The next day at work was completely brutal. Not only did I have plenty of work to do for my own case, but a few of the older lawyers were throwing some of their grunt work on me. I was literally swamped in paperwork and it seemed like every time I focused myself on a particular document, I would get interrupted by a knock on my door or the blaring sound of my phone ringing.

My trip to the dog park was much needed today. Carrie had brought pictures of her dog through the years… kind of like a baby album but for a pet. And I guess at the early stages, there really isn’t much of a difference there. But whatever.

“Is that your fiancé?” I asked, pointing to a goofy-looking guy who was in a couple of the pictures.

“No, just an ex. I don’t think I have many pictures of Chris in here… most of these are from awhile ago,” she explained. She flipped through a few more pages, and then pointed out a different, moderately attractive guy, whose arms were wrapped around Rex. “That’s Chris.”

“Aw… looks like he gets along with your family, too,” I joked.

“Yeah, but he only likes to play with Rex; if I ever asked him to take him for a walk or something, he’d look at me like I had 2 heads or something.”

“At least he likes him, though, right?” I said.

“Yeah, true.”

Dinner tonight was pizza, from the amazing pizzeria down the street. I spent awhile doing some work I had brought home from the office. While I did legitimately have work to do, secretly, I was staying up as late as I could, thinking that Ashley was going to call; I didn’t want to miss it. But by 11, I was exhausted and beginning to fall asleep. I was definitely not happy when I went to bed tonight. I guess this was what I deserved, though, after what I did to her all those years ago.

My head had barely hit the pillow (or so it seemed) when I was awoken by my phone. I groaned and checked the clock, which read that it was about 1, before reaching for the phone. I was so tired, I didn’t even bother to look at the caller ID.