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He’d seen the dog digging through a rip in a trash bag and fed it a chunk of his bagel.
The bagel was gift from the manager of the store, when he’d sat outside the shop to give his tired legs a break that dreary Friday morning. It didn’t matter that he quite honestly needed the whole thing. The dog needed something to eat too, and he isn’t going to be the asshole who lets it suffer.
He’d been a scruffy little thing, really. Too skinny and yet not dangerously so. Black coat coarse like a terrier’s and yet softer around the muzzle, hairs lighter as if he’d dipped his snout in a pot of fresh honey. Eyes the shape of almonds and coloured the brown of chocolate.
Peter could see honesty in those eyes. Could feel the gentle nature of the animal through the way he gently licked his palm when he had finished, as if thanking him in his own way.
And then he runs off after that, and Peter should have known better than to expect it to stay.
But a few days passed and Peter had been perching on his wall when he’d seen it; those almond eyes, that lolling pink tongue, that waving tail.
“Hello,” he’d called, and the dog approached the base of the wall and sat down.
He wondered; what is the story of this dog? Had he been kicked out too, left to freeze? Left alone to starve in the alleyways and on the pavements?
He’d tried to ask him, when he’d lowered himself to the floor, but the dog had just lay down beside him with his head on his knee and Peter’s resolve faded away bit by bit.
The dog wanted a friend, and so did Peter.
And so, for a while, the dog and Peter stuck together.
Sometimes the dog would leave for a day but he’d always be back; always be at the base of the wall, waving his tail and scratching his little paws against the rough brick, as if to say ‘come and sit with me! Come and play with me!’
Whatever food Peter could find, the dog would get a share too. The dog never got greedy, never tried to beg for more; just took what he got and seemed entirely content with it. Peter wondered whether someone else is feeding him.
The dog occasionally took food to him, too. It was never particularly appetizing -- mouldy bread, a piece of old meat -- but Peter supposes that he is a dog, and could never understand why people don’t eat things like that.
He didn’t eat it, but the dog looked pleased when he took it and threw it in the trash again anyway, so he’d pat him on his coarse little head and rub his fingers behind his ears and press a kiss to the space between his eyes and tell him through his touch that he loved him so, so much.
And he did. He loved that dog. Though he didn’t name it, he loved it more than anything.
It kept him company. It sat with him in the rain, in the heat, in the alleys lined with rotting dumpsters. It tried to care for him, with disgusting pieces of food only dogs could eat, and by sitting on his lap when it all just got too much.
But there was a day where the dog left, and though Peter waited at the wall for hours and hours and hours, he never came back.
And Peter forgot about the dog. Maybe he should have named it.