Leap of Love

He’s never run off before, I thought. I wouldn’t have been surprised six months earlier, when my brother first found him. Back then, Little Pig was a half-starved blue heeler, with a torn ear and an eye patch marking, that my brother found abandoned in a grocery store parking lot. He wasn’t that well behaved at the time. He backed away from strangers and didn’t always obey. He’d clearly been abused. The sight of someone using a broom would set him off barking. But slowly Little Pig’s behavior improved as he learned to trust the people in his life. I couldn’t imagine him not responding to his name. “Little Pig!” I shouted again, jogging up the trail. I stepped off the trail into the bushes. “Little Pig!” No answer. Could he have gotten lost? Did he fall into the creek? I couldn’t bear to think about it. He was my brother’s dog, but he felt like mine too.

I was the one who gave him his name. One day I was playing with him outside, laughing as he rolled around in the dirt. “You’re as happy as a little pig!” I said. The name stuck. This summer I worked at the same job as my brother and hung out with Little Pig every day. We became pals—I’d feed him some of my sandwich at lunch; he’d rest his head in my lap. What if we don’t find him? Tears started to pool in my eyes. Ryan put his arm around me. “Don’t cry, Summer. You know what? He’s probably looking for us.” I looked at Ryan. Something about his voice, his smile, the way he held me was so reassuring. I could feel that flutter in my heart, telling me Ryan was the one—but like all those other times, I was still too afraid to say a thing.

“Let’s go back to the bridge,” Ryan said. “He’s probably there waiting.” We walked back under the bridge. We both heard it at the same time. Is that a whine? Where is it coming from? Just then a loud screech came from the bridge above. A car swerving. I looked up. Oh, no! There was Little Pig, his gray nose sticking through the guardrail. He must’ve gone up the steep embankment when we went down and couldn’t figure out how to get back. I called to him, “Little Pig!”