Part 4 — “The Loop Inside”
The loop had moved indoors.
Where once Chance walked sidewalks cracked with age and memory, now he paced soft carpet paths and sun-warmed tiles—following the scent of lavender laundry soap, stew bubbling on the stove, the drifting footprints of a little girl who no longer lived behind glass.
Penny had started using her legs more.
Not because someone told her to.
But because he waited for her.
Every morning, she’d open her eyes to the sound of him stretching—paws thudding against the hardwood, an old groan rising from his throat like he was pushing the day out of his chest. He would nudge her arm gently with his wet nose.
And she would sit up.
Then rise.
Then walk—five steps, then ten.
Every day a little farther.
Like her body remembered something it had almost forgotten.
The loop wasn’t perfect. There were still days when her bones buzzed and her lungs fizzled and her head felt like it had grown too heavy for her neck. On those days, Penny sat by the window again, watching the empty street like she used to.
But now she wasn’t watching for him.
She was watching with him.
Chance curled at her feet, his one good eye blinking slowly, keeping time with her breath.
One afternoon, Penny found an old photograph wedged in the family Bible. She’d been looking for a ribbon to mark her place in Charlotte’s Web, but instead, out slipped a faded Polaroid—edges curled, colors turning to rust.
A dog.
Not Chance—but close.
Same floppy ears. Same sturdy build. Same strange glint in one eye.
She carried it into the kitchen where her mother was making soup.
“Mom?” she asked, holding out the picture. “Who’s this?”
Her mother froze, ladle in hand.
“Oh, wow. That’s… that’s Benny.”
“Benny?”
“He was your Uncle Sal’s dog. Way back before you were born. Lived with Grandma in her old house on Glendale.”
Penny blinked. “He looks like Chance.”
Her mother laughed softly, a little sad. “They do, don’t they? Benny used to walk my brother to school every day. Then walk himself home.”
“Really?”
“Same path. Rain or shine. Even waited at the corner when the crossing guard wasn’t there.”
Penny looked down at Chance, who had padded in and sat beside her.
“He walks like that too.”
Her mother smiled, but her eyes were distant.
“I think some dogs remember things the way people forget.”
That night, Penny couldn’t sleep.
She lay awake tracing loops in the ceiling with her eyes, Chance curled like a comma at the foot of her bed.
“I think you’re older than you let on,” she whispered.
Chance didn’t move.
“But maybe you’re not just one dog. Maybe you’re… every dog who’s ever waited.”
She reached down and touched his ear.
“You waited for me, didn’t you?”
He lifted his head. Blinked once.
Then rested his chin on her ankle.
Jada started bringing books about therapy animals. Real stories—soldiers and service dogs, children with seizures, people who walked again because a mutt sat beside them and believed.
One story made Penny cry.
A golden retriever named Nora had stood at the foot of a boy’s hospital bed for weeks. Refused to eat unless someone held his hand. The day the boy finally woke up, the dog let out a single bark, then curled at his feet and slept for thirteen hours straight.
“That’s how they are,” Jada said. “They don’t fix you. They wait until you remember how to fix yourself.”
Penny looked at Chance.
“I don’t want to forget this,” she said.
“Then don’t,” Jada said. “Start writing.”
So she did.
A notebook with a red spiral spine and dog-eared corners became Penny’s archive. She called it The Loop Book. She wrote down every moment Chance looked at her like she was whole, even when she didn’t feel that way.
Page One: He barked for me.
Page Seven: He didn’t leave when I fell asleep crying.
Page Eleven: He knew when I could walk again before I did.
Her handwriting was messy on bad days, neater on good ones.
But always honest.
Always looping back to the same truth:
I thought I was the broken one. But maybe we were both just waiting for someone who didn’t walk away.
Spring gave way to the sweet ache of summer—thick with the smell of cut grass and chlorine and neighbors dragging lawn chairs out to the curb.
Chance didn’t walk the old route anymore. He slept more. Dreamed more. His back legs trembled sometimes when he stood.
But Penny never left his side.
When her strength returned in bursts, she didn’t run.
She walked with him.
Matched his pace.
Honored the loop.
One day, she passed the mirror and barely recognized the girl looking back—cheeks full, legs steady, eyes wide not with fear but with something gentler.
Hope.
She looked down at the old mutt by her side.
“You still with me, buddy?”
Chance lifted his head.
Wagged once.
She smiled. “Good. Because I think I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?” her mother asked, coming in from the yard.
Penny held up her red notebook.
“To tell the world who saved me.”