Orbit

They told me you were shy, “the kind that sits in the back of the kennel like he’s hiding from the sun.” The volunteer had a name tag that said LUZ and a smile like a porch light.

“He came in during the storms,” she said, kneeling so we were both at your level. “He shakes when the thunder starts. He shakes even when it’s not thunder.”

You stared at me through the bars with eyes like marbles pulled from the deep end of a pool: serious, shining, suspicious of light. I put my fingers through the gap and you sniffed them like they were a secret.

“I’m not great with storms either,” I told you. “Or elevators. Or voicemail.”

Luz laughed softly. “We call him Orbit,” she said. “Because he circles before he trusts.”

“Hi, Orbit,” I said. “I’m trying to be brave.”

You inched forward. You took my knuckle into your mouth like a question. I answered by not flinching.

We took a walk in a narrow yard that smelled like bleach and hope. You trotted close, so close that our shadows overlapped. When a truck thundered past on the street beyond the fence, you pressed your shoulder to my shin. It felt like someone pressing back the ocean with one hand. I pressed back.

“Is this a mistake?” I asked Luz at the desk, while you pretended to be fascinated by a dead leaf.

“Maybe,” she said. “The best kind. You ready?”

“No,” I said.

“Great,” she said, and handed me a leash, a packet of papers, and a bag of treats that smelled like beef and childhood.

The elevator at my building groaned like an old ship. You set your feet and made yourself heavy. I sat down beside you on the lobby floor and said, “We can do stairs.”

“Or we wait for nobody,” my neighbor Mr. Patel said, taking the stairs two at a time. “Elevator is not a monster. It is a closet that moves.”

“Some closets have monsters,” I told him.

He grinned. “Maybe your closet has pie.”

In the end we took the stairs, stopping on every landing, hearts beating in a rhythm that kept surprising me by continuing.

That first night, thunder rolled. You shivered until your tag jingled insults at the dark. I dragged a comforter into the tub and we curled there, porcelain cold against our backs. My phone buzzed with a text from someone I used to love: “you okay? I turned the phone face down.”

“You’re okay,” I told you, hand on your chest. “I’m okay.” You blinked. Your breath was hot ivy crawling up my wrist. We counted together: in for four, hold for two, out for six. Somewhere between the holding and the letting go, both of us fell asleep, rain talking gentle to the roof.

Days got stitched together with small walks, small braveries. You learned that skateboards are not demons, only wood with wheels and boys who laugh too loud. I learned that the grocery store at 7 a.m. is quiet as a church. We met a kid named Rosa who asked if you could do any tricks.

“He can sit,” I said, and you sat.

“He can shake,” she said hopefully.

You considered, then offered your paw like a treaty. She squealed. “He can make friends,” she whispered to me, like she’d discovered a comet.

We haunted the little park down the block, you with your nose twitching at everything the world left in the grass, me with my eyes on the horizon, watching the weather like it was a language I might finally learn. You chased a discarded napkin and brought it back like a gift. I laughed out loud, that surprised kind of laugh that startles birds into the sky.

“Look at you,” I said. “Stealing ghosts.”

You led me across the street without drama the first time a siren wailed, and I realized I hadn’t braced for impact; I hadn’t apologized to anyone for being in their way. You stopped to watch a man play an accordion on the corner, your head cocked, our feet still. Stillness had always felt like a trap to me. With you it felt like a bench under a tree.

One afternoon, my sister called to ask if I’d come to the festival by the river. “It’s all day,” she said. “There’ll be fireworks at dusk. Bring your dog.”

“Fireworks,” I repeated, glancing at your sleeping body, your paws twitching like you were running in your dreams. “That’s… a lot.”

“You’ve been doing so well,” she said, careful, the way people are when they think they’re speaking to glass.

“I know,” I said, and I did. But the word fireworks was a stone in my mouth.

We went anyway.

You wore a blue bandana that made strangers tell you how handsome you were. You accepted compliments like tips. We kept to the edges, where the grass was taller, where there was always an exit. A little girl with cotton candy on her face asked if she could pet you, and I said, “If he says it’s okay,” and he did, and she did, and her father mouthed thank you over her head as if gratitude was a secret.

When the first firework cracked the sky, you startled so hard your whole life leapt. I crouched and you crawled under the picnic table, your body a quake.

“Hey,” I said, sliding beneath the table too, ignoring the looks. “Hey, hey, hey, we’re okay.”

Someone said, “They’re fine,” and someone else said, “It’s just noise,” and I wanted to say that sometimes noise grows teeth. But you were looking at me like I was the only true thing left, so I became the only true thing left.

“Okay,” I said. “We breathe. In for four—” You watched my mouth like it was the moon. “Hold for two. Out for six.” Around us, the sky kept opening and closing. You leaned your whole weight against my side and I leaned back and we were a tent, we were shelter, we were ridiculous and we were not moving.

“Ma’am?” a volunteer bent to peer under the table. “Everything alright?”

“We’re practicing being brave,” I said.

“Carry on,” she said, and wiped a spill with a flourish like we were doing something holy.

Somewhere between the red and the blue bursts, between the sizzle and the boom, your trembling slowed. A toddler clapped. A dog barked twice, as if to punctuate the night. You licked my knuckles like a seal. My eyes stung. I realized I wasn’t scanning for exits anymore. I knew where the exits were; I didn’t need them like air.

When the finale came, it was absurd: too much light for one sky. And yet there it was, and there we were, and when it finished, the world didn’t end. People gathered their blankets; the river went on breathing its long breath. You yawned, the kind of yawn that shows all your teeth and none of your malice.

On the walk home, firework smoke threaded through the trees and the city wore a soft expression. We passed Mr. Patel on his stoop with a slice of something on a paper plate.

“You conquer monsters?” he asked.

“We negotiated,” I said.

He pointed his fork at you. “He make you brave.”

“Other way around,” I said, and then I thought about it. “Both.”

In the elevator, you stepped in without bracing. You looked at me like, see? Closet with pie.

Back in our apartment, there was a ringing in the air I finally recognized as silence. You circled your bed twice and collapsed. I sat on the floor beside you and rested my palm against your ribs until they pulled my heartbeat into their rhythm.

Since I met you, the fear is gone.

Not gone like a house burned down and nothing left but ash. Gone like a house I don’t live in anymore, even if I still pass it on walks and touch the fence out of habit. Gone like a song I loved when I was sixteen and now hum sometimes, laughing. Gone like the monster in the closet after you turn the light on and discover it’s only your shadow, and your shadow waves back.

In the morning, we went to the roof to watch the city put its face on. Pigeons wrote invisible messages in the sky. The sun climbed the ladder of the water tower. A neighbor watered a plant she kept rescuing from itself.

“Orbit,” I said, and you looked up, ears at attention like two small sails. “You did it.”

You sneezed, which I’ve learned means either yes or there is dust. I scratched the place behind your ear that makes your back leg thump.

“Okay,” I said. “We did it.”

You leaned into my knee and made a sound only dogs make, the one that means contentment and also, more simply, now.

The elevator hummed. A siren wailed, far away. A storm might come. The fear might remember my name. But it would find the wrong address, and by the time it knocked, we’d be out, walking, leaving a trail of small, brave footprints for it to get lost in.

-- Julia O'Hara 2025

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