My name’s Abigail, and I’m thirty. I live alone in a small two-bedroom rental at the edge of a sleepy town you wouldn’t spot on most maps. It’s quiet here; too quiet, sometimes.
After my divorce last year, I told myself that peace would help me heal. Instead, it just got me talking to my toaster and making friends with the mailman.
I work remotely, designing content for a publishing company, which means my days blur together: coffee, laptop, silence. No kids. No pets. No chaos. Until Bella came along.
It was a gray, rainy Thursday, one of those days when the sky looks like it’s sulking and everything feels like a sigh. I was driving back from a dentist’s appointment I didn’t even need to go to. I just didn’t want to be home. That was when I saw her.
Right near the highway exit, curled up by the guardrail, was a dog. A golden retriever mix, soaked and shaking. Her fur clung to her ribs, and one of her paws looked twisted under her.
“Oh no,” I whispered, pulling over without even thinking.
My boots hit a puddle as I crossed the gravel. She didn’t move. Didn’t bark. Just stared at me with the saddest brown eyes I’d ever seen.
“Hey there,” I said, kneeling beside her. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She blinked, slowly and calmly. Like she’d been waiting for me.
I slipped off my coat and wrapped it around her. “Let’s get you warm, huh?”
She didn’t resist when I lifted her into the passenger seat. I turned up the heat, glancing at her every few seconds.
At the vet, they examined her while I waited in a stiff plastic chair, bouncing my leg and biting the inside of my cheek.
“No chip,” the vet finally said. “No collar either. She’s underweight, but no internal injuries. Just a sprained paw. Maybe a year old, tops.”
“Is she… is someone looking for her?”
The vet shook her head. “If she was dumped, maybe not. Do you want to keep her?”
I looked at the window, where she sat quietly in a kennel, eyes still fixed on me. My voice caught a little.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
I named her Bella that night. It felt right: something soft, something hopeful.
The first few days were rough. She wouldn’t eat unless I sat beside her. She slept curled up behind the sofa like she was hiding. Moreover, she flinched at sudden noises, and she didn’t bark. Not once.
