“CHOOSE: ITS EITHER YOUR DOG OR ME! IM SICK OF LIVING WITH THIS MUTT!” her husband declared. SHE CHOSE HIM, DROVE THE DOG TO THE WOODS… THAT EVENING, HE SAID HE WAS LEAVING HER ANYWAY.
Emma adores her husband, Oliver, to the point of madness. Theyve shared five years together no children yet, but they do have Max, an old German shepherd Emma rescued as a puppy, long before she met Oliver.
Max is family. Clever and fiercely loyal, he always knows what Emmas feeling, even before she says it. But age is catching up with him: his joints are stiff, hes mostly lost that fresh dog smell, and his fur falls out in tufts.
Oliver puts up with it for a long time. But when Max has an accident on the newly fitted hallway laminate, unable to hold out until his walk, Oliver finally snaps.
“Enough! Ive had it!” Oliver bellows, dragging the old dog to the puddle. “I might as well live in a kennel! The stench, fur on every meal, and now piss all over the floor! Emma, you choose: its him or me!”
“Oliver, I cant just get rid of him! Hes nearly twelve,” Emma pleads, hugging Max, her tears soaking his aging coat.
“Take him to a shelter! The woods! Have him put down I dont care!” comes Olivers cold reply. “If hes still here when Im home tonight, Im not. I want to live in a clean house, not spend my life scrubbing for your mangy ‘boy!'”
Emma has never been strong. Shes terrified of being alone, terrified of losing Oliver, the man who provides, the man with whom shes planned holidays, the mortgage, the future.
She chooses her husband.
She drives Max out of town. The dog clambers painfully into the car, whining at the ache in his legs, but licks her hand all the same. He thinks theyre off for a walk.
Emma weeps all the way.
She leads him into the edge of a wood, nearly twelve miles from the city. She ties his lead to a tree to stop him chasing after the car.
“Im so sorry, Max Please forgive me,” she whispers, unable to meet those loyal, cloudy eyes.
Max doesnt resist. He simply sits, watching her he knows.
Emma leaves him a bowl of food, gets in the car, and speeds away. In the rearview mirror, she sees Max, forgetting his pain for a moment, lurch after her, pulling hard against the lead, barking hoarsely, desperately.
His bark echoes in her ears the whole way home.
Emma gets home an emotional wreck, her eyes swollen from crying.
Oliver is there, packing his bag.
“You what are you doing?” she stammers. “I did it. Max is gone. I took him”
Oliver turns to her with a chilly smirk.
“Well done. Quick work. But you know what? Im leaving anyway.”
“What do you mean? Where are you going?”
“To Rachels. You know her from Accounts. Weve been together half a year. Shes pregnant.”
Emma slumps onto the chair, her world reeling.
“But you gave me an ultimatum. The dog or you. Why?”
“I was testing you,” says Oliver, cruelly. “Wanted to see if you had a backbone. Maybe youd stick up for yourself. Instead, you betrayed your only real friend for a pair of trousers. Frankly, Im scared to live with you. If you can dump a dog who loved you for ten years in a wood, youd bin me the second I got sick.”
He zips up his suitcase.
“Goodbye, Emma. And by the way Max was the only real man in this house. You youre just a traitor.”
When the door closes behind Oliver, Emma howls.
She realises what shes done. For someone who never loved her, she destroyed the soul that had adored her most.
She grabs her car keys and races back into the woods.
Its night. Rain lashes down.
She finds the tree.
The lead is chewed in half. The bowl is overturned. Max is gone.
“Max! Max! Good boy, please!” she shouts, darting through the dripping forest, branches scratching her face raw.
She searches for three days. Posts signs. Messages rescues and community groups. She neither eats nor sleeps.
On the fourth day, her phone rings.
“Are you looking for a German shepherd? Theres one that matches the description, found on the A43. Struck by a lorry.”
Emma goes to identify him.
Its Max.
Looks like Max chewed through his lead and set off looking for her. Limping home on his bad legs, pushing through pain, through fear. He was coming for the one whod left him. He died by the roadside, waiting for someone who would never come.
Emma buries Max.
Two years pass.
She lives alone. Shell never get married again she cant trust anyone anymore, not even herself.
Oliver is happy with his new wife and child. Hes forgotten Emma, left her in the past. For him, it was just a test, a perfectly timed excuse to leave, guilt neatly laid at her door.
Emma Emma spends her weekends as a volunteer at the old dogs rescue centre. She scrubs kennels, cleans up after them, tends their wounds. She tries, in vain, to wash the guilt from her soul.
Every night she dreams the same dream: she stands by the lonely tree, and Max is there, watching her. She calls to him, but he never comes. He just looks at her without anger, only a boundless, patient sadness.
And in that gaze her judgment is sealed.
Moral: Betrayal is never forgiven. Never sacrifice loyal friends for those who set ultimatums. A truly loving person would never force you to choose, and if they do theyve already betrayed you. All youre delaying is the inevitable, and perhaps making a mistake youll regret forever.
