Page 115 of Pets in Space 10

The back door slides shut behind me, the snick sound swallowed by the encroaching twilight. I need air that doesn’t smell like dust, disappointment, and familial betrayal. The garden, Dad’s current obsession and the estate’s last stand against total entropy, seems like the only place to go.

I limp down the uneven flagstone path, my knee a dull, throbbing counterpoint to the sharp agony in my chest. The air here is cooler, thick with the scent of damp earth, blooming night jasmine, and the faint, underlying perfume of roses Dad has been coaxing back to life.

Crickets have started their evening chorus, a hesitant symphony against the backdrop of the house’s groans and sighs.

I sink onto the weathered stone bench beneath the gnarled branches of an old plum tree, the cold seeping through my thin leggings.

The garden is a patchwork of meticulous care and utter neglect.

Dad’s vegetable beds sit beside overgrown patches of wildflowers choked with weeds.

Manicured rose bushes contrast with peeling paint on the nearby shed.

It’s a perfect metaphor for our family, I suppose.

Trying to hold things together while everything frays around the edges.

I rub my arms, shivering despite the mild evening air. Non-core. Redundant. The words swirl in my head, a toxic cocktail of rejection and betrayal.

I pushed Rhys away instead of holding him close. I said unforgivable things, fueled by panic.

And Demi… how could she? How could she interfere like that, thinking she knew best, robbing me of the chance to figure things out for myself?

Was Rhys lying about Chloe? Or was Demi the catalyst for his disappearance? The not knowing is almost worse than the ghosting itself.

A familiar weight settles beside me on the bench, followed by a wet nose nudging against my hand.

“Contemplating jumping into the compost heap?” Raimei asks, his voice soft, devoid of its usual sarcastic edge. “Because while I appreciate the sentiment, it’s full of coffee grounds and eggshells. Not exactly dignified.”

I manage a watery chuckle, scrubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand. “Wouldn’t want to be undignified.”

He lies down at my side and rests his head on my lap. “So, the job thing. That’s… rough.”

“Rough doesn’t quite cover it,” I whisper, staring out at the darkening garden.

The shapes of the plants are blurring, softening into indistinct silhouettes.

“It feels like… like the universe is dismantling my life, piece by painful piece. Soccer, my career… what’s next? The house finally collapses on us?”

“Could happen,” Raimei says and seems to reconsider. “Okay, maybe not helpful. Look, Rosa. It sucks. It really does. Losing something you care for, something you’ve worked for… it’s not the end of the world.”

“It kind of is,” I mumble, picking at a loose thread on my leggings.

“No.” His voice is firm now, cutting through my self-pity. “It’s the end of a world. A job. Not the world. Not your world. Not unless you let it be.”

I sigh and lean my head back against the rough bark of the plum tree. “Easy for you to say. You haven’t been deemed ‘non-core’ by the interstellar equivalent of God.”

“Haven’t I?” His tone is quiet, introspective. He shifts beside me and rests his chin on his paws. “Humans think they have the monopoly on heartbreak, on loss. You assume jobs and ghosting are the only things that get taken away without warning?”

I look down at him, surprised by the sudden shift in his tone. “What do you mean?”

He’s silent for a long moment, watching a firefly blink near the overgrown rose bushes. “Before you, Rosa. Before I ambled up to you on that street and decided you were marginally less annoying than most humans… there was someone else.”

My breath catches. Raimei does not talk about his past. He’s always deflected questions with jokes or complaints about his nap schedule.

“Her name was Willow. She was… she smelled like sunshine after rain. Fast, clever… she could outrun foxes. We were young. Thought we had forever.” He swallows, a small, audible sound in the quiet garden.

“We were exploring near the old quarry, chasing butterflies. There was a rockslide. Sudden. No warning.”

He closes his eyes, a faint tremor running through his small body.

I rest my hand on his back and try to smooth them out.

“One minute, she was laughing, teasing me about being slow. The next… she was gone. Just… gone. No second chances, Rosa. No opportunity to say goodbye, no way to fix things, no possibility of ‘maybe someday.’ Just… emptiness.”

Tears prick my own eyes, blurring the fireflies into streaks of light. “Raimei… I… I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

He sits up and leans into my touch, a rare gesture of vulnerability. “My point is,” he continues, “second chances? They’re not guaranteed. They don’t fall out of the sky like rain during a picnic. Sometimes, you get one. Sometimes, the universe, or fate, or dumb luck, throws you a lifeline.”

He looks up at me, his dark eyes holding an unexpected depth of wisdom.

“This Rhys character… he messed up. Badly. Maybe Demi messed up too, attempting to protect you in her own clumsy, infuriating way. But he came back, didn’t he?

He apologized. He’s trying. That’s… something.

That’s more than Willow and I ever got.”

He nudges my hand again. “Your job? It hurts now. It feels final. But there are other jobs. Other paths. You’re smart, you’re capable, even if you did yell at the Director of the entire Interstellar Agency.

” A ghost of his usual smirk touches his muzzle.

“Your knee will heal. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not enough for professional soccer, but it will heal. You’ll find a new game, Rosa. You always do.”

He sighs, a long, slow exhalation. “Life is going to keep throwing things at you. Good things, bad things, things that make no sense. Successes, failures, heartbreaks, unexpected joys. You don’t get to control most of it.

All you get to control is whether you curl up in the compost heap or you stand up, dust yourself off, cry a little…

” He hits me with a devastating side-eye, and I burst into a watery laugh.

“Okay, cry a lot. And then figure out the next step. You have your whole life ahead of you, you ridiculous human. Don’t waste it mourning maybes when you still have possibilities. ”

I stare at him, speechless. My cranky, nap-obsessed, kibble-snob dog pair just delivered a masterclass in perspective.

Wow. He should teach therapists. Hell, he should be one himself!

His words land, not erasing the pain, but shifting it.

Framing it differently. Willow. No second chances.

But Rhys… he’s still here. The job is gone, but I’m not.

My knee is damaged, but not shattered beyond repair.

Possibilities. The word hangs in the twilight air, fragile but persistent.

I pull Raimei onto my lap and hug him close, burying my face in his soft, dusty fur. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you, Raimei.”

He tolerates the hug for precisely three seconds before wriggling. “Yes, yes, profound wisdom dispensed. Now, about those ear scratches I was promised…”

I manage a genuine smile this time, scratching behind his ears the way he likes.

We sit in comfortable silence for a while and watch the stars prick through the deepening velvet sky.

The anger at Demi hasn’t vanished, nor the hurt from Rhys, nor the terror about my future.

But Raimei’s words have created a small space around the pain, a little breathing room.

The crunch of footsteps on the gravel path makes me tense. Please don’t be Demi. Please don’t be Mom asking about dinner. Please, just let me sit here.

It’s Dad. He stops near the bench, his silhouette framed against the faint glow coming from the kitchen window. He says nothing at first, just stands there, looking out at the garden, his hands shoved into the pockets of his worn work pants.

My usual reaction kicks in. Brace for impact. Prepare for the questions, the advice, the criticism of my life choices. He’ll have heard about the I.A. meeting by now, probably got a full report from one of his cronies. He’ll have opinions.

But he stands there, quiet. The silence stretches, punctuated only by the crickets and the distant bang of the loose shutter. He looks… tired. Less like the imposing former mayor and more like a man carrying a heavy weight.

“Garden’s looking better in parts,” he finally says. “Needs more work, though. Always needs more work.” He gestures towards the house. “This whole place… it’s seen better days.”

I wait for the lecture, the blame, the plan he’s concocted.

The silence stretches.

It doesn’t come.

He sighs, running a hand over his face. “It’s falling apart, Rosa.

Faster than I can patch it up.” He kicks at a loose stone on the path.

“I got a call last week from developers. They want the land. They’re talking about building new housing units.

Apartments, townhouses. God knows Yamato needs them. ”

My stomach plummets. Sell the estate? This crumbling, chaotic, memory-filled house? It’s unthinkable. It’s… home. Despite everything. “Dad, you wouldn’t…”

He looks at me, and his eyes aren’t sharp with calculation or disapproval. They’re just… weary. Resigned. He shrugs, a gesture that feels foreign on him. “It’s something I’m thinking about. A possibility.”

He turns back to survey the darkening garden, the shadowed bulk of the house looming behind it.

“There have been lots of possibilities lately. Not all of them good.” He shoves his hands back in his pockets.

“But sometimes you have to consider all of your options, not just the ones you’re interested in. ”

He’s more right than he knows.

“You okay, Rosie?”

The old nickname, the quiet concern in his voice, catches me off guard. This isn’t the interfering, controlling father I’m used to bracing against. This is someone different. Quieter. Maybe even… uncertain. Like me.

“No. Not really.”

He nods, his gaze still fixed on the garden. “Yeah,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Me neither.”

He doesn’t offer solutions, doesn’t demand explanations. He stands there beside the bench as darkness fully descends, sharing the uneasy silence, another possibility settling into the complicated landscape of my life.