Mendy

Mendy is covered in patches, and every patch is a story.

There is one on the elbow from the fence. One on the ear from the day the shelf came down. Mendy likes them. Mendy says each patch is proof that hurts really do heal.

But there was one that had never been patched at all.

Two years ago, Buddy said something unkind. Just one sentence, in front of other fluffs, on a bad day. Buddy had forgotten it by teatime.

Mendy had not forgotten it in two years.

It sat there, under everything, and it made Mendy a little bit careful around Buddy, for seven hundred days, and Buddy never once knew why.

Pinky noticed, because Pinky notices.

"You go quiet when Buddy comes in."

"It was ages ago," said Mendy. "It doesn't matter."

"Then why do you go quiet?"

Mendy did not have an answer to that.

It took Mendy three days to get to the point of saying it. When it came out, it came out very small: "You said something, two years ago. At the gate. I don't think you remember."

Buddy went white. "I said what?"

Mendy said the sentence.

"I don't remember it at all," said Buddy, wretchedly, "and I'm so sorry. That's horrible. I was in a state that week, but that's not a reason."

And here is the part that Mendy had never expected: it did not magically stop hurting. Mendy had rather assumed an apology would take it away like a plaster.

It did not. But something else happened. Mendy had been carrying it alone, and now two of them were carrying it, which is less than half the weight.

"I want to put it down," said Mendy.

"Please do," said Buddy.

It took a while. Forgiving usually does; it is a thing you do a little bit at a time, not a switch.

That patch is on Mendy's chest now, a bit crooked, sewn on in a colour that does not quite match.