Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
“Run a full CBC.”
“You got it.”
“We’ll see what Dr. Kenny says when he gets here—shouldn’t be too long. But I think this is some kind of poison.”
Benji nodded, filling a clear disc with the blood he had drawn before placing it in a diagnostic machine. “That’s what I thought, too. Thankfully she didn’t have enough to kill her.”
“She’s still not out of the woods yet,” Mia said, tying her hair back in a ponytail and wiping the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her jacket.
Dr. Kenny arrived about five minutes later, rushing in with a stethoscope over his black golf polo. He thanked Benji and Mia, clearly impressed by how well they’d handled the triage. The results of the blood test were already being printed out, saving valuable time and showing Dr. Kenny that yes, Tammy had been poisoned. He got to work, neutralizing any of the poison that was left in her system while making sure she was stabilized.
Benji and I saw that neither of us could do much else for Tammy, not until she was feeling better.
“Mom, I’m going to go check out the security footage, see if we can spot whoever did this.” Benji seemed much less shaken than when we initially stumbled on Tammy. He had gone a ghastly pale, making me think I’d be carrying them both to get help. That changed the second he stepped into the clinic and took the lead in saving Tammy’s life.
“You did great in there,” I said as we walked down the shaded path toward the house. The leaves looked like they were dipped in red and orange paint.
“I spent a lot of days hanging out in there.”
“It showed.” A thought struck me. “Why didn’t you ever consider going to vet school?”
Benji pursed his lips in a thin smile. “I did at one point. School was just never my thing. Dusty got all the brains, and I got all the looks.” He put a hand under his chin and cocked his head, laughing and sounding exactly like his identical twin.
“I don’t believe that,” I said, laughing with him, grateful that this moment allowed for laughter. It could have gotten real fucked-up if we hadn’t found Tammy when we had.
“Why not look into it?” I asked, seeing a little bit of the spark in Benji’s eyes, the one I recognized from when we were kids. He had always talked about doing big things, changing lives and being known, one way or another. He used to talk about being a commentator on ESPN, or a famous sports doctor. He talked about opening up another sanctuary, and becoming a TV host for an animal conservation show. I remember him being fifteen and talking about going to Yale or Harvard. His dreams seemed endless, and it all appeared to be within Benji’s reach.
Things had changed for him at some point, and his drive seemed to have sputtered, but I refused to believe it was too late for anything Benji wanted to accomplish.
“It’s too late,” he said.
“Not at all. Benj, you can do it. You graduated with a degree in Bio, didn’t you? You probably need to take an exam, but we can study for that together. I’ll work on my law school applications while we get you ready for vet school.”
He seemed to chew on the thought, the silence encouraging me. It wasn’t an outright “no,” so that was good.
“I’ll think about it,” he said as we reached the house.
I wanted to push him harder, but after the shit we just went through, I felt his answer was more than good enough.
We crossed through the house, Penelope raising her golden head and sniffing at us before dropping it back down onto her bed which sat perfectly under two thick rays of sunlight. Benji pulled out a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the security room, a tiny thing in the back of the first floor, next to the guest bathroom. It was windowless and lit up by a terrible fluorescent bulb that made it feel like we were walking into an old hospital room.
Benji took the lone seat in front of the computer, clicking in the password and opening up the security camera interface. I stood behind him, a hand on the chair. It was a small enough room that his head was next to my crotch, and it didn’t look suspicious in the slightest—we were just crammed into the room.
Now, he if turned his head, then that would look suspicious.
Moments from last night flashed in my vision. As Benji looked for the recent footage, I couldn’t help but think about how good last night felt. It went beyond hooking up. Last night had opened my eyes, and it lit a fire underneath my still-closeted ass.
I spent all morning thinking about it. Around lunchtime, before everything went down with Tammy, I had made a promise to myself: I was going to come out as bi. I’d make a public post and rip it off like a bandage. Let people run with the story however they’d want, I didn’t care. I just wanted to be done with the hiding and the shame and the pressure of it all.