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Dee needs a drink.
This is not a unique statement. She can’t recall a time past the age of sixteen where she didn’t need one.
Nothing’s changed much since she was an insecure girl in a metal cage. The word comes to her again, ‘change’, and closes off her thoughts, blunt and simple. So instead she stuffs ham into her mouth between swigs of beer and trying not to watch Charlie gambol around the desk, three beers deep and higher than her.
Dee laughs, joins in. This is fine. She can handle this.
But then she has to leave the party to grab another bottle of wine, and Charlie follows her. Dee is skittish and wide-eyed, a cat on the run. She’s already convinced herself nothing else is going to happen either way.
It just…feels weird to be around him. This is a feeling she’s used to pushing down, at blitzing over at top speed. He seems to feel that way too, and when he tries to squeeze by her she loses her grip on her wine bottle. Time speeds up in her dizzy brain - he catches it somehow – mid-drop.
She laughs. He laughs. Little tiny goosebumps pop up all up and down her arm when their fingers brush and he hands it back to her.
Dee Reynolds does not get goosebumps. She’d paved over her own innocence too ruthlessly for that.
“All right,” he said. “Here’s your booze.”
“Here’s your….” Her eyes scrambled along the countertop, finally pulling forth, “rag.”
Charlie laughs that anxious laugh of his, and she joins in, sounding hoarse. “It was terrible.”
“I know, right? Gross, man.”
“Right.”
“So let’s forget about it.”
The pause is infinitesimal between his last words and her lunging toward him.
The wine splatters against the bartop. This time, she kisses him.
***
It’s weird.
Like really weird. Dee thinks it’s progress, not denying how totally freaky it is. They don’t deny the base core of how fucked up it is. Ergo, it’s a good relationship.
Right?
She likes it too much to ask questions.
**
When the gang finds out Dennis goes nuclear. Dee spends hours trying to talk him down to absolutely no avail, and they find themselves dodging ridiculous threats and messages portending doom. Eventually – when they move into Dee’s tiny apartment – Dennis stands up and says he’s glad he decided to push the two of them together.
****
The dog finds them, hiding in the back alley while they’re hanging out and toking up. A dog instead of a cat is a new twist, a sort of lucky strike that neither of them really understands. It’s missing a leg and an eye, has a cough and adores her for weird reasons she doesn’t understand. Its first day at the apartment it knocks over her tv set and eats something foul and bubbling out of the trash, and Dee knows, somehow, it’s where it belongs when it doesn’t die.
It lives. Its cough goes away and its fur comes in, and it’s kind of cute in a weird way. Dennis tries to make it the bar’s mascot and she almost agrees, until he gets it drunk on beer and she’s forced to punch Dennis in the crotch and call the deal off.
And Dee can’t fathom it.
Charlie names it Raisin. Or Rsn, before she corrects the spelling on the license form.
***
She’s had a long, shitty day and comes home to a half-empty fridge. There’s food for the dog and she’s eyeing it when she noticed something sitting in the vegetable crisper, a brown paper bag on inspection, with something glittering on the bottom attached via a red string to a note.
She also spotted something on the bottom of the crisper something that looked and smelled like a large disc of mint candy. Ravenous, she bit into the disc while reading the note.
Dee u merry, she muttered. “Dee…u...u…you…”
“Oh my God,” she says, the white cake crumbling and burning on her lips as she clutched the tiny ring in her hand. Then she noticed the other note, the one that had been attached to the cake of white she’d popped into her mouth.
The one Charlie had labeled with ‘no gud, pizzion’.
“WHAT THE FUCKING CRAP?!”
Fortunately, Dee managed to get herself to the hospital in time.
****
It happens one morning when they’ve had a long night out. Raisin’s curled up against her stomach and Dee’s drifted into a deep sleep at last when Charlie jackknifes up in bed.
“Oh my God, babe,” he shouts. “This dog is just like our relationship.”
Dee squints at Charlie. “If you compare me to a flea I swear I’ll eat your balls for breakfast.”
“Hot, but not what I meant. I mean, we love this dog, right?” he said, patting Raisin’s head. Raisin responded by slapping his tail against Charlie’s leg. “But to anybody else he’s a total piece of shit…”
Dee elbowed his side. “Don’t make fun of our dog, dickbag.”
“I’M NOT, I’m proving a point!” He said. “Everyone else might not want our dog, but WE do. We like him! He’s our best friend!”
“What about Mac?”
“Fuck Mac! This dog’s awesome! And so are we.”
Dee blinked at him through her tangled, It made sense in Charlie’s mind, and that was all she needed to understand. “Charlie, shut up and put your head on my shoulder.”
“Okay. If you promise not to knee me in the balls this time.”
“Yeah, I won’t. Come on.”
Raisin squeezed his way between Charlie and Dee, snuggling his head against her thigh. The damn thing was lucky he was so cute, Dee told herself, burrowing into the warmth of her fiance's arms.