Excerpts

A little bit before these memories, I find what I need in Kyle. Kyle's a cheetah in my year, and that's part of the reason why I've asked him out a few weeks ago. If I'm going out with a man, might not change things up too much and stick in the same genus. One more risk to take, though this one has me dreading things. Still dreading them on some level as of “now”, even after the relief of my date suggestion being taken up and followed by a deep squeeze and some joined giddy purring between the two of us. One set's slightly deeper than the other. Probably because his balls dropped before mine and puberty and track's made him pretty manly for a species known for their lankiness. It's all that toned runner's build that gets me. Plus, that personality, voice, the way he occasionally grooms himself like I do when nobody's watching...
	It all leads to this one Friday night where I'm out in the bleachers of a track event I would never think of going to by myself. Blame Kyle for me being here. He really fills out those shorts, after all, and he's so enthusiastic about giving his all in something that seems so unimportant to me that it becomes important to be here. He probably won't see me. I keep the book I brought closed and in my hoodie pocket anyways. It's worth going through the rest of the event to see him run.
	As he's walking onto the field, though, Sunnyside's perfect weather decides it's time for a torrential downpour to keep the city from going into a drought. It picks up fast, and soon enough I'm making my own fifty-foot or yard or whatever dash towards the bottom of the bleachers. I bring my hands up over my head, yelp loudly and pull my hood up to keep myself from getting too soaked, though at this point it's raining sideways, and I'm pretty sure that my tail's going to look like a limp strand of brown angel-hair pasta from how soggy it is. Most of the others at this event, parents and students alike, take refuge under the bleachers to try and get some level of shelter while they wonder if it's worth it to risk running through the storm to their cars. No way they're going to continue in this kind of weather, especially when there's no way to gauge how long or short it'll last. Gosh, I feel so chilly right now (It's hard to remember what feeling chilly's like, but I manage to bring the sensation back into my head)... Crowd's combined heat isn't doing a thing when you're this wet. I would take off my jacket, but where would I put it? The underside of the bleachers are covered in grime, so I don't want to put it there, and the ground's really muddy...
	I feel a paw on my arm. “The locker room's closed tight!”
	“Did you try and run through all of this just to get back to your stuff?” I laugh as I turn around to see Kyle. I repress the urge to hug him. There's still other people around us. “Priorities, dude!”
	“There's this other guy on the team, a freshman... keeps going through our stuff when we aren't looking.” The cheetah says. “If I can't get in there, that little weirdo can't either. Not the solution I would have asked for, since now I'm soaking wet, but it'll do. Think you can drive me back home? I was gonna go out with some friends, but I think our plans got bumped up a bit thanks to the cancellation.”
	“You got time. If they were planning on doing something with you, they're gonna stick to that time. Probably need a little bit to dry off, anyways.” I reason. “Sorry about your run getting shot.”
	“Nah.” He shakes his head. “Don't say that. This is an opportunity. Usually on weekends I feel worn out thanks to the team. Sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth, and tonight feels like it wasn't going to be worth much.” He looks over to the ends of the bleachers. More and more people are risking the rain rather than staying under here for much longer. Their attempts to use newspapers and umbrellas to cover themselves all fail horribly within a few seconds as the downpour gets past them. “Now I can just be lazy for a few days. You'd be surprised how fun that is.”
	“I'm lazy all the time, though.” I giggle. “I'd know!” His spotted fur's all matted down thanks to the rain. I wish I had a towel for the both of us. Just one towel. … Time to risk something else. “Umm... would you like to go somewhere else instead of your house? Like, just a detour.”
	“What'd you have in mind?” He asks, eyes locked on my face.
	“My home, maybe? Parents are home, but they're asleep right now...” Shit, that's not what I mean to say. I have nothing lewd planned here, I just wanna... “I mean, I just want to hang out for a bit, maybe watch some TV before you're gonna go hang out with your friends.”
	One of his paws presses to my back, quick and gentle, and he begins to scratch down my spine with his claws. Small movements, enough not to attract attention. O-oh gosh... “Hey. I know. Hanging out would be fun. You're always busy with class, I'm always busy with track, we finally have some time to be together. You're probably going to have to leave me out on the porch for a bit, though, if I come in now I'm going to absolutely soak the place with my fur.”
	“I'll head in, get some towels to bury you in, and then you can head up to my room,” I say. “We'll lay around for a bit, and then you can visit your friends.”
	“You wanna come with me?” Kyle's never offered before. “I'm sure they wouldn't mind a one plus. It's not a really big thing, we're probably just getting something to eat.”
	“Are you sure?” There's only about five other people with us under the seats now. I step a bit closer to him, and he purrs in response. My sneakers press into mud, but it's a small concern right now.
	“Definitely.” His voice is so soft. I can feel him give me another squeeze as we pull deeper into the bleachers' frame, so that the patter of rain on steel surrounds us, and the metal blocks us mostly from view. Water droplets fall from the cracks above onto us. I gently rub along his yellow-and-black tail, an idle motion to match those scratches over my back. Oh my gosh, he's so close, and...
	“Hey.” I say, just to get his attention. He stares at me. I stare back. Our muzzles are closer to each other now. I'm not sure what I'm doing, or how this'll go, so I push my face forwards. Another risk. He brings it up towards mine. We meet at the middle. Lips purse, arms clench tighter, tails gently twitch, a soft little shudder flows through my body as I realize what's happening.
	Warmth and happiness and a sense of something solid that I can stroke over in my mind and say that it's utterly flawless comes into me. The rain continues to patter above us, on all sides, as if we're locked in one small island with the rest of the world faded away. My small form's pressed up against his as we hold the kiss. I-it's my first. Oh my gosh, it's my first time doing this, and all the fears and doubts I may have ever had about this seem as idiotic and insane as they are to me today. They're blasted away, pressure-washed out of my mind, and are washed out by the flood that leaves them in the grime underneath our feet.
	He gives me a gift as we pull back. I now hold the knowledge that there's nothing wrong with something so absolutely pure and innocent as what I've just experienced. Though we drift apart and break up amicably before we even choose colleges, the both of us too busy to keep things going, I'll always treasure this experience. Kyle's given me something that can never be broken.
	Funnily enough, I don't remember ever feeling wet for the rest of the night. Even if it keeps raining for the next three days, and even if I take a five minute run back to my parents' borrowed van without cover, Kyle says at the end of the night that my coat makes me feel as if I've just come out of the dryer. Fluffy and comfortably warm.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She doesn't come along. Soon, I'm sat down into a wicker chair behind the house while my dad grabs a metal stool and pulls it up beside me. I can hear the servos in his legs hiss as he lifts himself up onto the cushion. We just sit there for a while while I bawl and stare up at the stars. Even while I'm screaming at nothing in particular, he just waits. I'm not sure exactly what we're doing until the third time my sobs start to slow down.
	“There were a lot of times in my life, before I got married, where I imagined myself burning the house down on accident or electrocuting myself working on my projects and ending up in the hospital on life support.” Dad starts, and what a fucking weird way to start... “I wouldn't be dead, never figured I'd be lucky to go quickly, just invalid. Nobody to come visit me except my parents or nurses that would just feel me over like an obligation. Something to get rid of as soon as possible. See, the fear wasn't that I'd be stuck there unable to do anything. It was that I'd never fill this hole right here.” He clutches at his chest. “That I'd die alone and... you know, incomplete. I realized that I always picked up thinking about this a lot after I'd gotten dumped or had to break up with someone. Why did I feel like I was incomplete, and why did that fear always go back in down into its hole when I was by myself for a while or on the rebound? I think it's like this. I'm probably wrong, but...”
	Cicadas chirp out in the bushes on the other side of the lawn. It's a peaceful night other than the sound of cars and some loud cheering from a house a few blocks off. Sports game or something on tonight. Really dark, too, moon's at the end of its wane. “Sometimes relationships end really well. Sometimes when they end, it's violent and messy and you end up hating the other person. No matter what, when these links people make break, it's forced. It ends up ripping something out of you. You feel like you're never going to get it back, that things are over... it's a lie. That person... they're saying his name's Lucas, right?” I nod. “He made a deliberate choice. This principal guy may have absolutely played mind games with him, but in the end, despite every attempt you made... and I know you tried your hardest... He backed something that was never going to work even if all the evidence was right in front of him. Just because one person beat you doesn't mean that what you're fighting for, what you want... it's weaker than what the headmaster and Lucas had. It just meant that you put forth an alternative to what he'd been offered all his life. He chose mediocrity over what you wanted to give him.”
	“I just want something that lasts.” I dry my eyes again. “I want something stable. That's all I really need. Someone to be with.”
	“And you'll get it. You don't need to worry about that.” He waits for a moment. “That part of yourself you lose? It comes back to you, eventually. You're always the better for even making the attempt, though. You took something from him too when he decided things were over. You get to keep that. It's like a consolation prize. Stop thinking of it as striking out. Show me what you won.”
	So I decide to. It's a nice night out. I freeze a block of ice in front of me, and I start to sculpt. As I carve, I got no clue what I'm even doing. It's a raw, sore act that still hurts, but my dad just watches as I work at the block. The pain remains, and it will for a while, but... What I'm doing here? What I did at the school? That's permanent. That's forever. The bad fades, but the good sticks around.