Just written

Once again I led a guy through the maze of halls that was the shelter. This time we didn’t even touch. Maybe he was still mad at me. But he was here. That was what mattered.

“This guy’s my favorite,” I said.

There he was, chilling in his cage. The look he gave me – it was like why? What did I do wrong? Nothing, Romeo. You only committed the sin of being without a home.

“A Pit,” Paul said, and for a moment I thought it was a negative. Then I turned around and saw the tears in his eyes.

I hugged him. He wrapped his arms around me, his touch so very different from Matt’s. Where Matt’s hands were searching, possessive, Paul was warm and present. Matt felt like he would take you away from yourself. Paul felt like he would help you find who you were.

There is, of course, no black and white. I barely knew this guy. He could be a serial killer or a Taylor Swift fan. I very well could have been making him into some god when he was just a person. But it felt so good to believe that he was just a sweet, decent dude.

I muttered against his chest: “You like Pit Bulls?”

“Like them? They’re the bomb.”

Well, that tore it. If I hadn’t liked him before, I liked him now. Fact was, so many people couldn’t stand Pits for the very fact of what they were. So many people couldn’t see beyond the stereotype: vicious, hair-trigger, jaws that locked and tore. They couldn’t look past the muscular bodies, the blocky heads; they couldn’t imagine running their hands over the short, bristly fur. Paul seemed to have no such problem, and for that I loved him for one sharp, sweet second.