FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 2

I decided that it'd be better if I pretended I was asleep, so before he looked up I turned around and laid back. I closed my eyes and turned the volume down on my iPad so that it was barely playing, and forced my breathing to slow. Fortunately I'm pretty good at this, years of practice fooling my parents pays off every now and then.

I noticed that almost immediately that the vibrations stopped, which probably meant that the wolf noticed me and stopped moving. I waited, still pretending to be asleep, and hoped that I looked convincing. A few moments later I felt vibrations again, but this time they were softer and slower. 'Probably trying not to wake me up' I thought. From what I guessed from the vibrations he walked over to the bench opposite me and sat down.

After a minute or so I started to hear dripping, and wondered what he was doing. I pretended to roll over, being careful to not push my iPad off the dock as I did so. Unfortunately I twisted my tail as I moved, which made me grimace uncontrollably as I was turning. I tried to make it look natural by slowly changing my expression to what I thought was my 'peaceful sleeping' face, then cracked one of my eyes open to see if he noticed. With what I saw though, I don't think he did.

He was sitting on the bench facing the water, tears streaming down his muzzle. That wasn't the part that shocked me though. He had a pocket knife open with a little blood on it, and blood was trickling out of his wrist and into the lake, which is where I figured the dripping noise came from. I sat there stunned. I didn't know what to do, but knew I had to do something. I didn't want anybody hurting, especially to the point where they'd cut themselves.

I slowly sat up and rubbed my eyes, then looked at him again. Apparently he still hadn't noticed me yet, his eyes were screwed shut with the physical and mental pain he was experiencing. I knew he'd notice the moment I take a step towards him, but I decided to do it anyway.

As I expected, his eyes snapped open the moment I stepped towards him. He looked at me, fear and pain seemingly imprinted on his face. I looked back with what I hoped to be sympathy, and had no idea what to say. Almost immediately he looked like he was about to make a run for it. I noticed this and took a step to the left, effectively putting me between him and the walkway. He then sighed and looked away while pulling his arms inward, and wiped the tears from his muzzle onto his shirt.

"What do you want," he said as he wrapped something over the cut to stop the blood flow.

"I want to make sure that you're alright, I hate seeing anybody hurting like this," I replied.

"Yeah, well my dad sure as hell likes me when I'm hurting," he spat, then turned around and grabbed the pocket knife.

"I'm guessing the bear was your dad?" I asked bluntly.

"Yeah, I'm adopted," he bent down to the lake and washed the blood off the knife, then flipped it closed and dropped it back in his pocket.

"Okay, that would make sense. I saw him yelling at you a few minutes ago, so I tried to leave you with at least a little privacy."

"That why you were sleeping with your headphones in?"

"Yeah, I figured it wasn't my business, so no matter how public he was making it at least someone wouldn't know what was said."

".....Thanks, I wish more people would do that," he said , then stood up and looked at me.

"No problem, trust me my parents have done that to me too many times for me to count. I know how you feel. Well... Sort of."

"Alright, well I have to go, it's almost my curfew and I've got to finish unpacking my stuff," he said, then took a step towards me.

"Did you just move here?"

"Yeah, just got here a couple of hours ago. Why d'you ask?"

"Just curious, nobody's moved here in a while and I didn't see a moving truck or anything."

"We put everything in my parents' cars, so we didn't need one."

"Oh, okay," I said, then stepped out of the way so I wasn't between him and the walkway anymore. Before he got a chance to move however I added, "Hey, could I ask you something?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Sure."

I nervously rubbed the back of my neck and asked, "What does cutting yourself do for you? I mean, does it help or something?"

He looked at the ground and sighed. "I don't really know how to explain it, it just makes me feel better when I'm hurt..." he trailed off and looked away while rubbing his wrists softly.

"Well, could you do me a favor?" He looked at me quizzically. "Next time you feel like cutting yourself, could you just talk it out with me instead? I mean, I know I hardly know you, but I can't stand seeing you... er, anybody in pain like that. Plus you could seriously hurt yourself. Just come over to my house and tell me about it. Oh, and I won't tell anybody about this, promise."

He smiled softly and said, "sure, thanks for the offer. And thanks for keeping this quiet, my dad would kill me if he found out. Where is your house?"

"Down the street on the left, on the right side of the road. Brown house with a blue-green truck in the driveway. Can't miss it." I smiled back.

"Cool, thanks."

"No problem, see you later," I said as he started walking away.

He waved back. "Later."

A few minutes later I was home, and was trying to close the front door as quietly as possible. Unfortunately, it didn't work. I winced as I heard my name yelled from the living room.

"Zachary Hyder! Get your ass over here!"

"I'm coming," I said monotonously as I slid my backpack off my shoulder and tossed it into my room as I made my way to the living room.

As I stepped into my dad's eyesight I could see he was pissed. "Where the hell were you? You were supposed to be home over half an hour ago!" He glared at me angrily.

"I'm sorry dad, I fell asleep at the park." I splayed my ears as I anticipated what was coming next.

"Go unload the dishwasher and then load it. You're in some deep shit mister." He then turned back to the TV and I could tell he was pretending I wasn't there.

I sighed and walked over to the dishwasher, and opened it. I unloaded and loaded it, and turned it on. I also washed the spare dishes in the sink, knowing that if I didn't there would be hell to pay. Afterwards I walked back to my room, and was once again reminded that I no longer had a door to separate me from my father. I sighed as my ears folded back, then shook my head in disbelief as I walked over to my desk and sat down. "Yet they wonder why I'm always so miserable around them," I mumbled as I booted up my laptop.

After about half a minute my computer was on and I was instantly happier, my computer was one of the few things that I truly enjoyed. I spent about half an hour checking up on various sites like facebook, deviantart, and my email. I heard my dad getting up off the couch so I instantly closed everything and started homework. He then strode past mumbling something about picking mom up. I sighed, at least now there will be a little sanity in the house. I continued working on my Physics homework, and hoped dinner would be soon, I was really hungry.

Several hours later I was laying in my bed, my stomach full of roast beef and potatoes, my homework mostly finished. I figured I'd have enough time before school starts to do the rest of it. Luckily my parents were in bed already so I didn't have to pretend to be asleep for them to not yell at me yet again. I yawned groggily and curled up, and started thinking about today's events.

'God ROTC is boring, the test tomorrow is going to be too easy.. I'm glad I got to sleep on the bus this afternoon, I hate being tired all day.. I hope that wolf is doing alright, I can't believe he was actually... doing that to himself. I just don't understand that, how in the world can it make you feel better? Ah well, no use thinking about that right now. I just hope he decides to tell somebody instead of hurt himself next time. Who knows, maybe he'll take me up on my offer.' I yawned loudly. 'And what am I going to do with my girlfriend? I don't want to lie to her, especially about the way I feel towards her. I guess I'll talk to her about it, she'll probably break up with me.' A tear started forcing its way out of my eye, but I held it back with newfound strength. 'You know what, I'm tired of being dumped. This time I'M the dumper, not the dumpee. I'll just tell her how I feel, then tell her I'm breaking up with her.'

I yawned again and rubbed my eyes for a few seconds. "Well, good night," I said to myself as I drifted off into sleep.

I woke up a few hours later in tears. I immediately remembered why I was crying, which caused me to curl into a ball, sobbing harder. "Why did they hate me, I didn't do anything. What did I do to make them think I was gay? I didn't even know what 'fag' meant until my freshman year. I hate that middle school so much!" I cried for another few minutes, and wiped my eyes with tissues occasionally.

When I finally calmed down I sat up and sighed, and sniffled as I saw the tissues on the carpet again. I sighed and got even more depressed, if that were possible at the moment. "Great, last night it was my parents and tonight it's my old school that's haunting me."

I picked up the tissues the threw them at the trash can as hard as I could, my face contorting momentarily into rage. I then walked over and dropped onto my bed. "I just want to sleep peacefully for once," I grumbled, then closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep as soon as possible, memories of my horrible middle school years still fresh in my mind.