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Scott takes the bus for 8 months after his parents’ divorce, right up until his dad drops him off at the stop with a one-way ticket and a backpack full of dirty clothes and says “I’m sorry kid, you’re better off with your mother.”
By the time the bus reaches Beacon Hills, it’s night, and Scott’s tired and thirsty and needs to pee and wants his mom more than he’s ever wanted anything in the whole world—but she’s not there. No one is, not even a car. There’s nothing but a street light and a bench next to an empty strip mall that backs up against the woods, and everything is dark except for the flickering buzz of the street lamp, and it’s so quiet that Scott’s steps are loud enough to scare him. It’s a struggle to stay brave and not to run until he’s safely within the light and watching the bus pull away, until he’s alone on the edge of the bench, holding his backpack tight in front of him and watching the road and listening to the noises in the woods and trying very, very hard not to think about what his dad told him about mountain lions.
He waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Scott tries to be patient, tries to make a game of counting the seconds until a car passes, but he loses track at 652 and has to start over, and by the time he reaches 500 on top of that and no one has come, he stops counting.
It’s only a few minutes before his eyes start to blur and sting. He’s so tired, and he just wants his dad to come get him, to come and say like he usually does: “I was just kidding! Come on, kid, let’s go get some ice cream.”
He doesn’t understand what happened. He’d been doing really good, he’d been so careful since they told him that dad was moving to another city and Scott was special, he got to have two houses, and isn’t that fun? He’s been doing his best to be good, he remembered all of his chores and he didn’t complain about bedtime and his dad was so happy this morning, they went to the zoo, they went and saw the mountain lions, and…
His backpack falls to the cement as he rubs his fists into his eyes. “Stop it.” The words crack on their way out. Not so brave now,are you Scott? You did forget, you didn’t get up in time to put up the dishes yesterday and he did them instead and he didn’t say anything or look mad but he probably hates you, you aren’t enough of a help, you should have helped more, you should have done better, maybe you’d all be together if you’d tried harder, maybe you wouldn’t be here right now
He breaks down then, he’s barely nine, and he just doesn’t want to be alone out here in the dark, he’s scared and wants to be home, he wants to be in his own bed and have his mom and dad in the next room laughing and watching a movie. He doesn’t know how to fix it. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to get home. He just wants to go home.
The tears don’t stop, and it’s a second before he feels the cold nose under his hand, and even then it takes a second to register—until it does, and he shrieks a little and jumps and doesn’t come to until he’s standing on top of the bench and looking down at—
—a big black dog.
No: a gigantic black dog.
It’s huge and furry and it looks like… well, it looks like a wolf, not that he’s ever seen one, but he knows enough. He knows about wolves. They’re predators, they’re just as dangerous as mountain lions and—
He’s brought back from panic by the… wolf/dog/thing whining a little and wagging its tail and smiling as much as it can without showing its teeth.
He guesses, anyway. It looks as if it means to—but Scott still hesitates, looking down at it. It’s really big.
It sits down and solemnly raises a paw as if to shake hands.
He stares at it, surprised and still a little scared. A wolf wouldn’t do that… probably. Wolves don’t like people. Maybe it is a dog. Maybe it’s just lost, like he is.
The dog whines as if in affirmation. Scott hesitates again, then climbs down, very slow, very careful, and sits back on the bench, his knees tucked up against his chest.
“Uh, hi.” His voice cracks a little. “Sorry.”
The dog tilts its head, watching him with unblinking eyes. “It’s okay, I’m just. I’ve never had a dog,” he explains. “Are you lost?”
Immediately after he says it, he feels embarrassed. The dog can’t talk back, it can’t even understand what he’s saying.
Get it together, stop being such a baby. His eyes start to sting again, blinking back tears as he struggles not to cry.
“Sorry,” he manages, wipes his nose on the red arm of his hoodie. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” The dog nudges at his leg with its nose, and Scott reaches out, still a little hesitant, and carefully strokes its fur. It’s really soft, and somehow it makes him feel better just to touch it, and he begins to talk again before he can help himself, about everything: his dad, his mom, what happened to their family. How he’s worried about mountain lions, but less so now that the dog is here, “because you seem pretty strong and I think you could take one, probably."
The dog seems like it understands—and if it doesn’t… it’s okay. No one will ever know.
***
Scott falls asleep curled up on the bench with his hand clutched in the dog’s thick ruff, and only wakes at the blare of headlights when his mom rolls up in her car so fast that the tires scream marks into the cement. The door’s thrown open while the car’s still running and Scott’s blinking and rubbing his eyes when suddenly she’s on him, pulling him to her so hard that they fall back on the asphalt. She doesn’t let go for a long time.
When they finally get up, the dog is nowhere to be found.