Kristan Higgins - Anything For You

“Have you seen your face?” his father snapped. “This dog will be dead by tomorrow. It would be insane to let it live.”

“No!” Davey screamed.

There were three animal control people there, and a police car, too, now. “We need to take the dog, ma’am,” one of them said, but you could hardly hear anything, because Davey was screaming, and the dog... The dog was licking Davey’s face, its tail wagging.

“Dad, please,” Connor said. “Don’t do this.”

“You don’t understand,” his father said, not looking at Connor.

“Screw you all,” Mrs. Dunn said, tears leaking out of her eyes. “God damn you!”

It was Jessica who picked Davey up, even though he flailed and punched. She forced his head against her shoulder and went deeper into the gloomy little trailer.

Mr. Dunn watched, his mouth twisted in rage. “You rich people always get your way, don’t you? Nice, killing a retarded boy’s pet.”

There was the word Connor wouldn’t let himself think, from the kid’s dad, even.

“Your pet almost killed my son,” Dad snarled. “You can apologize anytime.”

“Fuck you.”

“Dad, let’s go,” Connor said. His eyes were burning. Davey could still be heard, screaming the dog’s name.

It was a long walk back to the car. The Porsche, for crying out loud. A car that probably cost more than the Dunns’ entire house.

Connor didn’t say anything all the way home. His throat was too tight.

“Connor, that dog was a menace. And those parents can’t be trusted to chain a dog or fence in their yard. You saw them. They’re both drunks. I feel bad for the boy, but his parents should’ve trained the dog so it didn’t attack innocent children.”

Connor stared straight ahead.

“Well, I give up,” his father said with a sigh. “You want to worry about that dog coming for you? You want to take the chance that it would go for Colleen next time? Huh? Do you?”

Of course not.

But he didn’t want to break a little kid’s heart, either.

By Monday, most of the swelling had gone down in his face, and his arm was stiff, rather than sore. But he still looked pretty grim. Colleen was over the trauma, already calling him Frankenstein and telling him he was uglier than ever. The doctor had said he’d have a scar on the underside of his jaw, where the dog had taken a chunk, and one on his cheek, near his eye. “It’ll make you look tough,” Connor’s father said, examining the stitches Sunday night. He sounded almost pleased.

Connor’s stomach hurt as he went into school.

Everyone had already heard. In a town this small, of course they had. “Oh, my gosh, Connor, were you so scared? Did it hurt? What happened? I heard it went for Colleen first, and you saved her!” Everyone was sympathetic and fascinated. He got a lot of attention, which made him fidget.

Jessica didn’t come to school that day. Not the next day, or the day after that. It was Thursday before she made it. Granted, she was absent a lot, and everyone knew why—her parents, her brother. But Connor couldn’t help feeling like this time it was because of him. The bandage on his face came off the night before; the swelling had gone down, though there was still a good bit of bruising.

Jessica played it cool. She didn’t talk much; she never did, except to Levi and Tiffy Ames, her best friends, and she managed to spend all day without making eye contact with him, despite the fact that their school was so small.

Finally, after school when he was supposed to go to Chess Club, he saw her walking down the school driveway. He bolted down the hall and out the door. Her pants were just a little too short—highwaters, the snotty girls had said at lunch—and the sole of one of her cheap canvas shoes flopped, half-off. “Jess! Hey, Jess.”

She stopped. He noticed that her backpack was too small, and grubby, and pink. A little girl’s backpack, not like the one Colleen and her friends had, cheery plaid backpacks with their initials sewn on, extra padding on the shoulder straps.

Then she turned around. “What do you want?” she said. Her eyes were cold.

“I...I just wanted to see how your brother was doing.”

She didn’t answer. The wind gusted off Keuka, smelling of rain.

“I guess he’s still pretty sad,” Connor said.

“Uh...yeah,” she said, like he was the stupidest person on earth. He did feel that way. “He loved that dog.”

“I could tell.”

“And Chico never bit anyone before.”

Connor had no answer for that.

Jessica stared at a spot past Connor’s left ear. “My father said that in most cases, Chico would get another chance, but since Pete O’Rourke told the mayor what to do, our dog is dead now.” She cut her eyes to his. “Davey hasn’t stopped crying. He’s too upset to go to school, and he’s wet the bed every night this week. So that’s how he’s doing, Connor.”

She made his name sound like a curse word.

“I’m really sorry,” he whispered.

“Who cares what you think, O’Rourke?” She turned and trudged away, her footsteps scratching in the gravel, the sole of her shoe flopping.

He should let her go. Instead, he ran up and put his hand on her shoulder. “Jessica. I’m—”

She whirled around, her eyes filled with tears, fist raised to hit him. Jess got into fights all the time, usually with the oafs on the football team, and she could hold her own. But she paused, and in that second, he saw the past week written on her face, the sadness and anger and fear and helplessness. The...the shame. He saw that she was tired. That there was a spot of dirt behind her left ear.

“You can hit me,” he said. “It’s okay.”

“I’ll pop your stitches.”

“Punch me in the stomach, then,” he said.

Her fist dropped. “Leave me alone, Connor. Don’t talk to me ever again.”

Then she turned and walked off, her head bent, her blond hair fluttering in the breeze, and it felt like someone was ramming a broom handle through the middle of Connor’s chest.

She was so beautiful.

A lot of girls were pretty—Faith Holland and her red hair, Theresa DeFilio and her big brown eyes, Miss Cummings in the library, who didn’t seem old enough to be a grown-up. Even Colleen was pretty, sort of, when she wasn’t annoying him.

But Jessica Dunn was beautiful.

Connor felt as though he’d just stepped on a bluebird, crushing its fragile, hollow bones.

CHAPTER THREE

Eleven years before the proposal...

WHEN JESS WAS very little, before Davey, her parents had taken her camping once. Real camping, in a tent patched with duct tape, blankets making a nest on the ground. She had loved it, the coziness of the tent, the smell of nylon and smoke, her parents drinking beers and cooking over the fire. Had it been Vermont? Michigan, maybe? It didn’t matter. There’d been a path down to a lake, and the stars were a heavy swipe of glitter across the inky sky. She got seventeen mosquito bites, but she didn’t even care.

That was it for vacations.

When the senior class trip to Philadelphia was announced, everyone had gone wild with excitement. They’d be staying overnight, seeing the sights, then given four precious hours of freedom to wander. Jeremy Lyon, the newest, hottest addition to their class, had an uncle who wanted to take Jer and all of his friends out for dinner. There was talk of going to the Reading Terminal Market, which was filled with places to eat. The Museum of Art, so everyone could run the stairs like Rocky. Everyone wanted to get a cheesesteak sandwich.

The trip cost $229.

Jessica had been to New York City on the sixth-grade class trip, but it was just for the day. She was pretty sure her teacher had paid her fee so Jess could go.