Cody held his Blackberry in his hand. It had been hours since Jen’s message and his awkward voice mail. He reread her message for the hundredth time, “Great news! Gotta see you!” If it was such good news, why didn’t she call back? He contemplated calling her again. Would that scare her away? He pulled up her name in his contact list. He hovered over her phone number, trying to decide whether to call her. One wrong move and she’ll run away for a month. He pushed the number and the phone dialed.

“Hi, Cody! What do you need?” He was in shock because she answered. She hardly ever answered her phone. “Um… you sent me a message. Great news!? You said that you wanted to see me…” It was quiet on the other end of the phone. “Oh? YOU got that message? That explains a lot…” It was quiet again. Cody tried to coax her into talking to him. “So, you have great news? What is it?”

Jen’s voice more relaxed than it had been for a long time, “Wow! So much can happen in a week. So much can happen in just a DAY. Jerry proposed to me. He got a transfer to Chicago, so I’ll have to move with him. It’s all very sudden…” Cody couldn’t hear another word she said. This whole time, he had thought that he was giving her space and it turned out that he had given her so much space that she thought he was just a friend. What about all those kisses? Those light pecks on the cheek and the rare kisses to his lips?

Just as suddenly as his body would light up when she touched him, he felt it go numb. She was mid-sentence talking about her new future in Illinois when he hung up on her. He threw the Blackberry on the couch and watched it slip between the cushions. He hated that phone. He remembered choosing it so it would be easy to text messages to Jen and it had come to represent her to him. He walked to the utility closet and took out a hammer. He retrieved the phone from the couch and placed it on the kitchen counter. It only took one blow to shatter the screen into an inky black smudge, but he didn’t stop at one blow.

He ran to the bedroom and lifted the bedspread to see Tiger sleeping under the bed. He had let her alone since the dosage of fluids, but he needed comfort now more than ever. He reached over to pull her out, but the carpet was soaked. She had peed herself under the bed. It had happened before. He would just clean her up, but when he pulled her out, she didn’t respond. She had died sometime within the last few hours. He realized that he had wasted the last hours of Tiger’s life waiting for Jen to call him.

He cried out and the tears that he had held in so many times came. He couldn’t stop them. They blinded him and he held Tiger’s body to him. She had already started to stiffen with rigor mortis. It made him cry out her name.

Within a second, he stopped. His eyes were still filled with tears to the point that he couldn’t see. He put down Tiger’s stiff body and stood up. He could hear Doctor Chinsky’s voice clearly, “This is enough pentobarbital to put down a large dog. You don’t need to give her the full dose, but just in case you don’t hit a vein the first time, you’ll have a second chance.” He walked to the refrigerator and took out the pre-wrapped syringe. He looked down at his arm, the green veins peeking out from the skin at him. It would be so easy. He could just end it all within 30 seconds.

He unwrapped the syringe and dropped the wrapper on the floor. Something inside him protested. He was respected at work. At least he had work, right? All of his success at the firm seemed empty now that Tiger and Jen had left him. He pulled the cover off the needle and looked at the syringe in his hand. It would be so easy.

The knock was a quiet tapping, but it sounded like a deafening roar to him. He could hear the voice on the other side of the door, “Cody? I know you’re in there… Does Tiger need any help?”

Cody slumped to the floor. He dropped the syringe. “I’m alright…” He looked at himself, embarrassed at his thoughts just a moment ago. “Why don’t you let me in? I heard some banging in there and I’m a little worried about you.” Cody didn’t respond. “Do I need to get Mrs. Kletch to open this door?”

Cody opened the door. “No, I’m fine, Angie, really.” She tried to peek past him. “Are you? I heard you scream. Is Tiger okay?” He couldn’t talk. He just opened the door and let her in. He collapsed on the recliner. His eyes drained tears, but he was silent and staring straight ahead. Angie walked in. She scanned the room, pausing briefly on the remains of his phone on the counter. She walked by the couch and picked up the syringe wrapper, then the needle cover and finally the syringe. She checked it. It was full. Without a word, she gracefully walked over to the sink and squirted the liquid down the drain and put the whole syringe into the sharps container.

It was at that moment that Cody realized that a mismatched set of sweats could be far more gorgeous than all the shiny brown hair in the world.