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MICHAEL JOESEPH SIMMONS

BELOVED SON AND TRUE FRIEND

1991-2011

I kneel on the grass as I read the epitaph. I run my paw across Mike's name and the sadness overcomes me yet again. The images of the alley pour in my mind and I can't shake them out. I set the flowers that I brought in front of his grave and stand up. I just stare at the grave, the dirt still uncovered by grass in this area.

How could this have happened? Mike didn't deserve this he didn't have to die. Yet, there the tombstone sat, showing the awful truth. I turn to leave and Mike's parents are standing there with the angriest expressions.

"This is your fault! How could you do this to our son?"

This statement cuts through me like a dagger. "It-It's not my f-f-fault..."

"Don't you come here ever again!" Mike's dad shoves me away and I start to run.

I stop as I see the otter, still covered in bruises. He says to me, "You gonna kill me too like you did Mike?" How is this happening? I turn and see John, in a black suit and I run to him.

"John! I need your help Mike's parent's are-"

"Don't you DARE say his name!" John shouted at me. "Get out of here and get out of our lives, you've done enough damage, you-you fucking queer!" I can only stand there speechless seeing everyone turn against me; I don't know what to do. John steps up to me, "I said get out of here you faggot!"

I run a few paces away from him when I see the bear looking no different than what he looked like in the alleyway. I'm petrified looking at him and he brings the gun out again. No cops show up to stop him this time.

"I'm back," he said coldly raising the gun towards my face. I don't have to say anything before the blast of his gun goes off and I fly back without hitting the ground.

---

I could barely lift my eyelids. It took a few attempts, but I managed to open my eyes covered in eye crust. A blinding light greeted me and I had to shut them immediately. My heart pounded with all its might and cold sweat covered my body. I tried to recall what I just experienced. I couldn't figure out why everyone hated me and blamed me. Then it hit me; it was just a dream, scratch that, it was a nightmare. I tried to listen to my surroundings, but all I could hear are a bunch of different noises that I couldn't depict. My mouth felt unbearably dry, and I licked around my muzzle, but my tongue was also dry. I made another attempt to open my eyes to meet the light again, but this time, it's not as blinding and I was able to resist closing them again. I couldn't make anything out above me because everything was blurry and mostly white. I blinked a few times and things started to come back into focus. I just lied there staring at the ceiling.

I heard footsteps as a mouse in light green scrubs walked in, "Oh! You're awake." She walked by my bed and handed be a cup of water with a straw on it. "Don't drink to much, just drink slowly."

I clasped my muzzle on the straw as I sucked the water slowly. My muzzle felt better once I drank some water. I tried to speak, but no noise came out. I gave a slight cough and tried again, "W-where..."

"You're at County Memorial Hospital dear," the nurse said "you've been out of it for a couple of days. Your friend there hasn't left since he got here."

I turned my head, wondering whom she was talking about. I felt relief when I saw John sitting in a chair by the hospital bed sleeping. He had his elbow on one of the armrests and his head in his paw. A bit of drool hung from the side of his muzzle. John then twitched and kicked the leg of his chair waking him up. John's eyes then met mine and he made a relieved smiled. "Hey."

I didn't get to reply when a husky walked in wearing a white doctor's coat. He carried a clipboard and pulled up a rolling stool right by the bed and sat down. "Hello Allen, I'm Dr. Feldman. You had a bunch of cuts and bruises including at six-inch long laceration right over your left pectoral muscle. Luckily, the cut was shallow so it didn't damage anything other than your skin and a layer of fat. We stitched it up, so it will heal in a few weeks but it will leave a scar. We gave you morphine for the pain, but now have switched to a less intense painkiller. As for your stay here, I'm requiring that you stay here another day at least. Given your ordeal, if you need to, we have counselors if you're having any emotional problems."

It was right then that the events in that alley came to my head all at once. The bear, the panther, the otter, Mike, MIKE! How was that not my first concern? I had to know if he was alive or not.

"How is Mike? Is he alive? What about the other one?" I sat up straight, wincing at the pain all over my body from the sudden movement.

Dr. Feldman sighed, "We've told his family already and considering that you were there, they gave us permission to tell you. As of right now, Mike is alive."

I felt mixed feelings of relief and concern at that statement so I asked, "What do you mean by 'as of now'?"

"Well, he is under critical condition. He was in surgery and the surgeons got the bullet out of his torso. The combination of the bullet wound, broken bones, and other minor injuries have kept him from recovering efficiently. We are doing everything we can to make sure he makes a full recovery."

That news was hard to take in. I looked away from Dr. Feldman and looked over at John who met my gaze. A tear came out of my eye and John got up from his chair and grabbed my paw and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Dr. Feldman continued, "as for Mr. Grey,"

"Who?" I asked.

"The otter that was with you. He received internal injuries from being attacked. He woke up yesterday. He's been making very good progress. To be honest, if you had not shown up, that otter would have died. That and a storeowner saw the fight and called the police saved all of your lives."

I could only nod slightly as I received all of this information. The otter was alive and that was good, but on the other hand, Mike could still die from this. I won't be able to handle it if Mike died. Dr. Feldman brought me out of my thoughts.

"This brings me to something else," he looked at me very seriously, "We have a couple of detectives that want to question you. They've already talked to Mr. Grey, but I will not allow them to talk to you unless you are ready to."

I didn't want to talk with the detectives, but the thought of Mike and images of the alleyway convinced me otherwise. "I'll talk to them."

With that, Dr. Feldman walked out of the room and a moment later, the two detectives walked in. One was a black stallion and the other a brown and white boxer.

The stallion spoke first, "Allen Sampson, I'm Detective Bosh and this is Detective Dean. We understand that your situation may be traumatic and stressful, but we would like to ask a few questions."

"Okay" I said squeezing John's paw a little harder. This was nerve racking.

"Before we can go further, we need your friend to leave the room. This has to be confidential," the stallion said motioning towards John.

"Please let him stay," I objected, but John cut me off.

"It's okay Allen, I'll be right outside of the room." John gave a little smile and walked through the door and shut it behind him.

As soon as John shut the door, Detective Bosh started up the conversation. "Now, we need to get a statement about what you remember."

I recalled what Mike and I did right before we heard the shouting and the fighting itself. I told them what the attackers looked like, what I saw, and of my near death experience. The detectives threw in a few questions in there and I answered them as best as I could. The boxer wrote down every word that I said. I didn't know all that I needed to say, so I said everything that I could remember. Detective Bosh just stood there listening and gave a couple of nods.

Once I finished with my statement, Detective Bosh walk around to the left side of me, "Okay, that statement should be fine, but I have to ask you something. The panther that attacked you, he is in custody right now, and we need you to testify in front of a jury."

This scared the hell out of me. I've seen Law and Order many times, but the thought of actually going to court to testify made me feel uneasy. But the thought of Mike was too powerful to keep me from getting justice.

"I'll do it."

Those words came out without me knowing that I said them. They just came out. The detectives seemed satisfied with this. "Alright, we'll be in touch. Hope you make a quick recovery."

As soon as they walked out, John came in, I saw that something was bothering him and he was on the border of crying. His muzzle cringed and then the tears came.

"I'm so sorry," John said between sobs, "I should have been there with you." John sat on the stool that Dr. Feldman left. "Maybe if I had been there, this wouldn't have happened. I'm sorry."

I couldn't let John continue on this guilt trip. I put my paws and grabbed him right behind the ears and pulled him close. Our muzzles only inches apart. "Listen to me, you are not responsible for what happened. There was nothing that you could have done. Right now we need to stick together for Mike's sake."

This seemed to calm John down. I let go of him and he wrapped his arms around me and I returned the favor. We stayed like this for a while and then John eventually let go and I could see just how exhausted he was. He looked like he only slept a couple hours the past few days.

"John," I said, "you need to get out of here and get some sleep you look worse than I do."

John let out a small laugh and shook his head. "Yeah, I know I look like shit. I tried already, but this is the only place I can sleep. I couldn't get you or Mike out of my head outside of the hospital and it drove me nuts." John stared at me with his paws in his pockets and added, "So, do want to see Mike?"

My eyes shot open. "Can we?"

"Yeah, he's just down the hall. We can see him if you want, his parents are here and I'm sure they'll let you see him" said John.

I climbed out of bed and as soon as my feet hit the floor, I almost fell over; my legs were pretty weak from being in the bed for so long. John grabbed me by the arm and directed me out of the room into the hallway. I saw other doctors and nurses walking back and forth not noticing John or me. I didn't know whether I could leave my room, but no one stopped us. John stopped outside one of the doors and I was afraid to look inside. When I finally did, I saw Mike's parents. Both were dalmatians and they were staring at there son unconscious in the hospital bed. Mike's parents looked up at John and I and came towards us. Mike's mom wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight. She released me and looked at me. Her eyes were red, but still managed a smile, "oh Allen, how are you?"

"I'm alright," I said returning a small smile.

She added in, "Your parents came to, but had to go home. They wanted me to let you know how proud they are of you and how much they love you."

That made me feel better and I thanked her.

Mike's dad walked up to me, "We'll let you see him now." I nodded and walked in.

I didn't know what to expect. I slowly walked next to Mike. My heart started racing as I looked at him. He had an I.V. in his arm. His paw was connected to a heart rate monitor that beeped with each heartbeat. His leg was in a cast and was elevated slightly like what you see in television shows. He had bandages over his body some of which were stained red from the bleeding. I grabbed his paw and rubbed the fur on it. I then put my head and his chest and let it all loose. I started sobbing uncontrollably still holding onto Mike's paw. It was hard to look at him, but I felt guilty if didn't. "Oh Mike!" I said between sobs, "Why? Why did you do this? You didn't have to." I cried even more, "Thank you Mike, you are a true friend." The sobbing stopped as I looked into his face. The only thing that went through my mind was our conversation, about me coming out to John. The same words went through my head, You can do this. You are strong. The words continued like and echo in a gymnasium, but this time they got louder and louder. You are strong. You are strong. You are strong.

"I am strong," I whispered to myself as I let go of Mike's paw.

I stepped out of Mike's hospital room. If felt like a sin to just leave Mike in there, but I knew that his parents would want to be by his side and I had to do the one thing I've been dreading for the past three years. Once I stepped out of the room. I looked over to my left and saw Mike's parents and John standing against the wall waiting patiently for me to come out.

I walked up to John, "We need to talk."

We went back to my hospital bed. My legs were still weak so it was awkward getting back into the bed. John helped me on and then sat down right next to the bed. He patiently sat there looking at me, "What did you want to talk about."

This was it. I had to tell him the truth. I had to tell him the fact that could change everything. My stomach started to hurt, but I couldn't take my eyes off of John. My voice was stuck in a labyrinth somewhere in my throat, as I couldn't talk. I could only hear my heart thumping, thumping, thumping in my ears.

I took a deep breath to get my thoughts together and I began, "John, we've known each other for as long as I can remember. We went to the same preschool together as cubs, the same with elementary, middle, and high school. Hell, we're at the same university. The first time I slept over at someone's house was at yours. We went to that god-awful camp when we were twelve and we both almost got kicked out for covering the other cabin with chocolate syrup. The first time I ever had beer was with you. We snuck from the fridge when my parents were asleep and we drank it, but spit it out because it was the worst thing we ever tasted. I realize that I'm not making it clear where I'm going but the important thing that you should know is that you are my best friend and that our friendship has meant the world to me. I don't want anything between us. John, I'm gay. I realize that this may come as a shock for you, but I just want you to know the truth. Lately, this has been something that I've been struggling with to tell you. I hope you can accept me for who I am."

John leaned back a little looking down as I finished. He didn't have an expression in his face, no anger, no happiness, no nothing. He just had a concrete face. He looked up at me, "D-does Mike know?"

"Yes," I said, "I told him a bit ago. He was the one that kept trying to convince me to tell you. Now after what has happened, I felt that it would be an insult to Mike if I didn't tell you."

John gave a slight nod and leaned in a little closer and asked, "So you told Mike, why was it so harder to tell me about this than it was to tell Mike?" He kept the same expression on his face.

"Be-Because I have feelings for you John," I answered. I let it out, the truth that has haunted me from telling John earlier. The cat was out of the bag.

John sat still as he absorbed that information. He put a paw to his head as I could tell that he was thinking. I didn't know what was going on in his head, but I wish that I could tell what he was thinking. I just laid all of my cards on the table, the silence seemed to last forever as I was counting the moments between seconds. John finally looked me in the eye and embraced me.

This came as a shock to me. The embrace didn't last long, but I was glad that I didn't have to just sit there. John released me and I saw a tear coming out of his eye.

It was John's turn to speak, "Allen, you're right. We have been together for as long as my memory lasts. Our friendship means a lot to me and I am honored that you would tell me what is probably your biggest secret."

I opened my muzzle to speak, but John raised his paw to stop me.

"But, I'm sorry Allen. It means the world to me that you have feelings for me, but I don't share those feelings. I'm not gay Allen and I don't want this to become a barrier in our friendship. I love you Allen, I really do, but it's not the same type of love. I hate to have to tell you this after all that has happened. I hope you can understand."

A lump in my throat prevented me from saying anything to this. John could see my reaction and he embraced me again. This time, I held on as tight as I could. It was a very emotional time for both of us. I finally conjured up the strength to talk, "I'm glad that we can still be friends."

"The best," John replied.

Just then, the mouse nurse walked in, "I'm sorry, but you need to leave, Allen needs to get his rest."

John looked at me one more time and held my paw, "Feel better Allen."

Both John and the nurse walked out of the room leaving only myself in there. All I could think of was that I was never going to have John as a boyfriend, as a mate. My bottom lip started to quiver over this thought. I pulled my legs up close to my body, wrapped my arms around them and placed my paws over my eyes as I began to cry.

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I honestly didn't know how this part would turn out compared to part 5, but I'm really happy with this one. These sections get longer and longer as ideas flow through my mind and onto the computer. Thank you all for your continued support. I write this for you and I hope you continue with this. Let me know what you think of this part or this entire series. Love you guys! <3