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A Shepherd's Touch

-by Briggswolf

--part 4--

In some fictional world, Columbia Hall might have been some all gay, all buttsex kind of residence hall - this lion lifting his tail for this wolf, this tiger spanking this buck, etc. The truth was that there was this homophobia in the dorms, a general disdain for anything that could even be misconstrued as gay. If you did something as remotely unmanly such as wearing a pink shirt, nearly everyone you know would knock you for it, making the tongue-in-cheek gesture, or outright ridiculing you. And while most of it was teasing, it still burned this clear message: don't let anyone see anything. So when folks began arriving back to college from their Thanksgiving weekend getaways, Cameron and I decided to ease off.

We sat in Cameron's dorm room the entire evening, playing video games and looking oddly at one another every time someone would peek their head in the door. I think it's also safe to say that we both had that feeling - you know the one, where you feel like you've done something wrong and have it written all over your face. I'm not sure why I felt like that, but I did. Even so, I wanted so much to hold him, and I could see it in his eyes that he felt the same, but with the other students coming in and out so often it was too dangerous.

Around 1 AM we decided to call it a night. "Hey Cam, I'm gonna hit the sack. I'm pretty tired."

"Alright wolf." He looked around quickly, ensuring the coast was clear, then wrapped his paws around me. "Sleep well, okay?" He kissed my nose gently.

I squeezed him tightly after the kiss and felt his muzzle slip close to my ear. I was expecting another lick or a kiss, but what I got was a whisper: "Take care my sweetie wolf." I hugged him amidst being both enthralled and suddenly confused. I opened my muzzle to whisper back to him, but nothing came out. I wanted to say those three words, but suddenly there was this ball in the pit of my stomach, aching and tearing me up inside. I broke out into a sweat under my fur that surely he felt, and as soon as we ended the hug I darted away to my room.

I closed the door and sat on the edge of my bed, my elbows on my knees and my muzzle resting on my paws. What was it that was bothering me? I wanted to be with him, and now I was...except suddenly I didn't know how I felt about it all. I laid down with my back on the bed, wondering what was wrong. I felt sick, like I wanted to throw up. As I looked up, my eyes darted to the poster of Cindi Crawfish, then to the cross on wall, and I rolled over and my eyes caught the picture of my parents and I up at their cabin. The events of the weekend, which seemed so surreal at the time they were happening, now came rushing back through my head. And I cried...

. . . . .

Mom called Monday morning, as if she had this motherly instinct something was wrong, though she just wanted to know how things were going and make sure I made it through the weekend alright. It still felt nightmarish. My parents had this knack for calling at exactly the wrong times, like they knew when I was most vulnerable and made these malicious plans to bother me during only those times. We talked for about 15 minutes, and I got the usual "so do you have a girlfriend yet" question. This time I hesitated before retorting "no." I'm certain she caught the hesitation, though she let it slide.

The entire conversation I had this nagging worry in the back of my mind that she somehow knew what I had been up to all weekend, even if there was no way she could. By the time I hung up the phone, I was quivering with fear, though nothing was said. What would they do if they knew? How would they treat me? My parents always cursed and ridiculed gay folks on television. My mother made it a point to tell me that if any of my brothers or I were gay she would disown us.

The day wore on and classes crawled by. Cameron and I didn't share any Monday courses, but I found myself sitting upstairs in the University Center around dinnertime looking through the glass. He looked up at me a couple times and waved. Had he seen me sitting there the past year? I looked at my watch, it was almost time for his shift to end, so I hightailed it down to the pool locker rooms and waited.

I sat there on the bench, thinking about everything. What did I want? What did Cameron want? Could this work? What about the folks? And God? My mind was spinning with emotion and confusion, and I wanted to talk to him about it.

When Cam opened the door to the locker room and saw me sitting on the bench, he grinned widely. "Heya wolf, thought you were upstairs?"

I shook my head and smiled back, scanning his form from head to toe. I had never seen him in his lifeguard shorts this close-up before, and I admit it gave me a tingle downstairs. "Nah, thought I'd see if you wanted to grab a bite to eat." I couldn't help but smile back at him. Everything I had set out to talk to him about disappeared again, and I felt happy to be around him.

Cameron looked around the locker room for a minute, making sure nobody else was around. "Yeah definitely, I need to grab a quick shower first. Be done in 5." He grinned at me as he turned his back and opened his locker, his tail wagging slightly behind him, nearly brushing into my face. I couldn't help but grin and sniff that chlorine mixed with wet canine scent coming from his fur.

"Are you telling me I have to leave?" I whimpered sarcastically. "I was thinking I might stay and enjoy the show."

He laughed and turned around, ruffling up my headfur then facepawing me backwards a bit. "Having you around in the locker room has, you know, adverse...effects on the dog downstairs. If someone walked in while I was showering like that, it wouldn't be pretty." He snickered and turned back around, grabbing his towel from his locker.

I stood up as he grinned back at me over his shoulder, slipping his pawthumbs into his waistband and tugging down his shorts to his ankles. Such a tease - that playful look over his shoulder continuing as he stepped free of those trunks. I swallowed hard, letting out a murr when I saw his bare rear end a few feet from my muzzle, and before too long my paw came out and gave his rump a teasing pat.

I should have known better, or maybe the trouble was that I did know better and I knew exactly what I was getting myself into with that paw on his butt. A moment later, he spun around, his paws drawing to my sides and petting down until they rested at my hips. I got quite the view of his canine sheath, that furred pocket looking a little more plump than normal, the glimmer of reddish dogcock peeking out the top to blame. "Now you've done it wolf, you've awoken the beast..." he growled playfully to me.

My paws slid over his shoulders as he pushed me gently back into the lockers. I opened my muzzle to say something, but his maw found my own and began a series of passionate mouthings. The kisses felt like they lasted an eternity, his muzzle shifting passionately against my own, his paws roaming around my backside. His left paw found its way down my right thigh, lifting my leg up around side as his hips pressed in against me. I couldn't help but feel that swelling erection of his grinding into the front of my pants.

I was in heaven.

Reality came crashing down upon us as the locker room door creaked open. I quickly released him and jumped off to the side, pretending as though I was closing a locker. Cameron stumbled back to his locker and threw the towel around himself, though that shepherd member of his was blatantly tenting the towel. He quickly disappeared towards the shower as a Willie Lynx stepped up to the locker just a few lockers down.

I stuffed my paws into my pockets, doing my best to readjust myself as I made my way toward the door. The feline offered a headcocked nod as I passed him.

. . . . .

I climbed up the stairs of the University Center to have a seat in my usual place, all the while wondering whether Willie had seen anything. Jumping away from each other probably wasn't the most inconspicuous thing to do, but maybe the cat hadn't seen anything after all.

As I was about to throw my backpack down on the seat by the pool window, I felt a tap on the shoulder. I turned around and saw Caitlin Otter standing there, her long blonde headfur draped over her shoulders, her blue eyes offering an excited greeting to my own. "Hey Manny," Caitlin cooed, her soft voice interrupting my thoughts for a minute.

I smiled back at her. "Hi Caitlin, how's it going?"

"Things are good. Haven't seen you at the PSE parties recently, you're still in it aren't you?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but school's been hell - seems like I can hardly get a minute to myself sometimes." It was an exaggeration, but the kind that everyone and anyone could buy, and I was good at selling it.

She reached out and tugged on my backpack strap. "I can understand that, judging from the number of books you carry around. You're going to the Holiday Dance, aren't you? We should go together, it'd be fun." She was talking about the yearly dance the frat held at the end of the Fall semester held in some fancy schmancy banquet hall across town.

It was an awkward moment for me. I stood there for a minute, pondering what to say. The first thing that came to mind was "sorry I have a girlfriend already," but somehow I figured that wouldn't work. Next I thought about telling her Cameron and I were going together, but I bit my tongue. She didn't need to know that. So after exhausting my brain, I blurted out "I would, but I can't go. My parents want me to fly home that weekend for...a...family reunion." Oh man, I was terrible at lying - and to top it off I had that damn knack for wanting to give an excuse when one wasn't needed. A simple "I'm not going" would have probably sufficed. Nope, I had to give this intricate reply.

"Oh that's too bad." She looked down for a minute, both of us caught in an awkward silence, then she grabbed my backpack strap and tugged again. "Well study hard Manny. I'll see you in Poli Sci." And with that, she darted off toward the elevator, passing Cameron and giving him a wave as she went.

The shepherd stepped up to me, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, a winter jacket over his torso, his headfur half-combed and half-messed after showering. "What was that about?"

I shook my head. "She just wanted to know if we were joining that study group for the Poli Sci final." I decided he didn't need to know - I didn't want to make him feel badly about it all.

"Oh? Did you tell her yes?" He replied.

"Nah," I answered. "I told her I usually study alone."

"Ah, alone eh?"

I grinned and elbowed his side. "I figured we could study together...alone."

He laughed and motioned towards the stairs. "Let's go get dinner, wolf."

. . . . .

The next few days passed fairly uneventfully. Contrary to both of our desires, Cameron and I didn't get much alone-time together. You try finding time alone with someone while going to an overcrowded college where half the dorms on campus have three and sometimes four people rooming together. We were a couple lucky residents of Columbia Hall, one of the only two residence halls where every room was a double or a single.

As Thursday's classes finished up, I grabbed a soda from the machine downstairs and headed up to my room. I passed Willie Lynx carrying a dirty laundry basket in his paws along the way and gave him a quick pawwave and hello. He nodded and looked at me with a curious glance as we passed.

Five flights of stairs were murder on the footpaws after a long day of classes, so I decided to stop off on Cam's floor and see what he was doing. I popped open the can of soda as I approached his room and took a quick swig. His door was barely cracked open and I paused at the entrance with my paw ready to knock when I heard some faint talking inside. I glanced up and down the halls to see if anyone was around, if anyone would see me eavesdropping. When I knew the coast was clear, I leaned my head towards the opening and listened. It took a minute of hearing nothing but muffled voices before my ears adjusted and I could hear the conversation at paw. It was Bernie and Christian.

"So what do you think?" Bernie mumbled.

"Manny I could buy," Christian responded. It was always hard for him to talk in a low voice - I guess it must be a jock thing since now that I think about it, no jocks I've ever known could ever whisper properly. "But Cam? No way. He was going out with Leslie half of last year! There's no way."

"I hear ya man," growled Bernie, "but I'm telling you I've got some reliable sources on this."

Christian snarled back at the fox. "No way man, I don't buy it."

"Well I can see it," Bernie said pointedly. "I can see it on both sides. They're always..."

"Fuck you fox, the shepherd's an awesome athlete," retorted the lion. "He's not a fag. I'd know, I'm his roommate for God's sake. I've walked in on him fucking a hot chick here and there."

I turned around, barely able to stand, numb from what I was hearing. As I started walked back towards the stairwell, I heard Bernie's voice growl out "whatever man, don't get pissed at me, I'm not the one sucking cock around here."

. . . . .

Three flights of stairs never felt so much like climbing Mt. Everest as they did that day. Every step was an effort - like the little wolf in my head that pulls the levers to make my legs move had taken a vacation. The soles of my shoes felt like glue, and even at my slow pace I was out of breath when I reached my floor. I crept towards my room, my paw skimming along the wall in case I lost my balance. When I finally got there, I swung the door open and stumbled inside.

"Hey wolf," called a voice from my bed. I had to raise my head to look up at the source. It was Cam. "Erf, it looks like you've seen a ghost? Were you in that maintenance closet downstairs?" He snickered as he said that, but I didn't really reply. Instead, I sat down on the computer chair, crossed my paws on the desk, and buried my muzzle underneath my folded arms.

"You alright Manny?" I heard Fuller's voice from behind me - I didn't realize he had been in there too.

"Yeah wolf, you okay? What's wrong?" I felt Cameron's paw on my shoulder. Any other time I would have welcomed it, but it only repulsed me after hearing what I heard Bernie and Christian discussing.

I shook my head and lowered my shoulder a bit, as if implying I didn't want to be touched. "No, I'm...I'm feeling sick."

My less than stellar performance convinced a reluctant Cameron to leave after a few minutes. I climbed into bed soon after. And though I made up the whole sick thing, I ended up hurling twice over the night. Yeah, I probably made myself sick. Looking back on my childhood and my ability to worry myself sick, I'm surprised I don't have an ulcer today.

. . . . .

I secluded myself in my room the entire weekend. I did that a lot in my time. It was my defense mechanism, my way to think through issues in life. It was also my way of avoiding Bernie and Christian. I also avoided Cameron that whole weekend. I missed him, but I needed the time to think things through.

The word gay had, in fact, crossed my mind when Cam and I did the few things we had done Thanksgiving weekend and beyond. But I had never really laid the label down on either one of us until hearing Bernie and Christian talk. I'm not going to give you the BS that "everything felt so right and so natural" because it didn't. Cam and I were clumsy and new to everything. Things felt odd before, during, and after, but we did them nonetheless, and now we had seemingly become more than friends. But now, after knowing people had their suspicions, I started to panic.

Every possible scenario passed through my head that weekend. I decided I really liked Cameron a lot, and I did indeed have feelings for him, but I didn't want people to know. People had been talking, and once people get talking, they don't stop unless you make them, so I devised a plan...

And so I picked up the phone and called Caitlin to ask her out to the PSE Holiday Dance...

. . . . .

"You WHAT?" Cameron gasped.

I lowered my head a bit, my ears splaying outwards and tail slipping between my legs. "I asked Caitlin to the dance."

The shepherd stood up and slammed the door, then locked it. He turned around and leaned back against the door, bringing his paw up to his forehead. "Why would you do that, wolf? I thought..." His voice trailed off.

"I don't know," I whimpered. "People have been talking. Christian and Bernie were talking about us. They know. I wanted to..."

"So? So they know. Big deal. There's a lot of stuff I know about Christian too." Cameron's voice was cracking a bit, the same way it cracked that night before Thanksgiving when he had the argument with his mom.

I took my eyes off the dog for a minute and stared at the ground. "I also heard Christian say something about you...having sex with a few girls in your room recently."

"And you believe him? What the hell, wolf? You don't understand, I've never..." Cameron grumbled, trailing off, his voice still quivering. "Wait, so this whole dance thing with Caitlin, it's some kind of revenge?"

Hearing Cameron's voice shaking tore me up inside. I wanted to cry, but my genetic stubbornness forced me onward. "No, no Cam...it's just...I just...I don't want people to know. I don't want to be gay, but I do care about..."

"You care about what? You care about having fun with me? You care about hurting their feelings over mine?" Cameron slipped past me, his head aimed down at the ground as he stumbled over to his bunk. "I thought we...you said you..." Cameron let out a deep sigh and sank his head into his pillow. And then he muttered the two most painful words I've ever heard in my life. "Get out."

I started to say more, but Cameron just kept his face buried in his pillow with his paw pointing towards the door. "Please come talk to me later, Cam? Please? I...I care so much about you." I still couldn't say the three words I wanted to say. But even as I said what I did say, Cam's face remained buried and his paw quivered even more as it pointed. I took the hint and walked out. And I cried. I cried on the way down the hall. I cried on the way up the stairs. I cried in my room. And I cried until I couldn't cry any longer. And I didn't care who saw me crying.

. . . . .

The rest of the week slumped on like no other. When I wasn't crying, I was studying or writing emails to Cameron. I never got a single response the entire week from him. I knocked on his door a few times, which now remained shut and locked more than I had ever seen, but he never answered.

I called the date off with Caitlin the day after the argument with Cam, but no matter how much I told him about that in the emails I never got a reply. My heart kept telling me how much I had screwed up, but my mind kept trying to justify asking Caitlin to the dance and how it was an innocent thing to get the rumors off our backs.

Every day I journeyed to the University Center at the normal time and grabbed my usual seat by the glass. But Cameron never showed. I went down to the pool each day and asked the lifeguard on duty what happened, and each day she replied that he had called in sick.

I stumbled across Christian in the lounge of Columbia hall one day and asked him about the shepherd. The lion looked at me and shrugged. "He's been sick all week" was the only reply I got out of him. I wanted to believe that he truly was sick, but deep down inside I knew he called off work because of me.

The afternoon of the dance I sat in my dorm room thinking up a last ditch effort to convince him how much I cared.

"Wolf, you've been moping around all week," called a gruff voice from the doorway. I looked up, my tired eyes taking in Fuller's figure. "What's gotten into you Manny?"

I shrugged and sighed deeply, my composure pretty much disintegrated from the few days of wanting to talk to Cameron. "I...well it's hard to explain."

Fuller sat down on the bed alongside of me. "Give it a shot wolf, you know me, I'm always here for you." He placed his paw on my shoulder.

I took a deep breath and looked at him, and the understanding in his eyes gave me confidence. "There's this guy..." I looked down at the ground and rubbed my knees with my paws as I stuttered through it all. "And, well, I like this guy. In fact, I more than like him."

"Was this the 'guy' whose tail you grabbed a while back?" Fuller smirked as he asked the question.

"Oh man..." I blushed and covered my face with a paw. I couldn't believe he knew! "How did you...?"

"Wolf, you don't give me enough credit. I've seen you two around, I've seen the way you look at eachother. I've seen the way you act with eachother. You and Cameron are totally made for eachother." He reached out and forced my paw away from my face.

And for the first time in my life, I smiled at the realization that someone knew. For some reason I could feel Fuller's empathy, his compassion in his voice and in his approach. And when he hugged me, I knew for certain he was okay with it all. "Thanks man, thanks."

Fuller tilted his head. "For what? For being your friend? You don't need to thank people for that."

I shook my head and looked at him. "For caring, for understanding."

"That's what I'm here for wolf. So tell me about what's going on?"

I sighed and scratched my head, that ball in my throat growing again - you know the feeling, where you want to say something but you're not sure how it's going to sound, where you have to admit something that you're not proud of doing. "I kinda screwed up. I asked Caitlin to the dance because I overheard some people talking about Cam and I. It scared me."

Fuller nodded. "And you explained this to Cameron?"

"Yeah, but he was upset, and rightfully so. It was wrong, I was wrong. But now...he hasn't spoken to me in a couple days, and I'm...I want to talk to him, I want to be with him again. I think I'm...there's this...I want to..." I kept stumbling, knowing what I wanted to say but not wanting to say the words just yet.

"You love him, don't you? Have you ever told him that?"

I took a deep breath and sighed. "No, I haven't told him that, but I want to. And you're right, I love him." I paused and looked at the ground for a second, before realizing what had just freely left my muzzle.

And then it came to me...with a little help from my friend...

"I need to tell him, you're right, bear. You're absolutely right." I turned and gave Fuller a big hug, and I heard him giggle.

"Bears are always right, you know." We both chuckled as we broke off the hug. I gave him a playfully gentle punch on the shoulder as he got up. "Well I need to run wolf, good luck with your plan. And if he doesn't listen, I'll have a few words with him." He winked at me as he left the room.

I grinned as I sat down at my desk and started typing out an email to him, an email finally professing my love. I put every ounce of my emotion down in this email, telling him every detail of how I fell for him from the first day we had met, to the chocolate milkshake on Thanksgiving, to how much the days without him had been tearing me apart. I ended it with the three words I had failed to say so many times before: I love you.

As I finished typing the email, I realized it would be better handwritten. I grabbed a pen and a few sheets of paper from my printer, and started writing in the best handwriting I could muster. As I finished the letter with those three words, I realized I didn't want to say them in the letter and crossed them out. Immediately after the crossed out (but readable) words I wrote "No, I don't want you to read these three words on paper, I want to finally say them to you in person. Please give me the chance."

By then it was 8pm already, so I grabbed the letter and ran down the stairs as fast as I could. I came to Cameron's door and rapped on it a few times. "Shepherd, I know you're in there. Here, I want you to read this right here and now, I'm sliding it under the door." I put the sheet of paper down and slid it all the way under the door, and stood there. As I waited, Caitlin came traipsing down the hall in an evening gown with a preppy Cougar fellow at her side.

"Hey Manny," She said as she approached.

"Hi Caitlin," I replied, really unsure of what to say. I looked at the ground, a bit uncomfortable.

"Are you looking for Cameron? I saw him leave for the dance with Leslie about 30 minutes ago." She motioned down the hall. I looked down the hall, half-expecting to see Cameron there, not really sure why. But he wasn't there.

"Oh, thanks, I have to tell him something," I said matter-of-factly as I nodded. I turned and started running towards the stairs again.

"No hard feelings wolf? I totally understand," Her voice sailed over to me as I jogged away. I waved my paw at my side in both acknowledgement and thanks as I disappeared through the double doors. I left the letter where I had placed it under the door, but I didn't really care. It was go-time, and I wanted to say it all in person.

. . . . .

It was sleeting outside, the pellets of ice pummelling every bit of my exposed fur and flesh. I didn't care how icy it was, nor how cold I was getting - I had one thing on my mind. I had Fuller's car keys in paw and was determined to tell Cameron everything now. I found Fuller's car with ease - the only blue-green station wagon in the parking lot (probably on all of campus too). I started it up, and drove off.

The campus was divided into a North section and South section by several blocks of city. Columbia Hall was located in the Northern part of campus, while the banquet hall where the dance was being held was in the South. Every minute ticked by as I flew down the road. Main Street was bumper to bumper when I got to it - the city always seemed to have something going on during the weekend, so I decided to take back roads the entire trip. I flew through the side streets as fast as I could drive safely in the conditions, having to contend with neighborhood stop signs and the likes. Eventually I made it to the banquet hall.

I immediately parked the car and hopped out, taking a deep breath and a long, slow sniff of the nighttime air. I began my trek to the door, step for step. When I was about fifty feet away, the doors flew open, with Christian leading several other individuals out the door at a fast pace. He stared at me until we met at the curb, where he grabbed my arm and turned me around. "Manny you gotta go."

I looked sideways at the lion, shoving his paw off my arm defensively. "No, I've got to tell Cameron someth...."

"No wolf, we have to go." He looked at me, and his eyes told the story. "Leslie just called, there's been an accident..."

. . . . .

The rest of the evening is pretty much a blur. I remember pulling up to 3rd Street and Main and seeing the mesh of black truck and SUV. I remember Leslie running to Christian and throwing her arms around him, her dress bloodied on the one side. I remember the ambulance doors closing as we approached, and I remember Christian driving us all to the hospital. But beyond the general acknowledgement of those events, I don't remember much more of the events at the accident scene.

Leslie told us what happened on the way to the hospital. An SUV came out of nowhere, bolting through the intersection and blowing through the traffic signal. It collided with Cameron's truck on the driver's side.

We camped out in the emergency room waiting area for the next few hours, but the staff were relunctant to let anyone see him since none of us were relatives and because they were having difficulty stabalizing Cameron. The security guard had to restrain Christian because of how upset that policy was making him. The lion resorted to begging for at least one of us to see him...

And he pointed to me: "At least let his boyfriend see him. Please." The nurse disappeared for a few minutes, and in a strange turn of events, she reappeared, motioning for me to follow her in.

The lights of the emergency room were a cold fluorescent, the makeshift curtains draped alongside of the hospital bed. As I approached, I got a glimpse of several machines, one giving off low beeps for every beat of the shepherd's heart, another controlling the drips of medicine being administered to the injured dog, and a couple of other machines of which I had no idea their purpose.

I stepped up to Cameron's side, finally getting a glimpse of him. His eyes were closed, the side of his cheek and face caked with blood, an attempt having been made to clean some of it by the look of things. His chest heeved slowly with involuntary breaths. I looked at the nurse, who nodded to me. "I really shouldn't be letting you do this. You have a couple of minutes before we need to take him for more tests," she whispered before she turned and disappeared off to the nurse's station.

There's this immensely overwhelming feeling of helplessness when you're standing alongside a loved one in the hospital. I gulped down a swallow of whatever spittle I could muster, my eyes dripping with tears, my throat clenching in worry.

The shepherd looked awful. My boyfriend needed me more than ever.

"Cameron," I whispered out, biting my lip and glancing up and down his bed. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to stop this from happening. I'm sorry I wasn't there at your side the whole time, I should have been at your side all night tonight." I paused, drawing my paw up to gently pat his shoulder, the shepherd's eyes remained closed. "I wrote you a letter tonight...

"The letter was about our fight. I wish I had it here with me, I'd read it..." I moved my paw down his arm until I felt his paw. There was a clip on his pawdigit that was monitoring his pulse, so I made sure to be gentle as I took his paw in my own and gave it a soft squeeze. "The rest of the letter doesn't matter so much, doggy. What matters is what I wanted to tell you with the letter."

I drew in a deep breath before leaning my muzzle down to kiss Cameron's furred forehead. "I love you, Cameron. I love you." As I whispered those words the second time, I swear I could feel his paw give a squeeze back, albeit a gentle one, but I felt it.

I stood at his bedside for a few more seconds, wiping my eyes with my paw before a couple of nurses and a doctor came to shoo me back into the waiting area, needing to wheel the dog off for more tests.

It was a strange feeling walking back into the waiting room, the eyes of all of my peers and friends locking with my own. If they didn't know before, they knew now, especially with the words Christian had spoken to the hospital staff just a few minutes before.

But the strangest thing of all was that I didn't care.

Everyone wanted word about his condition, but I only told them what I saw, since the doctor and nurses gave me no information at all.

It had been hours since the accident, perhaps an hour or two after my short visit to see Cameron in the room. Everyone stayed at the hospital, waiting for more information, to hear more about the dog. People came by and gave my shoulder a pat every now and then. It felt good, the sympathy, but I was more concerned about the dog than I was about what people thought of me.

As I sat there at one point, staring at the doorway to the ER in a half-asleep daze, Leslie was making her way out of the bathrooms nearby. A doctor was coming into the waiting area from the ER. When he stopped Leslie and pulled her aside, we all stood up. And when she began to sob and scream, we knew...

. . . . .

Cameron died early Sunday morning. There was nothing the doctors could do. Leslie, his passenger, was unharmed except for a scratch and a bruise on her arm. It turned out the driver of the SUV was intoxicated, and he was arrested and charged with drunk driving.

For the next few days all I could do was cry. My bed became a puddle of tears at night, and my desk was drenched in the same by day. Every experience I'd ever had with Cameron kept flowing through my mind; the memories being so vivid and real that I kept hearing his voice as plain as day in the room. The last words Cameron had ever said to me were "get out," and it hurt to think about them. But the worst realization of all hit me Monday night - I had never told him I loved him to those beautiful eyes. And I cried thinking, perhaps, that he never knew how much I truly cared.

Tuesday morning, a knock at my door awakened me. I sat up in bed and had a fleeting thought that it would be Cameron, but the reality of it all soon set in again as I got up to answer.

Leslie was standing outside when I opened the door. "Hi Manny, can I come in?"

I nodded and closed the door after her. I hadn't spoke but maybe two or three words since the accident, and when I tried to offer even a hollow greeting to the lioness, nothing really came out.

"You don't have to speak." She placed her paw on my shoulder.

I tilted my head a little. "Were you two...?" It was all I managed to say, but somehow she knew what I was asking.

"Cameron and I were never boyfriend and girlfriend," Leslie mumbled. "Last year, that whole 6-month thing with him, it was all a show. Cameron told me he was gay years ago, but I guess he was worried about people knowing, so we cooked that up. I had never seen him so happy after he hooked up with you. You were all he ever talked about.

"He even told Christian about you, and, well you know how Christian is. He acts all tough and cool, but when it came down to things he supported Cameron. And the thing about Cameron having numerous girls in his bed? Christian lied. He lied to Bernie to keep Cam out of trouble. He told me all about it." She took a breath. "You know, the past week, the shepherd did nothing but talk about you and cry about you." She swallowed hard and looked at me.

"Oh..." I sighed.

The lioness put her paw on my leg. "It was nothing but good things, Manny. Trust me. He loved you, and he didn't know what to do. But that night, at the dance..." she hesitated and swallowed again, her voice cracking. "...when he said he had to go, I knew. He was coming back to the dorms, he was coming back to tell you how much he loved you."

Leslie and I talked for a while longer, discussing Cameron and all the good times. We laughed, we cried, we hugged. I really enjoyed getting hugs from her - like I knew Cameron would have approved. In a way, it felt like I was hugging him. It wasn't long before we hugged again and said our goodbyes.

In the afternoon, Christian stopped at the edge of the doorway. I sat up and looked out at him. He nodded to me, his face still glum from the weekend, and before he left, he gave me a friendly wave. It felt good to see it, to feel the acknowledgement from someone of whome I would have least expected it.

And that night, as tears fell from my cheeks, I took the poster of Cindi Crawfish off my wall and threw it in the trash.

. . . . .

They had the funeral in Cameron's home town eight hours away on Wednesday afternoon. As much as I wanted to go, I refused Fuller's offer of driving me. He had a final project due Thursday morning, and I didn't want to interfere in his studies. Besides, there was a small part of me that didn't want to see the shepherd's lifeless body in a box. He was stronger than that, and I wanted to remember him the way I always knew him.

I spent the afternoon of the funeral sitting in the University Center staring down at the pool. A Collie female sat in the lifeguard chair where Cameron would normally sit. I wanted to go down and tell her to get out of the chair, that it was a sacred place she didn't belong - that it was his chair. However, I didn't do it. Instead, I honored Cameron by placing the cup from our first kiss on the table, the cup that had that original chocolate shake. Yeah I had saved the cup, silly sentimental me. "I love you Cameron," I whispered under my breath as I set a rose into the cup. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I love you." I closed my eyes for a few seconds, hoping that he heard me, praying that he heard me, before I finally turned around and went on my way.

On any previous day, I would have been staring at him from that seat. But as I left the University Center that day, I felt like he was watching me.

--the end--