You Remind Me of Me Read Free

sandpaper texture of her footpads, the wiggly, recoiling meat of her tongue when he caught it and stretched it out, the freckled, pale, waxy skin inside her ears, the way she’d flap her head back and forth if he touched the right spot, as if a fly were bothering her. He loved the soft bare gray skin of her stomach, the two rows of nipples, which he would press, pretending they were buttons and knobs on a robot he had built.
    Goddamnit, Jonah,
his grandfather would call, when Elizabeth yelped.
Quit pestering that damned dog! I hope she bites you someday!
    ——
    Maybe there was something inevitable about what happened. When he tries to imagine it in his mind it always seems that there was something still and icy about the entire afternoon, something hushed, a kind of expectation, as if things had been prepared for him.
    He remembers up to a certain point. He remembers the game they were playing, the fantasy he was in. They were being chased, and like a king in a cartoon he shouted “Guards! Seize them!” Soldiers with spears were running in small steps, single file, down a corridor lined with torches.
    They were hiding in the bathroom, he and Elizabeth, and he feels that sometimes he can see it perfectly: his hand turning the lock on the bathroom door, which he loved more than any other lock he’d ever seen. A skeleton key in a keyhole. A doorknob made of cut glass like a jewel. You could pretend you were a king in a palace.
    Once the door was locked, he breathed with satisfaction. Breathed, turned back to look at the dog Elizabeth, who stood uncomfortably next to the bathtub, her bobbed tail tucked down, ears laid flat, eyes wary and doubtful.
    They’re coming for us,
he told Elizabeth, and she looked at him and then away, tiptoeing in an agitated half-circle in the tiny room.
They’re going to kill us if they get in,
he told her, and he pressed his face against the door, listening.
    It was a small room, not immaculate but tidy, chilly black and white tile on the floor, chilly porcelain tub, sink, toilet. A tall cabinet held towels and washcloths. There was a toilet with a fuzzy blue cover on its lid, like the hair of a puppet; there was the sink, a steady trickling drip from the faucet; a toothbrush holder, a medicine cabinet mirror above it. There was a small square of window with its glass textured like ice, Jack Frost designs. Below was the bathtub, clawfoot, deep-basined, the inside of an egg. An orange rust stain ran from the base of the faucet head to the drain.
    It was his idea that this was the best place to hide. He remembers this clearly, too, the determination that they should hunker down inside the bathtub to get away from the soldiers that were hunting for them, but there was some difficulty in getting Elizabeth to join him in this plan. He stood in the bathtub and held Elizabeth by her front paws, so that she stood up on her hind legs. He tried to tug her forward, but she didn’t want to come. She pulled away from him, and so he got out of the tub and tried to lift her by her hindquarters, but she was too heavy. He had a hold on the loose skin of her haunches, and he managed to lift her off the ground.
Get in!
he said, and gave her a hard shove.
Hurry, damnit!
And she made a sharp sound as he pushed her, as he fell into the bathtub on top of her.
    ——
    He doesn’t really know what happened next. There was a moment, a kind of wave, a blank spot during which the game fizzled away, during which Elizabeth became not-Elizabeth. The two of them scrabbled against the slick porcelain. Perhaps he was trying to hold her down, perhaps he pushed hard against a tender spot on her belly, perhaps she panicked, upended, disoriented, unable to gain a footing. Her thin legs struggled in the air, and her body twisted, trying to right itself, and she made a sound like she was vomiting up a string of yelps. She snapped with her teeth, twisted, lashed, and Jonah felt a spark in his mind that wasn’t really