The Worst Guilt Yet!

Matchstick. My pet genetically engineered chupacabra. I hadn't taken him to the beach with me. Intentionally. He'd been such a pain in my neck lately that I'd decided, against Snowball's encouragement to bring him along, to leave him at home today.

With Snowball and Fence in tow, the last thing this beach trip was going to be was peaceful. Why make things even worse by bringing my hell-raising chupacabra along for the ride, right?

I figured that way I'd be able to leave all thought of Matchstick behind too. Spend at least one afternoon away from what my life had slowly turned into: a series of drooled-on pillows I'd asked him not to sleep on 20 times and muddy tracks through the house I'd had to clean up day after day and claw and fang marks all over everything except — because of course — his actual food, which usually stayed in his bowl untouched, except for that one time I tried to force him to eat it and almost lost, in order of importance, a finger, my patience with Matchstick entirely, and $27.50 in the competitive floor-is-lava match I had to enter to get more chupacabra food after Matchstick let his sit out long enough to go bad again. Seriously, that stuff's not easy to come by.

Anyway, thing is?

I figured wrong.

For some reason, I hadn't been able to stop thinking about Matchstick all day.

Funnily enough, the more I tried not to think about Matchstick, the more I ended up thinking about him.

And the more I thought about him, the more lost in thought I got. Bogged down in a mental mire of shame. A brainfog of regret, self-reproach, and the awful memory of stuff I never should have done in the first place.

There was the whole "using his water bowl as a frisbee thing," sure. But that wasn't the entire story.

There was also that time I got rid of his favorite leash out of spite after he had spent weeks customizing and decorating it.

And the time I "accidentally" ate the limited-edition radioactive-waste-flavored pudding he was saving for himself in the fridge, also out of spite, and played dumb when he called me out on it.

And then there was that time when I, out of, you guessed it, spite, pretended I was too busy with schoolwork and work-work to walk him, and kept it up for two and a half weeks just cause I didn't want to deal with his antics.

Come to think of it, I had done a lot of nasty stuff to him out of spite. Spite over what he had done to me, over every stupid stunt he'd pulled to make my life just that much more miserable, sure, but spite nonetheless.

There was no arguing it: I'd been a lousy owner to him lately.

Hell, not just lately. Since I got him, actually, pretty much.

Maybe Snowball was right, I started thinking. I was the owner and Matchstick was the pet. Maybe it was my job to be the bigger person. If Matchstick kept misbehaving, that was one thing. But maybe it was my job to give him another chance.

All day today, I just couldn't stop thinking about that. About him. Not even while my face was being used as a tool to lose the most pathetic volleyball match of all time. Not even as I narrowly escape getting turned into mulch by a crazy witch and the deadliest pet yet.

And definitely not while I was looking straight at his stupid, sleeping face drooling an ocean onto my favorite pillow in a picture.

Snowball tapped me on the shoulder, and I jolted back to reality.

"Wh-what?"

"You're crumpling the picture."

"Oh. Sorry."

I handed the instant photo — the last of the four — back to her. It was the final one Snowball hadn't been able to think of a name for. But unlike the other three, this one hadn't been taken today. It was an old one, of me and Matchstick back when he was still growing to full size, sleeping peacefully together on my bed. A boy and his dog. Or in this case, a boy and his genetically engineered cryptid, but whatever.

Snowball hadn't ever been able to come up with a good name for this picture. So the blank strip at the bottom of the instant photo, where she usually wrote the names she came up with, had been left blank.

And somehow, for some reason, she thought I'd be able to come up with something good.

"Sigh," I said.

"You're thinking about Matchstick, aren't you?" she asked.

Not sure what else to do, I just nodded weakly.

"Are you thinking about how you're gonna give him a big hug and say 'I WUV you!!!' when we get back? … Nah, I guess not."

That was how much of a downer I was being. I was even dragging Snowball down into my dumps, so much so that she couldn't even stay her usual cheerful self for more than a sentence or two.

I sighed, for real this time, and looked out into the blue distance, where the horizon cut the sea from the cloudless sky. "It's just…" I started, then stopped. Then, when I had collected my thoughts: "It's just, you may have named Matchstick so that he'd be a 'match' for me. So that we'd 'stick' together no matter what. But me and Matchstick? We didn't choose each other."

Snowball suddenly seemed uncomfortable and fidgety, like all of sudden she didn't know where to look, what to do with her hands. Her glasses were fogging up, for real this time. It was the first time — and one of the only times — I ever saw her get that way. "This is my fault, isn't it…"

"No, it's not. Remember when you gifted Matchstick to me? You gave me a choice. You asked me if I wanted to keep him as a pet."

"Mhm…" She bobbed her head in a slight nod.

"And I said yes. I took on being Matchstick's owner and everything that came with it. But…" I seized up all over, involuntarily, fists clenched, jaw nearly locked. "Was that the right thing to do? I didn't know Matchstick. He didn't know me. I may have made the choice to be his owner, but we didn't choose each other. Not really."

Snowball was uncomfortable. I was too. But this was the truth, and we both knew it, and on top of both knowing it, we both knew that someone had to say it eventually. Better sooner than later.

"You made your choice," I continued. "So did I. But it wasn't your choice that brought me and Matchstick together, and it wasn't mine either. In the end, it wasn't anyone's choice. It's just how things ended up happening."

"And now here we are. You two are the opposite of whatever 'perfect for each other' is."

Her phrasing was so topsy-turvy that I almost burst out laughing in spite of the tension of the moment. But also, she was right.

"Maybe…" I breathed deep. I didn't want to say what I was about to say. But I had to. I knew I had to. "Maybe it would be for the best if me and Matchstick…" I trailed off. "I want to be a good owner to Matchstick. Heck, I even want to l-love him as much as a guy can love a chupacabra that's set his favorite pair of shoes on fire on at least two separate occasions."

Snowball grabbed onto my arm in one quick movement and, misty glasses falling down her face, said "I know he wants to love you too! Really! I mean it… sniffle…"

"But is that possible at this point? Maybe it would be for the best if… if…!" Here it came. The part I really, really didn't want to say. But at the same time, I knew I couldn't not say it, no matter how much it hurt. I had been too lousy an owner, I thought. Too lousy to take any of what had happened between me and Matchstick back. And on top of that, did I really deserve that chance after all I'd done? Did Matchstick really deserve it after all he'd done? I wanted to believe that the answer to both of those questions was yes. But what did I know? Who was I to say? And what would Matchstick think? Matchstick and I hadn't chosen each other. So who were either of us to choose what to do with one another?

No do-overs.

Only one way forward.

Finally, I just said it. In the end, it was surprisingly easy to just push everything out of my mind and come out with it. Funny how that works. "Maybe it would be for the best if, after today, me and Matchstick went our separate ways."

Snowball was silent. Her head was hung and she refused to unhang it. Fence was just lingering off to the side, keeping his distance and not really sure what to do or say or if he should do or say anything at all, and I didn't blame him.

What would we do next? What would become of me and Matchstick?

The truth was that I didn't know.

I didn't know anything.

Not what I should say.

Not what I should do.

And definitely not what would happen to me and Matchstick.

Silence hung in the air like a weight ready to drop and flatten us all.

Then there was a loud clap, like the crack of thunder.

And the rain started to fall.

To be continued!