Читать книгу Searching for Sam - Sophie Bienvenu - Страница 10

IT’S NOT EVEN NOVEMBER, BUT IT’S STARTING TO get real cold, especially at night. Sam keeps sniffing the air in the park in a weird way, not like when she smells a squirrel or garbage juice. As if something is itching her inside her nose, as if she knows something’s coming. She looks at me to see whether I have a plan, and, well … I don’t. So I grab her around the neck and give her a hug. It doesn’t reassure her, but it warms me up. A little.

I cried the first night we spent outside. Not so much because I was sad. Because I was empty. It was like, “What do we do now?”

It was December, but there wasn’t any snow yet. I heard maybe we could crash at the Maison du Père, so I went to see, but they didn’t take dogs. So I ended up under a porch downtown, in an alley that smelled like garbage, puke, and piss. I lay down between an old bike rack and the wall, under the fire escape. I stared at the garage door in front of me. Night turned from yellow to brown. When everyone was sleeping, that’s when the worst came out. I tried to breathe right, like a woman having a baby, or more like a guy running. Breathe in, breathe out … so I wouldn’t suffocate. But it stank so bad. I started bawling.

Sam was licking my tears and poking me with her cwet nose.

Cold and wet.