I get a dog to replace you, but then I name him Pluto. He circles the same spot on the floor over and over again, glaring at me, a planet in constant furious orbit. His toenails scrape on the wood, etch scratches like someone trying to claw their way out of a coffin.
“Did you name him after the planet?” my date, a man who is called Marco or maybe Mark, asks.
“After the god of death.”
When he pulls a face, I usher him out.
The next night, David-or-Daniel asks: “Did you name him after the Roman god?”
“No, after the dwarf planet.” David-or-Daniel says he doesn’t know anything about space. How can you not know anything about space, about the millions of miles of empty surrounding us? I push him, too, out the door.
Sometimes I can’t believe there was no funeral. There should have been a funeral.
We marinate here in the sweltering city summer, me and Pluto, here on Earth. Me and Pluto and all my almost-one-night-stands I can’t remember the names of. I bite my nails off and spit them across the floor. They’ll sink into the bottoms of feet, snag on the fuzz of socks. Chase all these men out sooner.
Pluto circles and scratches, searching for a rug or a blanket or a scrunched-up sweatshirt, looking for a soft spot that isn’t there. The only thing that gives in the entire apartment is the bed, and I’m always on it. When I sleep it’s shallow and ragged, unconsciousness melting into translucent silvery pools, hallucinations where you vanish as soon as I get close enough to recognize you. I dream of ancient Rome, of arenas, of blood spilled black like shadows on the sand. I dream of a tenth planet. I dream of you coming home, even though my messages won’t reach you for twenty-seven years, even though by the time you return I will be long gone.
Amy DeBellis is a writer from New York. Her writing has appeared in various publications including X-R-A-Y, Pithead Chapel, HAD, Write or Die, Fractured, Ghost Parachute, and Pinch. Her debut novel is forthcoming from CLASH Books (2025). Follow her on Twitter at @lapis_lazuli11.