I was, as they say in certain social circles, in between boyfriends - by Webster’s definition, single. However, my ex-boyfriend was still living with me, and there was barely enough room in our house for all of the emotional baggage stored away in every room, let alone, a sad, little dog, which I picked up at a party, after losing a rousing round of truth or dare. Since the dare was unimaginable, too disgraceful to even write about on a national website, I ended up taking home the little rut, which the host of the party found in a parking lot of Wal-Mart. That is how I ended up with my very own bundle of joy weighing a little less than ten pounds and reeking of, no matter how much I scrubbed her down, corn chips.

The first thing I needed to do was name her. She came with a name, but it wasn’t appropriate, it just didn’t fit. So I asked Josh, the man I had spent the past four years of my life with, who had, over night, become a stranger, what her name should be. “Stella,” he mumbled, “Stella for star.” He said with a giggle. A giggle and a smile that I hadn’t heard in months, make that, years. The name stuck. The dog took a liking to her new name by daintily squatting on the rug to urinate. We both laughed with a common joy. A few of the mistakes made and problems caused were erased during that small moment, but, it was still too late.

A few weeks later, Josh moved out.

He packed his little car with the few things that he had acquired during college. I sat on the couch with my back turned away from him. While Stella ran widely in the back yard, the front door closed and before I could even remove myself from the couch to watch him drive away, the car was already gone. He was gone. I went into the empty room that we had once shared, I moved out of that very same room months earlier, and became engulfed with the empty space. Stella came running in from outside and claimed the space as her own by, once again, urinating on the rug. I was still, unsuccessfully, in the midst of potty training her.