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That boy with the dog was at the park again today, you thought. Well to say it was a park would be an over exaggeration. The measly, patch of yellow grass that had been place opposite your apartment block was a truly lame excuse of a park. It was one of those, so named ‘Conservation areas’ that was set up by the council of your area as some way of convincing people that the space barely bigger than a shopping centre’s, well a small shopping centres, car park, was adequate in battling the amount of chemicals they had pumped into the atmosphere when building the high rise buildings. It was in the shadow of the pack of huge story buildings and constantly felt dark and gloomy because of this. There was a singular, formally shingled now only dirty, path running from one side of the area to the other, leading to a gate which was the only way in and out of the fenced area. To get to anywhere else, you would have to walk through the grass that was always dotted with those clumps of grass that you get when grass it cut too quickly and with a cheap lawnmower. Three, out of the promised 30 trees had managed to actually grow here, and one of them was where you found yourself sitting under most days. Why you sat under a tree, you didn’t know. It wasn’t like you were doing it to keep in the shade, when the buildings that circled it blocked out the sun anyway. But you kicked away the beer bottles from unruly youths, and advanced to the area anyway. God, when did you start sounding so old, you thought. Those unruly youths were your age, kinda, well in this area anyway. Not that there was anything wrong about this area. Except the noisy, rowdy, and most likely drug abusing boys that constantly submitted you to the thudding of loud music through the thin walls of your apartment, or the needles that you would occasionally have to step over in a back-alley short cut, or the sound of babies crying way too loudly in the arms of those who were way too young, or... Well, okay maybe it wasn’t a nice area.
But the pathetic excuse of a ‘park’ was not what had you coming there every day. Nor was it the slightly emo, but not actually emo boy with the scruffy white dog, who always walked through there along the shingle path. You came to the shade of one of the three trees to, kind of escape. It wasn’t that much of a secret exit that led to the top of a roof to watch the sunset, like in so many books now-a-days, but when the bark of one of the trees was scratching at the back of one of your hoodies or jackets, and the spikey grass underneath was either leaving marks in your bare legs or poking through your jeans, and the volume of your music was just loud enough to drown out the jeering and crashing of beer bottles, it was peaceful. Inside yourself, something settled, like when the rustling of the leaves fluttered past you but you couldn’t actually hear the rustling sound they made, or when wind stroked and pushed back your hair without so much as disturbing you. Something inside of you that was always fluttering and crashing and rattling, seemed to just relax, like a bird in flight too long finally landing. So maybe it was stupid to feel grounded with the smell of cigarette smoke from open windows contaminating your lungs, but did it matter? You didn’t think so. Which is how you found yourself under a tree, after deviating from the poor excuse of a path.
Often the sounds you chose to drown the world out with were loud, loud in a way that seemed so quite to you, as if the words were whispered to you through the tiny earphones. Weird to use the analogy that music so rowdy and thumping and bass-y, would be compared to the slight whisper of a friend directly hushed into your ear. But if silence could be deafening, then music loud enough to leave your ears ringing, could quieten the churning and pulsating rhythm of the word around you. And it did. Loud and impulsive solos and riffs caused a level of solace, and maybe it was because you couldn’t even hear yourself think, let alone the sounds of the world around you, that you felt calm. No thoughts and torments of your inner thoughts clouding you and following you. It was good. Good in a way that maybe wasn’t healthy for your ears as the music was loud enough to be heard out of your headphones, but good in that you could escape when the walls of a world that you had created seemed to feel too high to climb in order to escape. Maybe that’s why there was something inside you that was constant fluttering, it was something striving to survive and clawing its way out of you in an attempt to get out.
***
And a scrambling, yellowing furred dog brought that escape. One day, lying under that shade of the same tree as ever, something almost feral and rabid launched itself into your lap. You had been lying down, head resting on a grey bunched up hoodie, since you preferred this position even though goose bumps bloomed on your skin from the chill in the shade, and your tangled headphones were in your ears. The thumping of the music masked the thumping of heavy black converse clad feet on the ground, as a person ran towards you. The writhing mass of fur was on your stomach before you knew it, and it clawed at your shirt. To say it was clawing made it sound almost malicious but it was more as if it was jumping up and down on your stomach and chest, claws biting into your skin, in order to get your attention. At the same time as this frantic jumping, a wet pink tongue lap at your face. Smearing doggy saliva all of your face. Having had no warning of the approaching mayhem, your reaction was slow. Not having time to stop the piercing of your skin, and only beginning to react when the dog began to lick and lick at your nose and your mouth. Its clawing had yanked your prised headphones out of your ears and only now had you managed to hear the shouts of “RJ”, “RJ oh my god, come back!” and “For god’s sake your stupid dog!” You snapped upright, knocking the dog off your stomach and onto your legs. It sat there momentarily dazed, until it stood on its hind legs and put its front legs on your chest. It tried to lick at your face, failed, and proceeded to lick all over your neck and cuff of your t-shirt. It had beady black eyes and stared at you with its tongue lolling and head tipped to the side. When you simply sat there, dazed, your arms handing limp at your sides after not actually knowing how to handle the dog on you without coming across as repulsed, it seemed to whine. Demanding affection and attention in a way comparable to a baby. The shouts got closer and then the dog was lifted of your lap. Its little legs thrashed slightly and it whined, but whined differently to when he was trying to get your attention. It reminded you of a kid whining at their dad or mum for something they knew they couldn’t have but wanted anyway.
You could have said a shadow fell over you, or your skin grew chilly from the blocking of the sun or just something equally cliché, but seeing as you were shaded anyway it wouldn’t have proven anything. But the guy now with the wriggling dog in his arms would have been tall enough to block the sun anyway, if there was one that is. But really, it wouldn’t have mattered. The boy was the slight emo yet not emo boy, however there was nothing dark and grungy about the blinding smile and sparkling white teeth that cracked across his face. He was smiling at you, lips pulled back in a huge grin, and his deep chocolate eyes shone. You would have said they looked shiny, but that made it seem like he was crying, which he was far from doing. The dog spun around and squirmed in his toned, tanned and tattooed arms, making whiney noises this whole time. The smile on his face had been directed at you, and still dazed, and probably slight shiny from the dog’s-RJ’s- spit, you tried to comprehend how you had even thought this boy was anything but his own little source of sunlight. The huge smile which had brought into view his prominent cheek bones, turned into a teeny, tiny smirk and he began to scold the dog. In a playful manner he held the dog in one arm, and fluffed up all of its fur with the other whilst saying, “RJ, what do you think you’re doing running off like that? You had me all scared there, boy! Don’t do that again!” The tone of voice he used was endearing and reminded you of something maternal and somewhat fatherly. The dog tried to burry itself in the crook of the boys arm, and when it looked like he had succeeded and you could only see the body and no head of the dog, did the boy look up. From looking down at the dog, his hair had flopped into his eyes, it was brown with the slightest reminders of blonde streaking the front. He used a hand to push through it, and it mostly seamed to stay where he pushed it back, some of it fell back down though and it made you want to push it back for him. It made him look less perfect, which with the way he was dressed in those black converse, skin tight black skinny jeans, a top with the lyrics from some obscure song and this adorable little dog in his arms, paired with the fact his eyes were still twinkling and his jaw was so, so straight but his cheeks just begged to be pinched between your fingers, probably just made him look more perfect to be honest.
He gave you a closed lipped smile, it could have been a smirk, but did it matter? He was still their in front of you and hadn’t just received his dog and left you there with the paw prints over your skin. You did notice how his chest wasn’t heaving from the sprint he had done across the park, not that you were looking at his chest or anything. No, because you weren’t wondering if he worked out and what his chest looked like under his thin black t-shirt. The boy shrugged the dog in his arms and looked at you as he said, “RJ, what do you think you’re doing smothering such a beautiful girl,” he pretended to still be talking to the dog, and the colour of your cheeks began to grow and you fought to keep your mouth from flopping open, “-with great music taste by the way-“ he added with lilt in his voice and the raising of a finger as if it was an afterthought. The music was still playing out of your disregarded headphones, but shutting it off to conserve your ever dwindling phone battery was the last of your problems, “with your little doggy kisses without even taking her out on a date first?”. He finished of his question with almost an incredulous tone, and smirked at you. The dog wiggled and its rear end stuck up in the air as it tried to worm its way through the crook of the boys arm between his side and arm. The dogs tailed wagged in the air, almost as if it had picked up on the playful conversation between its owner and you.
Dumbfounded and gawping like a fish, you stared at the boy. You were still on the floor, sitting up right with your feet planted flat on the ground and your arms bracing you upright from behind. If you had been in the sun it would have looked like you were sunbathing. The boy giggled- oh my god, he giggled, a sound similar to the laughter of a young child, it started high and trailed of even higher at the end. It reminded you of the feeling of waking up early in the morning to the sound of chirping birds and streaming light through slightly parted curtains. The dog had given up its pursuit and had resorted to flipping itself onto its back with its head hanging upside down. Its eyes set on you, and you didn’t know whether to look at it, the floor, or the bright eyes of the boy. “Looks like I’ll just have to do that bit for you then, doesn’t it RJ?” the boy spoke. To say your heart dropped into your stomach was an understatement. More like it dropped to the bottom of your shoes and what stopped it from hitting the floor was only their thick soles.
The dogs tonged lolled out of his mouth and he almost looking like he was smiling. The tanned boy was definitely smiling, when he reached a strong arm out to you and pulled you up. You stood, noticing then how tall he was compared to your height, and your headphones hung limply from your pocket where your phone was. The tinny sound filled the space, and they trailed on the floor. “Hey, I’m Calum” he said, warm hand still gripping yours. You thought you felt calluses on them, but from the spinning in your head, it could have just been your brains way of coping with the fact that he was still in your space and holding your hand and looking at you and smiling. “Y-Y/N” you choked out. He beamed, almost blinding you with his pearly white teeth and the colour in his high cheeks. “Oh and this is RJ” he quipped, shrugging the dog in his arms. It gave out a little bark and wiggled on its back at you.
Thoughts and emotions raced through your head. Okay okay, this was way too much like a book or the lyrics of a song to be real, you thought. It’s okay, the tightening feeling of the reality that this was all a dream will be gone once you actually wake up and have had a coffee or something… “So ‘bout that date?”.
***
So that was how, two hours later, headphones retrieved, dog stretched across both yours and Calum’s laps, you were sat listening to music under your tree. The head of the dog was in your lap, and you ran your hand through his slightly knotted hair, and smoothed out the tufts by his ears. Calum was pressed close to your side, ‘for the dog, of course’ he had said as he shuffled that little bit closer. The tail of the dog thumped across the boys lap. With both of your backs to the tree, your lent on it, the familiar feeling of the bark biting into your skin helping you to maybe think this wasn’t a dream. A headphone in each ear, it helped you realise that maybe the thumping of a song to drown out the world and all in it, is only better when shared. Toes tapping to music and hands strumming along in the dirt, only inches apart where better than the longing in your head at someone to talk to. The sounds of people singing was not the same as companionship no matter which way you spun it, and the boy next to you, whose eyes would light up and sparkle when a song you had in common came on, was something you had been longing. You couldn’t hear the music from outside the headphones now, and it was as if the sound had been calling out, and now that the call had been answered, the songs and riffs didn’t needed to cry out to someone, anyone.
But when his hand, which he had so deliberated to move that inch closer, found yours, and your fingers interlaced, the fluttering in your chest lulled. The bird stopped trying to take flight, and stopped crashing against its cage. Only later on, much later on, when a dog named RJ would run around in-between your feet as you cooked in your apartment kitchen, with some song with loud vocals and a giggle that reminded you of birds chirping in the morning could be found within the shared apartment, would you realise it was because it had been set free. A boy with a dog named RJ, had found a key, unlocked a door he didn’t know had been shut for so long, and set something so important free. But to begin with, you didn’t know of keys, and birds and cages so you savoured in the feeling of his hand in yours, the weight of a dog in your lap, and the slight pressure of lips on your cheek as Calum twisted his head and kissed your now glowing skin. He squeezed your hand, and slowing began to set you free.