• Vol. 03
  • Chapter 05
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Leash

Grayscale. That’s all she has of him and he doesn’t even fit inside the photo; ears poking out at odd angles like the downed power lines dad used to fix before he found one that he couldn’t. So he left them where they fell like collapsed veins. In the photo, Gray’s little black nose is heart shaped, eyes a blue she swears he stole from the sky, mouth a dividing line between forests of fur. Once, they got lost in a forest after dad had yelled and nearly threw Gray across the room; she was ten and decided that was old enough to live on her own. When dad came out to find her, he tied a string to her wrist, said if she ever wandered off again, he’d be able to find her. We match, she thought, looking at Gray’s leash.

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