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Imani Roseanne Keener passed away at nine-seventeen AM, on July twenty-first, twenty-sixteen from massive internal bleeding and irreparable brain damage. The rest of the day was a blur, spent mostly with Milan. Gray wanted to be alone, to be with his mother. He always had been the type to wall himself off when something went bad, and the only way to get him to stop is to let him have his space. It's understandable, knowing him, but I'm hurt. Was it selfish? I wanted Gray, I wanted to hold him and soothe his broken heart. I wanted him to hold me, to tell me it was alright, to kiss me and love me.

For the time, though, I'd keep my attention on Milan. His house was huge, appropriately so for a family (clan? Pack?) of wolves -- seven siblings, his mother and father, two cousins and an aunt and uncle and his mom's parents lived there, sometimes. His family, for a lack of a better term, was filthy stinking rich. His dad was an oil tycoon who struck it rich in Texas and never looked back -- his family was there now, in fact.

Milan never went back to Texas anymore, though. The family would flip-flop between their home here and there, and at least for now, the house here was empty apart from me, and the sobbing wolf in my arms. I cradled him close to my chest, petting his ruffled fur and shushing his protests. Thankfully it was summer, and my classes at Cherry College wouldn't start until November. Milan had a part time job, not that he really needed it. He did it mostly to pass the time, he said. It was boring, sitting at home and doing nothing, or that's what he had told me when he decided to start working at "Sal's and Pal's Sub's and Shake's!"

Sal was a sweet old deer, who refused to let Milan come back to work until he was certain that he's ready. It's a nice gesture, and by no means an empty one. Milan would take time to recover -- whether it's a week or a year.

~~~

I spend the next three days with my wallowing wolf, cradling and petting him until he falls asleep, only for him to wake up and cry the day away. I force him to eat: Grilled Cheese for dinner, eggs for breakfast, even though he tried to refuse to eat. I made sure that he did, though. The last thing anyone needed was a starving, grief stricken wolf.

I suppose now is as good of a time as ever to tell you about Milan and I's relationship. You wouldn't expect a straight guy to cling to a gay guy through high school, but that's exactly what happened. We met when his family moved to Cherry, and even though he was in 9th grade and I was in 7th, our chemistry was automatic, a friendship built around our mutual love of video games and baseball. It was around this time that I was realizing I didn't like girls. I tried to make out with them, but there was nothing. No sensation in my sheath, no dreams about girls at all.

Then Milan came into my life, and I realized I wanted to make out with him. I started having dreams about him, innocent at first, but they never stayed that way. I remember the first time I had tried something with him; He stayed at my house one night, and once he had fallen asleep I couldn't think of anything but the intoxicating, overwhelming scent of wolf musk. He had caught me with my cock in my paw, and gave me some help finishing. By the end of the night, we both had...uh...finish, all over us, matting our fur down to our body and making it hell to clean up.

We had stayed up all night talking. He loved girls (I think the exact term was he loved their softness, and supple way they grip you and hold you.) but he had found himself attracted to me. (Hey, maybe I'm soft and supple?) He was scared, though. Scared to tell me, scared to be gay. He wasn't gay though. Bi, maybe, but not gay. We decided that we wouldn't tell anyone what happened, that we wanted to keep our friendship the way it was -- that didn't happen, strictly speaking. We had become closer than friends, something closer to brothers. Not boyfriends, and we didn't enjoy a night together since.

I wasn't sure if he "spent the night" with anyone since then. He had plenty of girls clamoring for him, and it wasn't odd to see him walking one or two down the hall, their arms looped together. I stayed in the closet, though. Cherry wasn't some backwater hick town, but I wasn't comfortable with everyone calling me "The gay kid." I was closer to him than any of his girlfriends, anyway, so it didn't matter. Even if I was so far in the closet I was finding clothes from 1998, I still had my wolf. At least until I met Gray.

Gray and Imani had moved to Cherry when I was sixteen, in tenth grade. Gray was the same age as I was, and we somehow had all of our classes together. He was such an awkward, shy coyote at first, I couldn't help but find myself attracted to him. We struck up a friendship, and eventually struck up even more than that.

I glance at my phone, apprehension gripping my chest with every breath. I had tried to call Gray a few times, and had worried myself sick. He wasn't ignoring me, at least I didn't think he was. Grief can take time, some choose the comfort of the familiarity of friends and family, and others choose the cold embrace of loneliness, deciding it's better to hide their vulnerabilities, to shut out the world. I miss him, though...

I sigh, glancing down at the sleeping wolf on my chest. Today hadn't been as bad as the past two, and I even got him to laugh for a while. I felt selfish, though, wishing it was Gray laying in my arms. As if on cue, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket.

"Gray?" I whispered into the receiver, trying my best not to disturb Milan sprawled on top of me. "Hey Toby..." His voice ached with a raspy reprieve, "Can you meet me at the park?" I felt my tail wag under me. He's missed me too, it seems, and despite everything hearing his voice made my heart flutter.

I squirmed away from Milan, leaving him a note on the chance he woke up. The Center Cherry Flower Park was only ten minutes away, but I wasn't sure what Gray needed -- if he needed me for a hug or for an hours long conversation. The walk to the park was quick, and although the air hung heavy and hot, my paws carried me as quickly as they could. On a night like tonight I could've forgotten about Imani. The moon hung silently in a cacophony of black, and it dawned on me that even though my world had stopped that nothing else had. The moon still rose every evening, the sun every morning, and the roses in the park still smelled sickly sweet.

Gray sat on a bench not far from the entrance, and I found myself sitting next to him in no time. His head rested on my shoulder, and we sat, silent, for a few moments. I didn't mind, holding him close to me was better than anything and everything in the world. "Toby...I love you so much..." I brushed my tail against his, "I love yo--" He pulls his head away, glancing down. "I think we need to spend some time apart, though." I felt my ears go flat against my head. My heart felt like a brick in that moment, and I could've sworn it stopped beating.

"What? Gray...what're you saying?" I chortle it out. There's no way he's serious, right? I look at him, his ears pinned and tail tucked under him. He's being serious, then. "I'm sorry, Toby...I just...I need to focus on myself. And mom." I can't believe my own ears, it's as if my blood has gone cold and my muscles tell me to punch him.

"Your mom? The one who literally thinks that gay people are going straight to hell?!" My voice is harsher than I mean for it to be, and I can see if mirrored in Gray's reaction. His ears are pinned to his head, but my every fur is on edge and I'm not holding myself back. "I can't believe you, Grayson Keener." I'm hurt. Every part of me is hurt. I should stop. I should stop yelling at him. I should march back to Milan's house -- but when have I ever done what I should?

"Are you done?" He snaps back at me, his voice colder than ice. "Not everything is about you, Toby! You never could see that, though, could you?!"

"No," I growl, my body shaking from anger and pain and confusion, "I made everything about you. I missed out on going to a good college for you! Cherry University?! I stayed here for you! I could've gone fucking anywhere!" It isn't strictly true. I stayed to be close to him, but that was my decision, but Gray sure didn't fight me about it.

That does it, though. Gray doesn't say another word as he storms to his car, peeling out of the parking lot and sending tiny rocks into the air. He's gone. Just like that. I'm left confused about what happened, I'm left scared and hurt and angry. I lay back on the bench, and before I know it I feel tears running down my cheeks.

I stay there for hours, until the light starts to filter over the horizon and the crisp smell of the summer morning reminded me that I still have to make sure Milan is okay. I trudged the way to his house, with no particular motivation to do anything but cry. At some point I realize I'm tired, my back aches and spasms. I'm still gonna have to be strong for Milan's sake, though...

"Toby." Milan's voice is more stern than I've heard in a long time when I open the door. "Gray called me last night. After he left the park." Damn him. Damn Milan, damn Gray, damn them both. I feel Milan's strong arms wrap around me, pulling me into his chest. For a moment I considered running out the door. I didn't need his pity...but he was warm, his scent familiar, and any thought of running was dashed away when he whispered into my ear. "I've got you..." I feel my tears coming hard. "Heh," He chortles, "Who'd've guessed we'd both be single. Again."

I flick my tail, cradled against his chest like a mother cradles her babe. Everything feels okay. Well. Maybe not okay. But I know I'm alive as his heart beats against my ear, and I know we've been through this before (well, maybe not someone actually dying) and I know that we'll be okay.

He sighs. "You know Gray still loves you, right?" HIs words bombard my ears, and I don't want to hear them, but it's Milan, and I want to hear him. He keeps talking when I don't. "He's going through a lot. So is Charlotte. He'll want you back in no time. He's pushing you away, like he does anytime something goes wrong. He'll come back and ask you to take him back." He looks down at me, and those golden eyes seem to thaw the frost that's enveloped my heart and pull me out of my world and into his.

"You think so...?" My voice is but a whimper at this point, but my heart is yearning for hope. "I think," He pauses, still staring at me. He takes a deep breath before continuing, "I think you deserve better. I don't want you to take him back, honestly. I want you to be with someone who appreciates everything you do. Someone who...who loves you." It's odd that he's so sappy, but with everything he's going through I suppose it's understandable.

I grin up at him, and for the first time I feel a smile come across my muzzle. "Are you giving me relationship advice? You set me up with him in the first place!" I'm teasing him, but his face is stone and unmoving.

"You need someone like me." The way he says it is an odd blend of tenderness and sternness, sincerity and breathlessness.

"What?" I'm surprised. That's surprising. I didn't think he'd say that. "What...what do you mean someone like you? You're not gonna try to set me up with another one of your closeted friends who needs to get laid, right?" That was how we had met, Gray and I, and Gray had worked out until...well, he didn't.

"No. I'm not gonna try to set you up with one of my friends." His voice draws me out of my head, back into the real world. "Not someone like me. I mean..." I notice that his tail is wiggling, and I think he's blushing? It's hard to tell underneath his fur. "Me. I mean me. You need me, Toby."

"You wolves think everyone need you." The words slip out of my muzzle before I realize that he's being serious. "Wait...you...you're not joking?" My heart flutters, different than the last time I'd seen Gray.

"You think I'd joke about that?" He looks dejected. "I mean...if you don't want too. I'm not gay or anything...I just thought..." He stops talking. He has too, of course, because my muzzle meets his and he's pulled into a soft, short kiss. It only lasts a second, but it shuts him up.

It's funny, the odd blend of raw emotion in my heart. I'm hurt, losing one of my best friends in Imani, losing my boyfriend in Gray, and yet it feels like my heart is flipping with happiness? I think it's happiness, at least. It's confusion, too. I pull out muzzles apart, and it's still like the first time I'd kissed him, years ago in my room.

"Milan..." I sigh, "We can't be together. Not yet." It hurts to say, it gets stuck in my throat and then choked by my teeth before it finally spills out. Of course I want him as mine. I've seen him leave Imani and confess his love to me in my dreams. Is that selfish -- to want him as mine? Too early? Definitely too early. We'd both just lost someone close to us -- both newly single! "I...I don't want to be a rebound...or for you to think that you're just one." He looks hurt, but he nods anyway.

"I understand," He finally says after a few moments of awkward silence. "But...maybe...?" It's softer, tender and vulnerable. It's warm and reassuring.

"Of course, Milan," My tail is wagging, and I couldn't even begin to stop it if I wanted too. It's an incredible feeling, even though I had said no, that someone wants you. "If you still want me...want us in a month...maybe more, maybe less...but if you still want it? I don't see any reason not too...and even saying that, I still want you to be around...I want to be snuggled up to you."

We sat, talking, for what seemed like hours. Talking about Imani, mostly. Her funeral is coming up tomorrow, and I'm not going to miss it to avoid gray. Mrs. Keener had always been a sweet woman, never mean -- apart from the gay thing. I'll need to call my parents, to get my suit. I should probably call them anyway. I haven't even told them about Imani. They'll probably be mad at me.

When Milan finally gets up to cook for us, I give them a call.

"Tobias James Clayton, where on earth have you been?" My mothers familiar voice, and however condescending it was, I was glad to hear it.

"Linda," I say. I haven't' called them mom or dad in a long time, at least to their faces. "First of all, I'm in college, I have a job and have --" I stop. I can't say I have a boyfriend who I can stay with. That'd be a lie. "I...had a boyfriend I could stay with." I can hear her processing the words through the words. Her and Forrest -- my father -- hadn't always been the biggest supporter of Gray and I. Not because we were gay, they didn't like that he wasn't a fox. They always told me if I had brought home a nice tod, they'd be thrilled.

"Are you okay?" She sounds worried. Despite everything, they had always tried to accept Gray. I explain, tripping over my words, what happened with Imani and Gray. At some point I start to cry. She listens intently, never interrupting me. It feels nice to talk to someone, between taking care of Milan and...dealing with Gray's douchebaggery, I hadn't been able to talk about Imani with anyone.

"Oh...sweetie," Her tone was sincere and full of worry. "Are you taking care of yourself? I know how Milan can be." I wonder how they'd react if I introduced Milan as my boyfriend. A fox bringing a wolf home? And they thought Gray was bad!

"I'm doing fine, Linda," I lie. "Can I come by later? I need to get my suit." As much as I loved my parents, as much as they loved me and cared about me, it was easier to hide my vulnerabilities to them rather than argue about what causes them.

"Of course, sweetie! Your father is out of town on business...but Tristan's actually in town! When will you be over?

"Tristan? What's he doing back? I'll have Milan bring me over after breakfast." Ah, Tristan, my brother and pride of the family. He's a minor-league baseball player for the Milwaukee Whales, and my parents can never talk enough about it.

"The team is off for a few days, so he thought he'd swing by while he could." I felt my tail wag, it had been...well, it felt like it had been forever since I'd seen Tristan. We chat for a few more minutes until Milan brings out a plate of pancakes. A quick goodbye, and a few pancakes scarfed down -- I'd love to say wolf-down, but Milan would go off on how that's a stereotype -- and we were off.