Metamorphosis

What makes us who we are

Chapter 38

What makes us who we are

A week and a half later, Seth had nothing. He had done countless hours of research and he always came up empty, seeing as there were a lot of Jake Petersons in the world.

The teen was sitting on his pullout sofa with his laptop resting on his thigh. Cujo, his large Siberian husky, lay curled up next to his owner. Seth sighed and gently stroked the dog's fur.

"This is fucking hard" he said. The canine perked his head up and looked at him with his blue eyes.

Seth tapped his finger on the spacebar, a couple weeks into the new semester and he already had a paper due for that bitch Mrs. Jeribeck.

And who could really focus on fucking immigration at a time like this?

"You think Jesse's the one who hit her?" he asked the dog after a moment of stillness. Cujo tilted his head to the side and nudged the teen's leg with his paw. He smiled and scratched the animal's head.

Cujo and Seth went way back. The latter had found him in an alley when he was only a few weeks old. He remembered the event well, because it was a day that his childhood loneliness had ended.

The ten year old boy picked up his pace as his worn sneakers hit the icy, dirty pavement. It was mid-day, but he did not even care that he was leaving school before the appropriate time.

Seth's fourth grade class had had a field trip to the space museum today. Seth knew that both his parents would be too drunk to sign his permission form, and he did not even bother asking.

So the boy was the only one in the class who was unable to go, and by noon, he got tired of doing problems in his workbook and having the secretary babysit him, so he snuck off school grounds at recess.

As he approached the crosswalk that would lead him to the arcade, a small squeak caught his attention. His blue green eyes darted nervously up and down the empty street, trying to find the source of the sound.

After a moment of silence, he shrugged and began his journey again. Two steps later, he heard the squeak again.

Tightening his two-sizes-too-big sweatshirt around his thin body, he took a brave step into the dark alley. Not the brightest move, seeing as this neighborhood was very dangerous -especially for a child- but his curiosity was piqued. As he was stepping over a small pile of slush, something caught his eye.

And startled him so badly he almost jumped.

It was a puppy. A tiny, shivering, black and white puppy.

"Hey there little guy." He said softly, brow crinkled while he knelt down. The creature shrank away and began to walk away. He saw the animal's wet fur clinging to its shivering body, and immediately assumed that it had been dumped, neglected, abandoned.

Something he could relate to.

Seth brought the small plastic baggy that contained the sandwich he had yet to eat at lunch out of his backpack and broke off a small piece. The puppy's tiny nose twitched as the smell of the bologna filled the air. after a moment it took a step forward and sniffed the child's palm.

Seth smiled and watched his new friend gobble the sandwich up greedily. He gently stroked the damp, sleet-slicked fur.

"You got a home?" he asked. The small animal responded by licking his palm in search of more sandwich.