting out of my comfort zone was something I needed to do more. This had to be some huge progress, then, because the thought of telling somebody else about Pine made me so uncomfortable that it hurt. Still, James meeting Pine was my idea. It was what I wanted, and I had a gut feeling that it would help.

That didn’t stop me from worrying about it without pause for the rest of the day, though.

 

VI

The drive home that day wasn’t much calmer than the one the day before. When I got back, I was so nervous opening the front door that I was shaking. I called out Pine’s name.

He did come up to me, but it wasn’t at a run, likely because his knees and feet were hurting. His greeting was more subdued as well. All he did was hug me, stooping down a bit so that his head was against my chest.

I felt like I owed it to him to let him have his fill, so I just stood there, holding him until he pulled away of his own volition. It took five minutes, but I was glad I’d done it. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was 5:30. I didn’t have much time before James would arrive.

I honestly don’t remember much about what I did during those thirty minutes. I was expecting the time to move at a crawl, but the minutes slipped by so fast I couldn’t believe it. The next thing I knew I heard the doorbell ring. I glanced at Pine, sitting down on the floor a few feet away. I took a deep breath and moved to open the door.

James was just as friendly as he was before when he greeted me.

“Thank you so much for coming, James. It means a lot to me,” I said.

He grinned. “It’s no trouble at all. So, what was it you wanted help with?”

I paused, taking a second to gather all my courage before replying.

“Yeah, I’d better get to that now. It’ll take a while to explain.” I turned. “Hey, Pine, come here.”

Pine got up and walked over, slowing down a little bit as he got closer to James.

“This is Pine,” I told him. “As far as I can tell, he has brain damage of some sort that makes him act more like a dog than a person.”

James’ first reaction was to think it was a joke. He put on a confused smile, but it faded away when he saw that I was being serious. Before he could do or say anything else, I continued.

“I know that sounds crazy. I know you probably don’t believe me, but please hear me out. Let me tell you what my problem is, and after that, if you want to leave, I won’t stop you. You can walk right out that door and I promise I’ll never speak to you again, just please give me a chance to explain myself first.”

His expression morphed into one that I couldn’t read, but after a few seconds he nodded.

I led him into the den and asked him to take a seat on the couch. He complied, but he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. I went to the kitchen and got a glass of ice water before walking back and handing it to James. I got Pine and walked him up to his spot on the couch, which was near where James was sitting. I pulled Pine close and told him in the most assertive voice I could manage to sit down. He did.

I sat on the arm chair catty corner to the couch and started telling him the whole story: my hike, finding Pine, bringing him to my home and learning to take care of him the prior week. It took about ten minutes, and the entire time I was only vaguely aware of what I was even saying. Mostly I was looking at what James was up to.

For the first minute or so he just sat there, looking over at Pine every few seconds. Eventually, he set his glass of water on the coffee table and turned in his seat so that he was facing him.

Considering how scared Pine normally was around any human that wasn’t me, he was handling being right next to some man he’d never seen before pretty well. If he was apprehensive he didn’t let on, he just looked at James with curiosity mixed with a fair amount of suspicion.

Very slowly James reached out his hand, holding it halfway between Pine and himself. I was wondering what he was doing, and I ended up trailing off in the middle of a sentence.

James turned to look at me. “No, keep going,” he said.

As I continued he just kept his hand there, not moving a finger. After a solid two minutes, Pine raised his own hand and held it above James’ before touching it like he would anything else.

This went on for a bit before James reached out some more, not aggressively, but definitely in a firmer manner. Pine held still, even as James lay his hand on his head. James paused for a moment before moving his hand back and forth in a petting motion.

That loosened Pine right up. After a few seconds he was enjoying himself, rubbing his head and face against James’ palm.

All I could do was watch in fascination, at least until I realized to my horror that I was running out of things to say. I didn’t want to keep James any longer than I needed to, so I wrapped it up and waited for him to respond.

After a few seconds that felt more like a few hours James turned to face me.

“Zach, I believe you.”

That was pretty close to the last thing I expected him to say. I was so unprepared for it that I couldn’t even form a response. Thankfully, James kept talking.

“I have no idea what this kid’s major malfunction is.” He jerked his head in Pine’s direction. “I don’t know much about psychology, but I do know about dogs, and he’s acting so much like one that it’s starting to seriously freak me out.”

I nodded once, and he continued.

“I don’t think you’re the type of person who would make this up. The way you talked to me back at the office made me genuinely concerned for you. Still, it was a smart move on your part to ask me to come over. I don’t think I would have been convinced if he wasn’t right in front of me.”

The knot of pure anxiety that had been inside my body from the moment James entered my house finally started to loosen. All I could do was thank him.

“So, I’m guessing your concern has something to do with these?” He pointed to the bandages on Pine’s feet.

I nodded and explained to him what had happened that morning and the day before.

He sat back a little and pondered. “What was his reaction to you coming home today?”

“He just hugged me. He didn’t assault me like he did yesterday.”

James smiled slightly. “Then I think you’re gonna be fine. Dogs are simple creatures. They see their master leave, they think they won’t come back, especially at first, but there are some dogs that really freak out when you leave the second time. Pine just panicked when he saw you walk out this morning, but I think he’s starting to understand that you’ll keep coming back.”

I let out a breath I had been holding in for God knew how long. “You really think so?”

“If Pine acts like any other dog I’ve met, yes.”

I glanced over at Pine, who had moved over until he was sitting right next to James. I felt myself smile.

“That’s really good to hear. I was scared I did something wrong.”

He shook his head. “It’s just him getting used to your schedule. I have to say, though, Pine must have really latched onto you.” He turned to look at Pine before returning his gaze to me.

“Can I…?”

I put together what he was asking. “Not at all, go ahead.”

James returned to playing with Pine a bit more, scratching his head like I said he liked. Pine was fully comfortable now, loving all the attention.

I looked at James. He mostly just looked like somebody’s dad. He had short dark hair and a trimmed beard. He was about 5’11” when he was standing and carried himself with confidence. He looked really straight-laced and serious, at least until you looked at his eyes. They sparkled playfully, which matched well with how informal and friendly he was.

James had scratched Pine enough that he started shaking his leg. He chuckled. “That’s so weird!”

I laughed a little myself. “That’s not even close to how weird it gets.”

After a bit, James stood up and I got up with him. We started making our way to the door.

“You know, I’ve got two dogs myself,” he told me. “You said that Pine loves playing with them, right? I don’t live far away. Maybe you could bring him over.”

My face lit up. “That sounds perfect.”

James said goodbye and left.

Once he had gone I walked to the den and collapsed on the couch, exhausted from the stress of the past two days. Pine crawled up to me and nuzzled my arm before laying down, his head resting on my leg.

I sighed. “You’re gonna be the death of me one of these days, you know that?”

Pine only responded by scooting just a little bit closer.

For a while I just sat there, stroking his cheek with my hand, before getting up so I could cook dinner.

 

As interesting as the period of discovery was, getting to know Pine’s various forms of weirdness that first week, I look back even more fondly at the weeks after. That was the time where I was mostly just used to having Pine in my life. It was fun. It was nice.

Many of my favorite memories from that time period I had James to thank for. On the weekend after I had returned to my job, I went over to his house so Pine could meet his dogs. He had a German shepherd mix named Flag and a collie mix named Comet. James told me they were both rescues.

Flag followed James around like he was his shadow. He was friendly enough with me and even more so with Pine, but I could tell that he was always at his happiest when he was right next to James. He looked at him differently than he did anybody else. I recognized that look. I saw it every time Pine looked at me.

Comet was more of a free spirit, more willing to leave James’ presence and mingle with others. She developed a liking for Pine almost instantly. She was the only dog I had met that was able to fully return Pine’s enthusiasm when he was interacting with her. Pine would play with Comet, and after a few minutes he’d get so happy I’d think he would have a heart attack.

Pine’s energy level definitely went up whenever he was around other dogs. This was abundantly clear when we took him to the dog park. I met up with James and his dogs there so we wouldn’t just be two humans going to a dog park alone. James knew the people there and said nobody would care, but I insisted. Pine got so excited running around and playing with all the dogs that it was exhausting just to look at him. One of the habits he’d developed when he let loose completely was getting on top of me, often jumping at me from a running start. He wouldn’t let go, either. One time I stood up with him on my back and he just held on even tighter. In fact, he really liked when I gave him piggyback rides, even though I was too weak to do it for very long.

It wasn’t like I only interacted with James because of Pine, though. The two of us became genuine friends with each other. We’d eat lunch together at work, talk to each other, and he let me know that he was always available if I had any problems with Pine. I’d missed having friends, although it took making a new one for me to realize just how much.

And, of course, my home life with Pine was great. Even though I could never have a conversation with him, I never felt lonely when he was with me.

One thing about Pine that impressed me greatly was how much his sculpting would improve over time. Even though he could only make detail so fine using just his fingers, his memory was astounding. He could see and get his hands on something only once and be able to recreate it with clay later.

As weird as it sounds, though, the biggest difference Pine made in my life was that he made sleeping easier than it had ever been at any other point in my existence. Gone were the nights when I’d lay awake, lost in my own thoughts. Gone were the nights when I’d alternate between being too hot and being too cold. All I had to do was get my arms around Pine and I’d be out like a light. It made a dramatic difference. My energy improved, I’d stop having those periods in the afternoon where I was so tired I could barely think, and I felt like I needed to drink less coffee to function normally. It didn’t take long for me to wonder how I had ever slept without him in the bed with me.

I enjoyed living with Pine immensely. He was the reason why that September was one of the best months I had ever had in my life.

Author's Note

Be honest. Don't be afraid to critique or compliment.