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Anya rolled over onto her stomach, resting her chin on the carpet of her bedroom floor as she stared into Bond’s warm gaze.
“Show me something good,” she said aloud to him, as she often did.
Bond sighed and rolled onto his back, looking up at her.
“Come on! I’m bored. Show me something. Oh, show me dinner!” She beamed.
Bond’s tail thumped against the floor. He closed his eyes for a moment, then heaved another great sigh.
“What, no dinner? Is tonight the night we starve forever?” She joked as she scratched his belly, idly plucking out tufts of loose white fur that she missed during his brushing. “Come on, Bond! Put something on the TV.” She tapped once on his forehead, and the kissed it three times for good luck.
She felt the crackle between them and prepared herself for his vision. Hamburger steak? Mama’s stew? The possibilities were endless.
What she saw in his mind would have floored her if she weren’t already lying down.
A strong hand wearing a gold ring combing through loose pink curls. A white veil. Flower petals. A wedding dress.
She sat bolt upright, her stomach dropping to her knees as she realized what Bond was showing her.
“Who?” She gasped, nearly choking on air as she leaned forward on her knees, cupping his big furry face in her palms. “WHO?”
Was it Bondman? No. That’s… insane. Bondman was a cartoon character. Was Bondman real? Is this how she’d find out?
“Tell me! Tell me, tell me, tell me!” She hopped up from the bedroom floor and ran to the kitchen, sliding across the tile in her socks and stopping at the fridge. She pulled out a container of lunch meat and grabbed a handful of it, squeezing the meat in her palm as she scurried back to her bedroom and shut the door behind her.
She held out a piece of ham to Bond, who was truly just happy to be along for the ride. Anya knew good and well that his ability didn’t operate on how much lunch meat he would receive in exchange for a vision… but it was worth a shot.
Bond munched happily on the shaved meat as she pressed her cheek to his temple. “Come on, you big ham! You can’t leave me hanging like that! This is serious! Is Bondman real? And do I marry him? Tell me!”
The hand she saw undoubtably belonged to someone strong. It held her own cheek so delicately—better than any scene in Berlint in Love that she begrudgingly sat through with Becky. She needed to know who it belonged to, and she wouldn’t rest until she got her answer.
Bond flopped back over into her lap after licking her palms clean. She swallowed a frustrated sigh as she touched her nose to his, scratching his neck fat beneath his collar. He squirmed in delight, simultaneously scratching his back on the carpet as he wriggled around in his favourite person’s lap.
She heard the crackle again and touched her forehead to his.
The hand was there again, tucking her hair back and brushing a thumb over her bottom lip. She was grinning ear to ear, and wow, she looked beautiful! So beautiful that she wondered for the first time ever if Bond’s visions were biased. She scratched behind Bond’s ears, cuddling close and clinging to the vision for as long as she possibly could. She needed to see who the strong hand belonged to. The hand took hers, twirling her around like a princess in her wedding dress. It looked expensive—unlike anything she’d ever be able to afford. Was Bond pulling her leg?
The hand cupped the back of her head, leaning in for a gentle, reverent kiss—
Anya threw her head back so fast that it smacked off of her bedpost.
“Ow! Is that who I think it is?” She jumped up from the floor, immediately pacing back and forth in her room, grabbing two fistfuls of her bangs with her meat-slicked palms. “Tell me that’s not—no!” She grabbed the nearest pillow and screamed into it until her throat hurt.
“Anya?” Loid called from the other room. “What’s going on in there?”
“Lady problems!” She yelled through the door. Lady problems worse than he could ever imagine.
Lady problems that involved herself, an altar, and Damian Desmond.
She dropped down to the floor again at once. “Bond… work with me here, boss… say it ain’t so!” She put on a silly voice, because sometimes doing silly voices made her feel better.
Alas, it did not.
“I’m serious. There is no way—are you lying to me? Do you even know how to lie? You’ve never lied to me before! Ever! Not even once! Every dumb thing you imagine up comes true! The spaghetti on my uniform shirt before the spring concert… broken juice box in my backpack… everything with Mama and Papa and… it’s all been true! Why are you lying to me now?!”
Bond stared at Anya for a long time before letting out a soft little ‘borf.’
She threw herself face down on her bed and screamed into her pillow again, wildly kicking her legs until her knees hurt.
Bond sat beside her, leaning his chin on her pillow and waiting for her to look at him.
She did. She cupped his face in her hands. “Tell me you would never lie to me.”
He heaved a great big sigh and licked her cheek.
She closed her eyes and felt the crackle. Damian Desmond in his three piece suit, spinning her around like he was the king of the castle, all hoity-toity and prim and proper… there she was, in a dress that probably cost more than her entire apartment complex, looking like a princess and gobbling up his lovey-dovey forehead kisses like some sort of sick, aristocratic glutton!
“I am not marrying him,” Anya told Bond, as if he were the almighty decider and not a simple messenger.
Bond hopped up on her bed, circled three times, then plopped down as if he hadn’t just given her a glimpse into her own personal hell.
“You think this is funny?!” She pointed incredulously at him as he closed his eyes to snooze. “It’s not funny! I am not marrying him!”
She pulled her jumper over her head and combed her bangs down, grabbing her little messenger bag off her chair.
“Mama!” She rounded the corner of the living room like the world was on fire.
“Miss Anya, are you okay?” She asked, sitting upright on the couch, ready to strike for her daughter at a moment’s notice.
“Yes. Can we go for a walk?” She asked, swallowing a nervous lump down in her throat. She was glad her back was turned toward Loid so he couldn’t read her facial expressions.
“Of course! Let me get my—“
“Can you call Lady Melinda and ask her if Damian can bring Max?” Anya asked, crossing her fingers in the pockets of her jacket.
“Oh! That would be nice,” Yor grinned. “Bond does seem a little bit bored lately, doesn’t he?” She asked in earnest—she was always Anya’s perfect accomplice without even knowing it.
“Yep! He needs some exercise. And so do I,” Anya looked back at Loid, who was pretending not to be wholly invested in this conversation at the mere mention of the Desmonds. “Right, Papa?”
“Sure, Anya,” he said without thinking, his mind reeling a mile a minute about the prospect of her afternoon with Melinda and Damian.
For the first time in her entire life, Papa’s motivation took a back seat to her own personal mission.
Yor chatted happily on the phone with Melinda. “We’ll meet you there soon!”
Without missing a beat, Anya flew back to the bedroom and clipped on Bond’s leash. “Guess what, Big Guy,” she wagged a naive finger in front of his pleasantly lazy face. “Agent Anya’s changing history again, and you get a front row seat.”
It bothered her that Bond seemed entirely unbothered by her declaration as he hopped off the bed and stretched out at length.
“Big stretch!” She sang, but cut herself off abruptly. “We don’t have time to big stretch!”
They met eyes.
“Okay, we have time to do one more. And then we have to go. My future depends on it, by the way, so no rush or anything,” she rolled her eyes.
“Look at that! Another big stretch! Big ol’ stretchy dog, who’s a stinky stretchy dog—“ she sang to him again before shaking her head and realigning herself with the mission. “Stop being cute, Agent Bond. Please take your mission seriously.”
Bond moseyed out of the room behind her with a belly full of ham and a heart full of love.
•••
They arrived at the park long before the Desmonds, as expected.
“They’re probably getting air lifted here or something,” Anya rolled her eyes as she sipped on a lemonade she picked up on the way. The mission was serious, but not so serious that she’d have to forgo a sweet treat on a summer day.
Yor laughed. “They’re coming by car,” she said. “It was nice enough to for them to offer to meet us here—“
“Yep, nicest people on earth. Never met anyone like ‘em,” she responded sharply.
Yor chuckled nervously as she sipped her own lemonade, praying that they could enjoy a peaceful afternoon in the park that didn’t involve Anya’s knuckles against Damian’s cheekbone.
They pulled up in a black sedan. A large man in a suit stepped out and opened the door for them, following behind at a distance to keep watch. Anya shook her head in disgust. She would never let some guy in a suit follow her around to the park, nor would she ever marry into the type of family who liked that kind of thing. The mere idea of it was absurd.
“Yor! Oh, what a delight!” Melinda hummed as she pulled Yor into a tight hug. “And hello, Anya! So nice of you to join us!”
“Lady Desmond,” she bowed her head respectfully. Maybe she should have burped and picked her nose instead, just to make sure she’d never be considered a worthy candidate… but Papa’s image mattered, too, and that wouldn’t reflect nicely on him. She’d have to be sneaky about this.
“Damian, say hello to your friend,” Melinda snapped, her pupils pinned as she stared down the long, elegant bridge of her nose at her son.
“Hello,” he said dryly as he scratched Max behind the ear.
“Go play.” Melinda waved them away. Damian started walking at once, and Anya trotted behind him to catch up with strides that were getting longer and wider every time she saw him.
“You aren’t supposed to wear pyjamas to the park,” he narrowed his eyes. She would have punched him in the mouth right then and there if his immediate afterthought wasn’t about how cute she looked in her new sweater. Wow, he noticed it was new?
She looked down at it, proudly brushing off her shoulder. She basked in the unspoken compliment for so long that she almost forgot he insulted her.
“I mean, yeah. I got the memo… did you?” She looked him up and down.
“Of course I did! I’m wearing a button-down, in what world does this look anything like pyjamas—“ He cut himself off when he realized she was getting a rise out of him off his own snarky quip.
“You’re taller,” she remarked as she sized him up.
“Thanks,” he brushed his own shoulder off, mirroring her gesture.
“That wasn’t a compliment,” she corrected him casually as she sat in the grass.
“Of course it was. Let me remind you what an insult sounds like: you look wider.”
She shrugged, refusing to rise to the banter. That infuriated him. She was right on track.
She looked to Bond for approval, but he and Max were busy greeting one another with lively, happy tails. She noticed in that moment how much older they looked since the first time they played at the park together. It was easier to see on Max, due to his dark coat. Damian dropped the same tennis ball between them that he always brought—she wondered if he had a designated tennis ball to play with ‘commoner dogs’.
“Wow, Max is getting grey,” Anya observed aloud as she petted his head. He leaned into her hand.
“You don’t have to bring that up, you know,” Damian shrugged and looked away, squinting in the bright afternoon sun.
“I know, but… he looks old. Like… really old,” Anya said again, not out of malice but out of pure shock. Had it really been that long since she had last seen Max? It didn’t feel that long.
“So does your fat, lazy dog,” Damian retorted without missing a beat.
“Whoa! What did Bond do?!” She put a defensive hand on Bond’s back, who typically would have been bearing his teeth at anyone who challenged her safety. Instead, he was idly nudging the tennis ball back and forth with Max, both dogs seeming entirely unbothered by their banter.
“He has a fat, lazy owner. Not his fault, I guess,” Damian shrugged.
“Whatever,” she crossed her legs in the grass, petting both Bond and Max behind the ears.
“What’s your dog’s life expectancy, anyway?” Damian asked; a poor attempt at a nonchalant afternoon chat.
“I dunno. He’s old,” she shrugged.
“Yeah, so is Max. He’s fifteen,” Damian knelt down beside Max and gave him a loving scratch on the chest. Max tilted his head back, looking up at Damian with stars in his eyes.
‘I love my best friend,’ Max thought, the warm glow of the sun catching the greys on his muzzle. His tongue lolled out to the side in delight as he panted.
Anya smiled. Max was a sweet dog. He loved Damian unconditionally… she was glad someone did.
“Oh. Is that old for a shepherd like him?” She asked, trying to mimic his casual disposition and failing on behalf of the uncomfortable subject.
“Yeah. They usually only live ten to thirteen years,” he leaned in, letting Max kiss his cheek and ear. The vulnerability was short lived as he gestured downward with a pointed finger. Max realigned, sitting upright and looking forward.
‘I love my best friend,’ Max thought again. He thought it like clockwork every time Damian looked at him.
“Oh. So… that means…” Anya’s throat tightened uncomfortably. She didn’t like this conversation.
“That he will die soon, yes,” Damian finished her sentence. “Here, boy,” he picked the wet tennis ball up off the ground and tossed it with a gentle underhand. Max took a moment to stand up and took his time retrieving it, but his tail wagged thunderously the entire way there and back.
“Good, Max. Good,” Damian knelt down again to pet him, scratching his chest heartily as Max leaned into him. She noticed Damian was pressing the knee of his trousers directly into the grass. Damian Desmond never knelt. Not for anyone or anything… but he knelt for Max.
“How—“ Anya stuttered, her throat even tighter than she thought when she made to speak. “How can you just say it like that?” She asked quietly, aghast at the ease in his tone.
“Because it’s true. Everything dies,” he looked at her, his eyes fixed on her watery gaze.
She shook her head. She didn’t like this conversation at all.
“The trees die, the birds die,” he gestured upward to a family of robins perched on a branch. “Our dogs will die. Our parents will die. And someday, we’ll die, too.”
She shook her head again. “No,” she said stupidly. She didn’t want to think about it.
“Yes,” he snapped with the fierce insistence of someone who was unfamiliar with hearing the word ‘no’. “You can’t just say ‘no’ to death.”
“Yes, I can.” She wrapped her arms around Bond, who made a comfortable groaning noise as he flopped into her lap.
“No, you can’t.” He stood up, casting a shadow over her as he blocked out the sun.
“I can say whatever I want,” she protested like the child she was.
“Maybe you’re not mature enough to understand it,” he declared with a level of pretentiousness that made her stomach turn. “But death is a part of life. Learn how to deal with it before it actually happens, or else you’ll fall apart.”
She swallowed hard. She wanted to snap at him, but she knew he was right. Maybe that’s what upset her the most.
“How do you deal with it?” She asked in earnest.
His expression held both pity and sympathy, so closely woven together she couldn’t separate one from the other. “I dunno,” he responded honestly, much to her surprise. “Some people make art. They write music, or poetry, or paint pictures…”
“Oh,” she mindlessly uprooted fistfuls of grass, focusing entirely on the feeling of the blades between her fingers and not at all on the tension between them, let alone fathoming the weight of loss.
“You wasted my afternoon,” he rolled his eyes as he clipped Max’s leash to the loop on his collar.
“Is that why you’re so bad at art?” She blurted out, proverbial daggers clenched in both of her fists as she readied herself to hurl them.
“What?” He narrowed his eyes, pulling his shoulders back and posturing himself over her, daring her to repeat herself. Daring her to challenge him.
“That’s why you suck at art. You’re bad at instruments and writing and painting… ‘cos you’ve never lost anyone or anything. And you wouldn’t know the first thing about pain even if it punched you right in the face,” she shrugged with every iota of indifference she could feign, hoping the seamless delivery of such a callous remark would cut him just as deep as the words.
“Oh, fuck you,” he snarled under his breath. He’d never let his mother hear him speak so crassly, but Anya was an insolent commoner and she deserved it.
“Bye, Maxie,” she leaned forward in the grass. Max kissed her face, and Damian guided him away from her at once.
“Bond says bye, too,” she relayed the message from her own dear friend, who was basking in the sunlight, ignoring their fierce back and forth like it was all par for the course.
“Good luck with your pathetic life, you stupid street rat,” he snarled with disdain as he walked toward his mother. “We’re leaving,” he announced, and much to Anya’s surprise, Melinda rose at his declaration without hesitation. Loid would have glared a hole through her soul if she ever spoke to him like that. She might have laughed if she wasn’t so upset.
She looked back at Bond. “How about now?” She prodded his big, round belly and he grumbled, kicking his legs up for a scratch that she’d never pass up. She listened to his thoughts. The image of Damian twirling her in a wedding dress was still on the forefront of his mind.
“Ugh!” She flopped onto her back and pounded her heels into the dirt. “He’s such a stupid asshole!” She cursed, slapping a dirty, grass-covered hand over her mouth upon realizing Mama might have overheard that. “I would never marry him. Do you hear how rude he is? Who talks like that?” She implored Bond, who grumbled again and leaned into her hearty belly scratches. “I guess you and I will be useless and stupid together forever,” she sighed, rolling over and gathering his leash off the ground.
•••
“Is everything okay, Miss Anya?” Yor asked tentatively as they walked home from the park.
“Yeah,” Anya lied poorly. By choice. She liked when Mama asked her a second time… it meant she really cared.
“Are you sure? I thought you two were having a nice time…” Yor lied back, poorly. Sometimes they got on swimmingly. Other times, it was a miracle nobody drowned.
“Damian is stupid,” Anya declared unceremoniously.
“What did he say?” Yor asked in earnest; a breath of fresh air from Loid’s typical ‘What did you do?’
“That everything dies,” Anya rolled her eyes. Yor took brief pause as she looked at her. They met eyes, and Anya realized she’d have to elaborate unless she wanted to start a war.
“We were talking about the dogs and I said Max looks old and he said he will probably die soon,” Anya’s hand quivered as she gripped Bond’s leash tighter. He walked closer to her, brushing against her leg with every stride.
“Oh, Anya…” Yor’s shoulders sagged as she racked her brain for words on the subject, but she came up empty at every turn. She knew she wasn’t the right person to talk to Anya about death… but she had to say something. “Max is getting old…”
“Yeah, I know…” she furrowed her brow. She didn’t like that she seemed sadder about the idea of Max dying than Damian did. He was too stoic about it and it rattled her cage so badly that her hands were still shaking. Certainly not because it implied any sort of fate about her own favourite companion, who slowed down to take a breather at her side as she turned away from Yor. “But he doesn’t have to talk about it like that!”
“Sometimes it helps people to talk about things…” Yor started, advice she was parroting from Loid and not at all from personal experience.
“Well, he clearly didn’t want my help! He said I’m stupid and immature!” Anya snapped, turning back to her mother with tears in her eyes.
“You’re not stupid.” Yor cupped the back of her head and pulled her into a tight hug, thumbing her tears away as she cradled her against her chest. “And you are not immature. Maybe he’s being mean because he’s scared,” she wondered aloud. It was hard to justify her best friend’s son making her daughter cry like this. It wasn’t the first time… but she always hoped it would be the last.
“Why doesn’t he just say that, then?! Instead of being a mean, shitty jerk!” Anya sobbed. “Lousy jerk,” she corrected.
“Sometimes people will tell you they’re scared in different ways… not with words,” Yor fumbled nervously for advice, praying it would come to her as she spoke. “I don’t think Damian likes telling people he’s scared. But that doesn’t mean he gets to scare you,” she squeezed Anya tighter, delivering that last remark with the scathing edge of motherhood.
“He didn’t scare me,” Anya protested as she wiped her face on the soft, warm fabric of Yor’s jacket. “He just pissed me off. I don’t even like him like that,” she insisted… not to her mother, but to Bond, who grumbled in response—the image of her ringed hand in Damian’s palm still present in his mind.
“Like what?” Yor asked.
“Like, at all. He’s so stupid and mean and—” she gasped to catch her breath but choked on a sob instead. Before she knew it, she was weeping like a child again in Yor’s arms. Yor guided her down to the nearest stoop, pulling her into her arms and welcoming Bond to sit between them. He placed his chin on Anya’s knee, knowing good and well she wasn’t just crying about Damian’s cold disposition. Like Max, he was no spring chicken himself.
“Don’t worry about him,” Yor stroked her bangs back from her forehead, combing the sweat-slicked ringlets that began to form near her ears.
“What if I have to?” Anya asked. It was a strange question without context, but she wasn’t willing to elaborate… she just needed comfort.
“You don’t have to. We never have to do afternoons or brunch or anything ever again,” Yor hastily insisted, suddenly feeling incredibly guilty for subjecting Anya to Melinda’s cruel, sharp-tongued son… even if it was usually Anya’s idea.
“It’s not even that, I just…” Anya sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “He is my friend,” she assured Yor, nervous that her outburst may lead to a conversation with Loid if she doesn’t exercise proper damage control. “And I care about him, I guess… it just… feels like he doesn’t care about me sometimes.” She shrugged, feeling selfish for making it about her. They were talking about his dog’s lifespan, after all.
“Boys are mean at this age,” Yor reassured Anya, still feeling residual anger toward the boys who used to pick on Yuri as a child. “Give him time,” she rocked her back and forth. “And if he’s still mean when he’s a grown man, then I’ll have a talk with him.”
Mama’s love was unconditional. Anya suddenly felt very nervous for the version of Damian who kissed her forehead on their wedding day… she’d never find out if it would happen or not if Mama killed him first.
“It’s okay,” Anya sighed, clearing her throat after crying herself hoarse. “I think I’m just hungry… can we get sausages?”
“We sure can,” Yor patted Anya’s back and helped her to her feet.
“Can we get one for Bond, too?” She asked, her eyes still brimming with tears.
“We can get two for Bond,” Yor beamed, and Bond bowed before them both, his tail wagging with sheer, unbridled joy.
•••
Anya didn’t speak to Damian for the rest of the summer. Bond’s vision never changed in substance, but the details were clearer every time he envisioned it. She could see pink and green stones in a gold necklace that sat at her collarbone as Damian adjusted a matching tiara on her head. His boutonnière matched her hair, and the of leaves of the candy-pink rose matched her eyes. It pissed her off. It pissed her off so much that she beckoned the vision from Bond five times a day just to be sure it still pissed her off.
Her stomach churned during the opening ceremony of the fall semester, tensing as she passed him and not meeting his eyes as she made her way to her locker. She felt his presence behind her and bristled instinctively, bracing herself for an inevitable onslaught of insults about her maturity and inability to process death.
When she closed her locker door, he was standing there silently with a parcel wrapped in black paper.
“Max died on July 20th,” he said, forcing the parcel into her palms and immediately shoving both hands in his pockets. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, but his steady voice did not betray him.
“I buried him with the tennis ball we played with at the park.” Damian set his jaw sternly. He was willing himself not to cry, and that tipped Anya over the edge. She opened her arms to hug him, but he stepped back abruptly. PDA was not permitted by Eden Academy. Crying in the arms of a commoner was not permitted by the Desmond dynasty.
“Dami, I’m sorry,” she sniffled.
“He was a good dog. Thanks for playing with him,” he turned on his heel and walked away without another word.
Her heavy tears hit the black paper and rolled off the sides as she peeled it back.
It was a painting of Max and Bond sitting side by side at the park. The attention to detail was breathtaking. Neither of them bore a single strand of grey.
She wiped her eyes on her uniform sweater and sniffled as she looked closer. He got every detail right.
She hugged the painting to her chest and buried her head in her locker, her shoulders shaking as she pulled herself together.
She leaned back to study the careful brushstrokes again, deciding suddenly that Damian’s stoicism wasn’t so pretentious after all.
Perhaps he knew something she didn’t.
And perhaps, someday, he would teach her how to grieve, too.