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If you ever want to know what a dead city feels like, take a walk through Rainford’s North after a load-out on a rainy Saturday night.

I don’t hate myself enough to be walking alone for fun—it’s just the best way I can think to burn the energy of the day. Just another sixteen hours of prepping, surviving, and tearing down the show.

Somedays I forget why I’m doing all of this. I like to think it’s because I love the music, the spectacle, the insanity of it all. Or maybe, I went down this path just to piss off my parents. The truth is probably something in between.

But I digress. So…how was tonight’s show? Fucking unforgettable—just another niche, pretentious local act with a name of a sex position and lyrics that made no fucking sense. I can still hear the fucking encore in my head, even though I’ve been trying to drown it out since I left.

At this hour it’s just me —a wet, unassuming gay dingo with a talent for self-sabotage and a tendency to fucking swear more than I should—wearing a damp hoodie pulled tight against the wind, the moonlight on wet pavement, and the noises in my head keeping me company.

Nobody’s really around these blocks after midnight unless they’re paid to be. I can see a Wooferr idling in front of Prism Arena—driver smoking, eyes on his phone, not bothering to look up as I pass. In the glass, I catch a reflection of a tired, wet dog that looks like he just lost a bar fight. Not far off.

The quiet doesn’t last long, though. My phone buzzes, dragging me back from the empty streets. I try to ignore it.

I’m not avoiding anyone in particular, I just don’t have the energy to jump into the bitching about tonight’s gig in the crew group chat. Just a bunch of bad jokes, outdated slurs, and strings of emojis I’m not in the mood to decode.

But hey, everything for the glamour of show business, right? Tonight I saved an opener’s set when their preamp died two minutes before door closing, rewired the DJ rig after some junior used the wrong phase adapter, and got the main microphone wireless system to work—but only if you aimed the antenna directly at the bass player’s bulge. I guess the rumours about his metal cock piercing are true. I fixed all of it before the house lights dimmed.

Every night is some kind of acrobatic manoeuvre to keep the show running. I’ll admit, it’s impressive. But the applause? It’s just for the band. Always for the band. Not even a back pat or a “good job” for surviving it all.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not chasing fame. I don’t want it. I can’t decide if I crave recognition or just the absence of some fox’s fuckups. On nights like this, it’s the same thing. There’s pride in being invisible—in leaving no trace, like a meticulous burglar. If everything goes right, nobody asks your name. The downside is… well, nobody fucking cares about your name.

I tell myself I don’t need it. That I’m fine being invisible. That the silence from my parents is a blessing, not a wound. I can’t help but wonder if they’d even care about me at all. Or if anyone does.

Sometimes I think about disappearing. Relax—I’m not talking about doing anything drastic. I mean, the kind of disappearing you can get away with. Stop showing up. Stop answering. Let yourself fade out of people’s lives until they forget you were ever there.

I wasn’t always like this. My dad likes to say, “Johnathan, complaining’s the only thing you know how to do.” Maybe he’s right.

So here it is—a collection of thoughts that keep me awake at night. Things that happened. Some I wish didn’t, and others I still don’t know what to do with. You’d learn the good, the okay-ish, and the fucked up.

I’m not sharing any of this with you because I think it’s worth telling. I’m doing it because it might help me figure out if any of it was worth the trouble. Maybe, somewhere in the mess, you can help me find something that makes me feel like I’m not just background noise.

And if I don’t?

Well… at least you know about it.

There’s a ton of ways you could describe me—rebellious, impulsive, lustful, idiot, reckless, relentless, flat-assed, or whatever—but “scholar dingo” sure as fuck isn’t one of them.

I never saw the point of paying thousands of dollars to sit in a fucking poor lit room learning theory from someone who has never done the thing. You know?

I learn by doing. By breaking stuff. By tinkering with it until it works again. That’s what makes sense to me.

So yeah, I dropped out of college. Packed my bags and started hauling cables under stages instead of reading textbooks. And I’ve been getting shit for it ever since. My parents said I was throwing my life away—said I’d regret not finishing school.

But here’s the thing: I don’t need a degree to prove I’m not a fuck-up. I just need to keep doing what I want, and whatever feels real to me.

If this were a superhero movie, this would be the boring first part where the kid gets bitten by the rabid mutant ant or whatever.

But, I guess, we have to start my story somewhere, right?

Uncontainable

The hardest part about higher education was pretending to care. You sat there, bored out of your fucking mind, while the instructor paced at the front, yapping about something you’d never use.

BC College of the Arts (BCCA) lecture halls all looked the same—seats engineered to fuck up your back, floors polished to a slip, overheads flickering like cheap horror sets. I always took the back row. Today’s back rowers were two jock huskies in the college’s jerseys, a lynx polishing her nails, a fox I don’t think I’d ever seen before, and me.

I spent the first ten minutes trying to sit without the seat slamming my tailbone, then the rest of the morning pin-doodling diagrams in the margins of my notes, doing my best to ignore the future “content creators” around me.

The classroom lights made everyone’s fur look blown out. The only sound I couldn’t tune out was the constant click of laptop keys. Most of the animals in the room were taking notes, transfixed by the beat-up slides, or asking stupid questions—static noise interrupting my sketching of some kind of bad abstract porn.

At the front, the professor—a beige bear—went on and on.

“The broadcast event, as theorized by early media philosophers, is not the duplication of reality, but its abstraction…”

His slides were a showcase of decade-old memes.

I scrawled culture is dead in my notes and drew a cock beside it.

Sometimes I wondered if anyone else in the room had thoughts about how pointless it all was. Half the class probably dreamed of running their own studios, working in TV, or launching the next viral channel. Reality would hit most of them harder—editing wedding videos or creating out VidToks for brands that never paid on time. Still, credit where it was due: they cared enough to write down the beige bear’s ramblings. I couldn’t even fake it.

So if I was this disconnected, why was I even there?

Honestly, I never figured out what I was good for or what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew what I didn’t want—working construction with my dad and younger brother. They had the muscles and the fake respect needed to survive that grind. I didn’t.

So I picked whatever was closest to something I cared about. It’s weird, but I always found the backstage side of things fascinating. Yeah. I’d always been a fucking dork.

But give me broken gear, a projector that refused to boot, a soundboard coughing static, a light rig tangled into spaghetti—and I could breathe life back into it. Tech didn’t care about your feelings. It only cared whether you wired it right.

That’s why I ended up in media production. I wanted to create things that worked, even if nobody knew who was behind them. Not a glamorous life, but at least not one I’d end up hating.

By then, I’d already started doing side gigs when I could—crawling under stages, untangling cables, being the fixer of the fixer, troubleshooting junk clubs had held onto for way too long. Yeah, most of it was grunt work, the kind seniors in the industry didn’t want, but I didn’t mind. Every hour spent hunched over faulty gear was another step away from lectures that tried to flatten all of this into “theory.”

My daily spiral was rudely interrupted when my phone buzzed in my cargo pocket. I checked it under the desk.

Jared:

wanna come over? my roommate’s gone all morning

I rolled my eyes, but my ears perked. I’d told myself I wouldn’t let him pull me off anymore, but Jared was a distraction I couldn’t get rid of. We weren’t dating—not even friends. Just easy sex. Familiar sex. A red wolf from north of Silver River, mean look, lustful eyes, hot abs, and a fucking tongue that never quit.

I glanced at the half-finished assignment open on my computer, worth a quarter of my grade. I pretended to weigh the choice I’d already made, snapped the laptop shut, and typed back.

Kyle:

Sure. On my way.

That was the difference between me and the dropout pipeline—I didn’t lie about what actually mattered. Besides, I wanted something immediate. Something I could touch, taste, fuck. Not daydreaming about a future defined by PDFs and circle jerks.

If I was going to burn out, it would be from living, not from settling.

The clock above the whiteboard read 10:37. I slipped out without subtlety. The lynx was already asleep, chin on her chest. The huskies were watching some kind of soft-core lingerie porn on their phones. The professor’s drone blurred into static as the door closed behind me.

The hallway outside was empty, the silence sharp enough to make you aware of every pawstep. BCCA mornings had a damp that clung to your fur—a sticky air that weighed everything down. I zipped my jacket and checked my phone again.

Campus looked half-asleep. A couple of foxes hauling cameras out of the media cage, a polar bear in sweats running the stairs, someone’s half-crushed vape cartridge glittering on the pavement.

I cut past the library. Students hunched on the benches out front, headphones on, faces lit blue by their screens. Nobody looked at each other.

I should’ve felt guilty for ditching. Or at least pretended to. The whole campus ran on that shit anyway—professors pretending to care, students pretending to learn, admin pretending the debt was worth it.

My parents’ favourite refrain was that I never finished anything I started. They never got that sometimes quitting was just another way of moving forward.

That assignment in my bag would still be there tonight. Maybe I’d pull a midnight sprint, fuelled by Red Bull and anxiety, and scrape together a pass. Maybe I wouldn’t. Either way, it didn’t feel like the end of the world.

What mattered was the now. The buzz in my pocket. The way my pulse picked up when Jared’s name lit the screen. The thought of walking into his dorm and losing myself in something that actually felt alive—even if it was only for a few minutes.

Jared’s dorm was one of the “historic” ones—closer to the main building, twice the price of mine. The dorms near the campus centre were always fancier. Mine was all concrete and outdated features. His had stained glass in the stairwell and carpet that smelled like lemon cleaner.

I swiped into the lobby, ears twitching at the squeak of my damp runners on tile. The hall upstairs was quiet, blinds drawn, doors shut. I picked up the pace.

Jared opened the door before I even knocked.

His fur was rumpled, smirk already in place—sleep-starved and a little high, tongue working the inside of his cheek. Shirtless. Red-tinged fur standing in static clumps. Shorts slung low, no underwear. He didn’t bother with hello. Just looked me up and down, smirked, and jerked his chin to welcome me inside.

I barely had time to drop my bag before he grabbed my collar, spun me, and shoved me against the wall. Cold plaster at my back, his chest hot against mine. His mouth went straight for my throat, breath heavy, tongue flicking at my pulse. It was just how things started.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” he muttered, already sliding down to his knees, yanking my shorts and boxers with him, freeing my cock from its sheath.

I could’ve said anything. Instead, I grabbed the back of his head and pushed him closer. Honest. Hungry. His claws scraped under my tail and I hissed fuck when his muzzle wrapped around me. His tongue slid under the shaft, curled around the head, tracing wet circles that made my hips jerk.

He gagged once, then pushed deeper, swallowing me down. My claws tangled in his fur as he set a rhythm—fast, sloppy, spit dripping down his muzzle onto my balls. The smell of him—sweat, musk, the faint chemical tang of weed—cut through the dorm funk. My knot was already swelling, pressure building.

I growled and pulled him off. His lips were slick with pre and spit, fur clumped wet at his chin. I kissed him, tasting myself on his tongue, biting his lip until he groaned.

We stumbled toward the bed, kicking clothes aside. I shoved him down and crawled over him, our cocks grinding together, smearing pre into the fur of our bellies. He moaned into my mouth, hips bucking like he couldn’t stand the empty space.

I rolled him onto his stomach, pressed my chest to his back, grinding against his ass until he whimpered. My cock slid between his cheeks, knot bumping against him, wet from his muzzle. I spat in my paw and stroked myself slowly, trying not to blow too early.

“Condoms,” Jared muttered, reaching sideways. He grabbed a bottle of lube and a single condom from the nightstand.

He ripped it open with his teeth, rolled it down my cock, and slicked me up. His other paw teased his own hole, pushing fingers in, moaning as he stretched himself open. Watching him almost undid me.

I lined up and pushed—just the tip at first, teasing. His ring clenched, twitching against the rubber. He shoved back, impatient, and I sank in inch by inch until my hips met his ass. His claws raked the sheets, muzzle buried in the pillow.

“Oh fuck,” he moaned.

I pulled out slow, then slammed back in. The bedframe creaked, headboard knocking the wall. I set a rhythm, fast and rough, driving into him until the slap of our bodies filled the room. Every thrust dragged a groan out of him, muffled into the pillow.

He pushed back hard, tail flagged high. I grabbed his hips, slamming him into me, knot grinding at his rim with every thrust. His cock dripped against the sheets, leaving a wet spot beneath him.

I flipped him onto his back, legs over my shoulders, and drove in again. His eyes rolled back, muzzle open, drool stringing down his chin. I kissed him hard, teeth clashing. My knot swelled, battering him with every thrust.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he gasped, paw on his cock, jerking himself furiously.

The sex was fast, intense, and awkward—the kind of college sex between twenty-somethings that never quite lined up. He came first, as always, shooting across his chest, streaks hitting his muzzle. His hole clenched around me and I couldn’t hold back. One last thrust, buried to the hilt, knot pressing hard, and I spilled into the condom with a growl.

We collapsed tangled and sweating, my chest against his heaving ribs. Fur stuck in damp patches. Our tails curled together.

We stayed like that for a while, the only sound in the room our panting. I pulled out once my knot softened enough, condom still on, sweat cooling against my skin.

“That was fun,” he said eventually, glancing at me.

“Yeah,” I said back.

I sat up and searched for my boxers under the bed. Jared didn’t move, just watched with that lazy grin, paw still sticky with his own cum.

“I got, like, two hours before my roommate gets back, if you wanna chill,” he said.

I cleaned up with a tissue and tugged my shirt over my head. “That’s… I’ve got to prep for a project,” I lied. “But yeah. Maybe next week.”

“Sure, Ky. Text me.” He was already back on his phone.

I pulled my shirt on inside out, didn’t bother fixing it, and smoothed the fur at my neck where his teeth had left a welt. I checked my bag for my keys twice, just to keep my paws busy.

“Later, bud,” I said.

“Mmmh.” He nodded without looking up.

Out in the hallway, I pressed my paws to the cool wall, breathing in the silence. His scent clung to me—sweat, musk, the sharp tang of his cum. I scrubbed at my neck, but it lingered, making me feel alive.

Outside, the air was thick and damp. I lit a cigarette, let the smoke burn the taste of him out of my mouth, and started downhill.

It wasn’t love. Fuck, I don’t think we even liked each other very much. But it was something honest. And at that moment, it was all I wanted.

A week later, I found myself at the Spring Cultural Festival. I skipped my first class—possibly my last, but that’s kind of foreshadowing—and drove straight to the park before dawn in the shitty truck I’d bought off my older brother.

I parked next to the loading dock behind the rec centre. The place already looked like an anthill: battered trucks, temporary fencing, and free labour disguised as volunteering. Most of the day crew were off-duty gym rats or musicians moonlighting between gigs, some still half-drunk from the night before.

The regulars spoke a language of their own—duct-tape shorthand, shouted math, the steady click of ratchets. Nobody cared about my GPA, how groomed my fur was, or who I was fucking. They cared whether I could get something from A to B without dropping it.

The site manager was a black bear with shoulders wider than the picnic table he used as a desk. Three streaks of grey cut through his muzzle, and his reflective vest had a stain that looked older than me.

“What’s your name, kid?” he grunted, eyes barely flicking up from his clipboard.

“Kyle J. Bell. Supposed to be on AV.”

He checked a chart, grunted again, and jerked his head toward the east field. “Okay, Bell. See that stage on the south end? Behind it’s a black truck. Go see what they need extra paws for.”

He handed me a security kit and a badge with my name misspelled—Kyell, written in Sharpie. He flipped it over and tapped the rules sheet on the back. “Hard hat and vest on. Badge visible at all times. Listen to the team leads and don’t get distracted with your phone. Got it?”

I nodded. That was it. My entire job orientation.

The stage was easy to spot—a flatbed stacked with LED panels. Four crew were already there, two of them arguing about whether the schematics were a joke. The lead, a shepherd named Margot, had a voice like sheet metal tearing. She clocked me instantly.

“Hey, newbie,” she barked. Didn’t even ask my name. “Harness up. You’re on the ladder. Can you handle it?”

“Yeah.”

I suited up and double-checked the carabiners—always do your own safety, learned that the hard way—then started hauling crates. From six metres up, the whole site looked like a war zone: tents multiplying, food trucks rolling into formation, volunteers swarming signage into place.

It was beautiful, in the way only temporary things ever are.

The work wasn’t difficult, just repetitive—but never boring. Align the brackets. Click the panel. Run the test. The vibration of the frame in my paws, the static burn from a live wire, the secondhand thrill every time a new bank of LEDs flickered to life.

By mid-morning I was running cable drops under the stage, zip-tying lines along the truss, eating dust and loving it. The older guys started asking me to double-check their runs, which was either a compliment or a clever way to avoid crawling under the risers themselves. Either way, I was happy to do it.

At lunch I ate cold pizza off a moving cart, legs dangling from the edge of the build. Margot came over after checking my knots—not that knot, perv—and handed me a warm can of no-brand cola.

“Hey kid. You don’t suck,” she said, cracking her own.

“Thanks?” I said, not sure if that even counted as a compliment.

“What’s your name?”

“Kyle,” I said, grabbing the can.

“Margot.” She eyed me, a small smile in her whiskers. “Most first-timers get in the way, break shit, or quit by ten. You keep up.”

I shrugged. “I’ve done small stage setups for a while. I live for this shit.”

“Cool.”

She didn’t ask where, and I didn’t offer. She tipped her can at me, then hopped off the platform to yell, “Hey, dumbass—” at a forklift guy who nearly pancaked a light tree.

The rest of the day blurred into lift, bolt, curse, repeat. The only time I thought about my phone was when I needed its flashlight. The only time I thought about class was watching a squad of campus guys try to untangle a hundred-foot snake they’d somehow turned into a single, weaponized knot.

At one point a chunk of truss slipped out of someone’s grip and cracked me in the shoulder. It stung like hell but only left a bruise and a weird sense of pride. The crew howled, called me names, then trusted me to finish the wiring solo while they took a smoke.

The last setup before sundown was the test run. Full power. All screens up. Sponsor loop loaded. We held our breath as Margot flipped the main breaker.

The wall ignited—row after row of pixel-perfect light, so bright it burned colour into your retinas. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever helped create. Every fur on my body stood on end. My tail wagged when the colour cycles rippled across the panels, and for a moment I let myself think I could do this every day.

After the run, Margot clapped me on the back hard enough to nearly knock me over.

“Hey Kyle. If you’ve got time, can you stick around for load-out? I’ll pay you the extra hours.”

I grinned, paw already reaching for the next case.

By the time we finished it was past midnight. My muscles were shot, my fur caked with sweat and dried grass, my paws sore from a hundred zip-tie cuts. I stood in front of my truck watching the crews drift away and realized I felt more at home than I ever had in a classroom.

When I finally checked my phone, there were three missed calls and a handful of notifications from the college. None of it mattered. I wiped the grime off my face, zipped up my hoodie, and headed back to my dorm, ears buzzing with the afterimage of a thousand lights.

The next few weeks blurred into dark mornings, late nights, and half-remembered shifts. I lost track of how many events I worked. The only constants were the ache in my legs and the grit under my nails.

First came club gigs—underground places that changed names every year. I hung speakers from joists, ran mic checks. I liked the noise, the sweat, the way everyone turned toward the booth when something went wrong.

Then the spring run of outdoor concerts hit. Setup was a mad rush: tents, lighting trees, endless miles of cable snaking through grass and mud. I worked beside lifers who’d been doing this forever. I learned the lingo. Load-in meant building the stage. Load-out meant tearing it all back down. They taught me how to tie a proper bowline, how to sweet-talk bylaw inspectors, how to tell the difference between a fuse about to blow and one that just liked to run warm.

My phone turned into a graveyard of missed deadlines and ignored reminders. I stopped opening my college email. The only people I answered were the ones offering gigs.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped worrying about classes entirely. It wasn’t even a decision.

And yeah—you might think I was being stupid. That I should’ve cared more about wasting my parents’ tuition money.

I could have. But they weren’t paying for any of it.

I was.

Tuition. Dorm. Meal plan. Transit pass. All the boring shit that adds up. I’d worked since I was sixteen, saving every cent from gigs, a shitty barista job, extra shifts, weekends I barely slept.

Not because my parents couldn’t afford it. They absolutely fucking could. They even offered once or twice.

But I said no.

I wanted the freedom to torch the whole thing if I needed to. If I was going to burn something down, I wanted it to be mine.

Once that settled in my head, the worry just… disappeared. Classes stopped mattering. Missing an assignment wasn’t a moral failure. It was just one less string tying me to something I didn’t want.

Every job made me better. I started showing up early. Learned how to tune a line array, swap a power distro in under five minutes. Senior crew started calling me by name. More than once I heard, “Ask Kyle—he’ll get it done.” I pretended not to notice, but it made my tail wag a little. Embarrassing, eh?

Somewhere in there I became a collector of tools. Fresh gaffer tape always on me. A folding multi-tool in my pocket. A flashlight clipped to my belt. I bought my own steel-toe boots and broke them in before the month was over.

My dorm room shifted from depressed gooner to roadie’s den. The desk vanished under crew badges, XLRs, battered binders full of stage plots. The floor became a permanent trip hazard—crates, Pelican cases, rolled gels.

At night I lay in bed listening to my heart thump, counting bruises, replaying every fix from the day. I liked the feeling. I liked being good at something that didn’t care about my résumé, my parents, or how many times I’d fucked up before. Even the homophobic jokes from the crew felt warm in a twisted way. If you did the job, you belonged.

I didn’t even notice I’d stopped counting the days.

With my new I don’t give a fuck about college anymore attitude, I took more jobs. One turned into two, then three, until I was basically living out of a backpack and a suitcase full of cable ties. Word spread fast—if you needed someone who wouldn’t flake and didn’t bitch about midnight load-outs, you called Bell. I still don’t know who passed my number around, but gigs kept landing in my inbox.

I did everything. Birthday parties in crusty clubs with mixers older than me. Corporate gigs in basement conference rooms. Charity events where the pay sucked but the crowd clapped anyway. Fixed dead projectors. Revived dying PAs. Caught a falling speaker once. People liked that I didn’t panic. Some even tipped.

On Spotlight Mile, the dive bars smelled like beer and bleach. The lifers gave me shit for hustling too hard, then called me over whenever something fried itself. I fixed it. They slapped my back. Being useful felt better than being liked.

The rhythm hooked me—load-in, test, fix, run, strike, repeat. I collapsed onto my mattress every night, paws buzzing, fingers raw, replaying the day until I passed out.

The job that changed everything was at The Crooked Halo.

The floor manager, Derek, met me at the loading bay, handed me a lanyard, and told me not to eat anything from the green room. I was too scared to ask why.

Inside was chaos. Beer-slick stage. Screaming PA. An intern running lights from their phone. The band—Mother Husky—were already half-drunk and yelling into unplugged mics.

At the rack, I spotted two video cables in the wrong input. Easy fix. The monitors blinked to life.

The rest of the night blurred—crowd screaming, the bassist trying to climb the video wall, gear surviving by the grace of overworked tech gods.

After teardown, a familiar voice called my name.

“I knew you were the best dog for the job,” Margot said, offering me a beer and a seat on a crate.

“You’ve got good instincts,” she said. “Derek and I are starting a production crew in Rainford. We’ve got events lined up—six weekends, three cities. We need people who show up and know what the fuck they’re doing.”

“Wait,” I said. “Are you offering me a spot?”

She shrugged. “Not gonna lie—it’s rough. Long hours, small crew. But if you keep up, you might even lead a team.”

I just stood there like a fucking idiot, trying to process it.

“And we’re offering group benefits and a base salary. No more chasing gigs.”

She crushed her can and stood. “You don’t have to decide now. Talk to your girlfriend or whatever. I’ll email you the details. Just—think about it, Bell.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I will.”

“Gotta go before my wife locks me out again,” she added, already walking off.

After everyone else packed up, I stayed behind. Walked the empty stage. Ran a paw along the warm edge of the video wall.

I’d never seriously considered this life beyond small gigs. But standing there—sore, wired—it felt like something finally clicked into place.

This was mine.

I’ve never been known for keeping anything to myself. If I’m being honest, I can be an asshole sometimes. So it felt strange to sit on my bed with my phone in my paw, rehearsing the same speech over and over.

The dorm was silent except for the occasional thud from upstairs—someone dragging furniture or pacing through their own drama. My room looked emptier than ever: no posters, just a crumpled festival banner; no decorations, just a tangle of cables on my desk. My class schedule was still pinned to the corkboard, but every box had been overwritten with gig dates, scratched out and updated in a rainbow of Sharpies.

I stared at the phone screen. Texting would’ve been easier, but it felt cowardly.

If I was about to blow up my life, I’d do it with my own voice.

I hit call.

Mom answered on the third ring, her voice bright but brittle.

“Hello, Kyle.”

“Hi, Mom.”

A pause.

“It’s late. Did something happen? Are you working?”

“Not tonight,” I said. “I just… I wanted to talk.”

“Mmhm.”

Another pause—longer this time. I could picture her on the edge of the living room couch with a glass of white wine, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She didn’t ask if I was okay, which felt exactly like her.

“I’m listening,” she said.

I took a breath.

“I’m going to take a year off college.”

Dead silence. I could hear her breathing, and the faint churn of the dishwasher behind her.

“Kyle. You’re joking, aren’t you?” she asked—though she already knew I wasn’t.

“I’m not. I already talked to the registrar’s office. They’ll hold my place if I want to come back.”

Another silence, then—

“And do what? I don’t understand why you would throw away everything we’ve worked so hard for.”

I clenched my free paw, knuckles aching.

“I’m not throwing anything away. I’m going to do what I like. Actual work. Decently paid, Mom. Setting up shows, running tech, getting real experience. I’m good at this.”

“But you’re so close to finishing,” she said, her voice thinning. “Please remember why you wanted to go to college—”

“Yeah. To try to make you and Dad happy for once,” I said. It came out harsher than I meant. “But this is what I’m good at. I got offered a solid position with a production company, plus I’ve already got gigs lined up through the fall.”

She sighed, long and tired.

“Kyle, please don’t make another impulsive decision. Is this about someone? You know there are people out there who’ll take advantage. I know what happens in your… lifestyle. You don’t have to feel pressured—”

“Mom.” I cut her off. “I’m not doing this again. This isn’t like that.”

She didn’t hear me—or didn’t want to.

“It must be,” she said. “Because I can’t understand why you’d do this. Someone has to be pushing you. You always get excited about something and then—”

“Mom.”

My voice was steady now, cold over something raw.

“This is different. I need to do this. I need to know I’m good at something.”

She let it hang.

“Have you thought about what your father would say?” she asked. “Why can’t you be more like your brother, Thomas? Your father is going to be very disappointed.”

It hurt more than I wanted to admit.

I exhaled, slow and long.

“Yeah. I figured. I guess I’m just trying to uphold my reputation.”

Another pause, then—

“Can you at least come to dinner next week? So we can talk about it?”

“I’ll be working,” I lied.

We didn’t say much after that. She hung up after a quiet goodbye.

I set the phone down and stared at the mess on my desk—technical manuals, battered hand tools, a half-eaten protein bar. That familiar mix of anger and sadness twisted in my gut. I felt a tear start to form.

“Fuck them,” I muttered.

I’d fallen more times than I could count, but nothing had kept me down yet. I was still here.

I needed to get out of my own head. I grabbed my phone again and hovered over Snooty—the golden wolf staring back with that smirky grin. Fucking my feelings away usually kinda worked, but tonight… I needed a real connection.

Instead of tapping it, my thumb drifted to Contacts.

To the only name that mattered.

Mason.

We’d known each other since high school—two losers in theatre club, always stuck backstage doing the shit nobody else wanted. Somewhere between late-night tech runs, shared cigarettes, and my family’s ongoing disaster, he’d become the one person who never bailed. A loud jackal. A menace with zero emotional volume control. But when it counted, he always showed up.

I took a breath and hit call.

“Bro. Two minutes earlier and you would’ve caught me mid-nut,” Mason answered—smug, out of breath, absolutely no shame.

I groaned. “Dude. What the fuck. I didn’t need to know that.”

“Chill, man,” he said, fake-offended. “I thought you liked that sort of thing.”

“Yeah. I do. But only from hot guys.”

“Fuck you, Kyle,” he laughed. “Girls love me. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Not much,” I said. Then sighed. “Well… I’m dropping BCCA. Got offered work at a production company.”

“Oh damn. Big-boy hours. Is it here Selewaq or Rainford?”

“Rainford,” I said. “I guess I have to move there. I’ve been kind of raw-dogging life lately.”

He whistled. “Your dad is gonna kill you, you know?”

“Yeah—like he needed another reason.”

I tried to joke, but I heard the wobble in my own voice.

“I just… I don’t know, man. Maybe I fucked up.”

Mason blew air through his teeth.

“Kyle. Jesus. You haven’t even started yet. How the hell did you ‘fuck up’?”

“I don’t know,” I said again, quieter. “Maybe Mom’s right. Maybe I’m being impulsive. I don’t have a place lined up. Or a plan. I’ve never lived that far from home. And I hated living there, but at least it was… something I could fall back into. What if I go and I suck? What if I fuck it up so bad they never hire me again? What if—”

“Okay, shut up,” Mason cut in, gentle. “Take a breath. You’re spiralling.”

I tried but my chest was still tight.

“Listen,” he said, slipping into that rare serious tone only I ever heard. “Every time you talk about stage work, you sound like you’re a horny beast in heat. It’s disgusting. Also kinda impressive. You’re good at this shit.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Kyle. Buddy. I watched you rewire that old shitty DJ booth at our high school that everyone had tried and declared dead. Also that time you rebuilt a shitty PA system in your garage when we were fifteen.”

“That was luck.”

“No, idiot. That was you being a useful freak.”

I snorted, wiping my face with my paw.

“You’re such an asshole. You know?”

“Yeah, but I’m right,” he said. “Change is scary as fuck. Moving is scary as fuck. Doing something your parents hate is scary as fuck. But you’ve been miserable at college.”

“And hey,” he added, “it’s not like you’re doing porn or drugs or both. Or maybe you are, but you’re literally going to do the one thing you’re actually great at. So calm your fucking tits.”

I laughed. Really laughed. It cracked something open in my chest.

“There he is,” Mason said. “My useless dingo bitch. Thought I lost you for a sec.”

“Fuck off,” I said, smiling now. “Thanks bro.”

“You’re welcome. And if you need to, I’ll come over and drink with you. Or I’ll send a dick pic.”

“Dude. I do not want to see your junk. Fucking Jesus, Mason. Are you sure you aren’t gay?”

“You wish, bud.”

Silence settled in—the good kind. Warm. Familiar.

“You’re gonna be fine, Kyle,” he said softly. “Better than fine. You’re finally choosing your own shit. It’s about time.”

My throat tightened.

“Yeah,” I said. “I hope so.”

“You will,” he said. “And if not, I’ll bully you until you get your shit together.”

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up.”

“Make me.”

We hung up.

The room was still a disaster—manuals everywhere, tools in piles, cables coiled like sleeping snakes, walls blank and grey—but something in me had shifted too.

For once, the doubt wasn’t drowning me. It was just noise.

I wiped my face, stood up, and grabbed the first notebook I could find. I flipped it open, grabbed a pen, and started a list of things I needed to prepare for moving to Rainford.

Nothing big. Just small, doable steps. Real ones.

I stared at the page, scared shitless—but steady.

And somehow, for the first time in my life, it felt right.

Wanna know what really fucking pisses me off? Well… There’s a long list of things that annoy me, but nothing gets under my fur more than self‑pity. I don’t like to be the kind of guy who just sits alone in a dark room feeling sorry for himself.

Sounds impressive, eh? What if I tell you it’s total bullshit. I live on self-pity! So much that I’m sharing my deepest thoughts with you just because I like to bitch about them. I always have.

I used to think it was some weird kink. Or maybe it was a coping thing. I’ve never been able to figure it out.

But after how my mom reacted, I couldn’t stop the questions from popping in my head. What if she had a point? What if I wasn’t as good as I thought I was? What if I really was doing something monumentally stupid? There weren’t exactly fairy tales about someone moving to a bigger city to work crew and magically ending up being successful and/or they end up just married to a handsome millionaire. Which, I am not too fond about the idea.

Maybe I was gearing up to sink myself again.

But for the first time in my life, I was calling the shots on my future.

And if everything fell apart, at least it wouldn’t be because I didn’t try. I just hoped that would be enough to quiet the part of my mind that kept screaming me to run.

Worst Case Scenarios.

I had a couple of days before I had to move to Rainford. My desk was a fucking disaster. Apartment listings I’d printed at the campus library covered every inch of it, each one either circled or slashed through with a red fuck no. My laptop sat on my bed with four calculator windows open—don’t ask—and I had the heaviest rock playlist blasting just loud enough to keep me focused without blowing out my ears.

I went through the options again.

$1700/month — Rainford basement, “private entrance.” The photos made it look more like a sex-dungeon than a studio.

$1550 — Gale Apartments. “Young-professionals friendly,” whatever the fuck that meant. The building screamed tech-bro wet dream. Reviews mentioned fleas. My fur started itching just imagining it.

$1850 — North Rainford, above a laundromat. “Utilities included.” It didn’t look exciting, but at least they warned me about the washing-machine noise bleeding through the floor. I appreciated the honesty.

I tossed the first two, crumpling them into paper balls that both missed the bin—of fucking course it did.

I stared at the number on the remaining listing for a minute before texting it.

Kyle:

Hi—saw the listing for the unit above the laundromat. Is it still available?

The reply came back almost immediately.

Landlord:

Yes it is. I’d be showing it today. If you want to come for a tour.

I told him I was coming from out of town and asked if he could send more pictures. It was the only way I could think to check if it was real.

Ten minutes passed with no answer.

“Well. That’s it, I guess,” I muttered, tossing the last listing into the trash—actually landing it this time.

I dropped my head onto the desk, letting out a loud “fuck me”. I jumped when my phone rang. I nearly dropped it when I fumbled to answer.

The landlord was an older otter with wire-rim glasses and a deep voice wrapped in a thick foreign accent. He flipped the camera around and started walking up a narrow stairwell.

“This is the private entrance,” he said, angling the phone toward a wooden door with chipped paint.

Inside, the place was small. Not depressing-small—just honest-small. One main room, a narrow kitchen, a balcony barely three feet deep, and a bathroom that looked like it had been renovated sometime after the eighties, but hey, at least it came with a built-in fur dryer. The floors were scuffed wood. The walls a yellowed off-white.

“There is no AC in the unit. But heating, hydro,” he added. “And hot water’s included. Also, you get your own laundry card so you can use the machines anytime. Laundry’s downstairs, obviously.”

I cleared my throat. “Uh—sorry, dumb question. So… the noise. Is it, like, constant? All day? Or just when people are doing laundry?”

I cringed at how stupid the question was.

“Well, it’s a laundromat,” he said. “So yes. We got all sorts of animals doing laundry. It gets noisy during the day, manageable. If you have a television, it can drown it out. It shuts by eight, and it’s closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Busiest days are usually weekends.”

That was… actually useful information.

I relaxed a notch.

“I would usually work weekend nights.”

He nodded like that tracked. “You’ll hear the machines spin up, but it’s not shaking the ceiling or anything. Most tenants say they stop noticing it.”

Most tenants.

Not all. That felt honest too. No bullshit.

I asked about parking. Internet providers. Whether the place got enough light in winter. Lease length. Whether the previous tenant left because of the noise.

He answered everything without getting annoyed. He even laughed once when I asked if the floor could handle heavy equipment.

“I’ve had musicians in here,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

When the tour ended, I stared at my own reflection in the black screen. Tired. Wired. Way out of my depth.

“So,” he said. “You want the application?”

I hesitated, trying—for the hundredth time that day—to figure out if I was making a mistake. I took a breath.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I think so.”

I texted him my email, and he sent it over before we even ended the call. I filled it out sitting on my bed, laptop balanced on my knees, double-checking every line. Employment history. Income. Trying to explain road work without sounding like I lived out of a van. I almost talked myself out of it twice.

When I hit send, my paws were shaking.

“Got it,” he texted a minute later. “I’ll run it tonight. If everything checks out, we can move forward.”

Kyle:

Thanks.

I sat there for a long moment, staring at the wall, waiting for the regret to hit.

I pencilled in the rest of the shit I’d need: first and last, whatever hidden fees i might have to pay, U-Haul rental, gas, food and energy drinks, the cheapest IKEA furniture I could find, and a potential Mason bribe so he’d help me move.

It was more planning than I’d ever put into anything. I used to think moving out was just shoving your shit into boxes and never coming back. Turns out it was future bills, tenant-insurance bullshit, Wi-Fi options, and a constant low hum of what if I fuck this up crawling behind everything.

The distance was the real trick. Selewaq to Rainford was a two-hour drive without traffic. Campus had been forty-five minutes from my parents’ place. Rainford felt like another continent. If I crashed and burned, nobody would be close enough to throw me a lifeline.

It was exactly what I wanted.

It should’ve felt freeing. Instead, I was calculating every variable.

I was deep into researching how long I could survive on nothing but dollar-store ramen and redbull when my phone buzzed.

Mom.

I rolled my eyes and let it ring out. She called again. I didn’t pick up. A second later, a text came through.

Mom:

Pickup

My phone buzzed again.

I sighed and answered. “Hi, Mom.”

Her tone was stiff. Annoyed. “Kyle. Are you busy?”

I glanced at the mess on my desk. “Not really. Just… doing move prep.”

A pause—long enough to feel like she was trying to read something between the words that wasn’t there.

“I just wanted to check again,” she said. “You’re really moving to Rainford? Have you talked to a career advisor yet? I’m sure the college can help you. Admissions might even let you back for the rest of the semester.”

“Mom… again. I’ve got it all figured it out.” I tried to sound casual, even as my tail tapped the chair leg like a nervous drummer. “Everything’s basically done. I start next week.”

Another pause.

“Kyle, I really wish you’d reconsider. Rainford’s so far. You don’t know what kind of people live there. You don’t know anyone. What if it’s not what you expect?”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I have Mason. He’ll come when he visits his dad. And the production crew’s got a lot of people. I’ll figure it out.”

She huffed, irritated that I wouldn’t give her an opening. “And your classes? You can’t just throw all that away. You’re so close to your diploma.”

I bit down on the urge to laugh. “Actually, I’m not. And it doesn’t matter—I’m not going back.” I kept my voice even, but my jaw ached from clenching.

She switched tactics. Guilt.

“Your father is worried about you, Kyle. He says you rush into things without thinking. I just want to be sure you’re making the right choice.”

I glanced at the page labelled backup plans. It was just a doodle of a dumpster with Plan B scribbled on it.

“Oh yeah. So worried he hasn’t even bothered to tell me himself.”

“You know how he is, Kyle.”

“Sure.” I exhaled through my teeth. “But I am making a choice. For once. Isn’t that what you wanted, to take control of my life?”

“I want you to be smart, Kyle. Not… impulsive. Why don’t you ever think about us? We only want what’s best for you.”

I wanted to scream. Instead, I squeezed the phone until my claws dug into the case. “Well, I am happy. Or at least I’m trying. Can you just let me do this?”

Silence stretched. For a second, I thought she’d hung up.

“I wish you knew what you were doing,” she said quietly. “Just promise you’ll come to dinner sometimes. You don’t want to disappoint your father more.”

I let out a slow breath. “Sure. I gotta go, Mom.”

She waited for the usual love you. I didn’t give it. I hung up.

The room fell into static and stale air.

My tail lashed. My ears stayed pinned. I wanted to punch the wall, scream, snap something in half. Instead, I tossed the phone onto the bed.

The papers on my desk were just noise now. Her voice stuck like gum in my brain. I shoved the whole pile onto the floor and paced, claws clicking against the tile.

There was only one way I knew to shake this off.

I grabbed my phone again and scrolled past Mason’s thread. He’d try to talk me down, and honestly—fuck that. I needed something I could feel, not another grounding speech.

I opened Jasper’s chat.

Kyle: hey Jas. r u free? kinda want to be under your tail rn. my dorm this time?

Jasper: fuck yeah. been pent up all day. i’ll be there in an hour

I shoved a handful of papers into my bag, grabbed a half-empty bottle of lube, and crammed the rest of my day into a drawer.

---

Jasper showed up an hour later, right on time. He didn’t knock—just texted here and waited by the elevator outside my floor. I let him in, and the moment the door clicked shut behind us, his paws were already on my hips.

The room was a minefield of boxes, laundry, and half-packed bags. Jasper glanced around and snorted.

“What the hell happened in here? Did you get kicked out, or did you finally kill your roommate? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Fucking Zack,” I said. “Pretty sure he’s crashing at his girlfriend’s place. Or wherever.”

“You really don’t like the guy, huh?”

I shrugged. “It’s not that. We just never got along. I guess. It’s not that we tried very hard.”

I waved it off before it could turn into a whole thing. “Doesn’t matter. I got a gig in Rainford. I’m taking a year off.”

He paused, then his mouth split into a grin.

“Oh. Well then.” He leaned in a little. “Guess we gotta make this one count.”

That messy underbite flashed, tongue poking through the gap in his teeth. He dropped his backpack by the door and kicked off his runners with lazy confidence.

There was always a charged awkwardness with him—an energy that crackled in the silence. His red fur was unruly in a way that made him look even hotter. Sweatpants, a jockstrap underneath, tank top riding up, fur patchy from old summer cuts.

His eyes flicked to my waist.

I stepped closer.

Normally, this was where we’d stall—trade lines, push each other, see who cracked first.

Kissing wasn’t our thing. But I impulsively crowded him, backed him into the wall with my weight, and pressed my mouth to his.

He grunted in surprise, then melted into it—arms lifting, body opening, pressing back like he wanted to disappear into me.

I pinned him there, paws on his wrists, arms stretched above his head. His breath hitched, claws scraping softly against the wall.

“Shit, Ky,” he murmured, eyes glassy. “You’re intense tonight.”

I didn’t answer. I dropped my mouth to his throat, nipped the spot that always made his tail twitch. His cock was already swelling beneath the thin fabric of his sweats, grinding against my thigh. He arched, breath quickening, and I tightened my grip, holding him there.

He moaned—louder this time—and I felt it rumble through his chest.

“Fuck, yes—don’t stop—”

I slid my knee between his legs and he humped it, desperate. I spat into my paw, freed his cock, and worked him hard and rough. He gasped, bucked, and I clamped a paw over his muzzle to muffle him.

He struggled—not to get away, but to push back harder. He always loved the pressure. The more I held him, the more he came undone. His eyes rolled, whites flashing, his whole body shaking.

“You want it?” I growled into his ear.

He nodded, unable to speak.

I pulled his pants down just enough, turned him toward the wall, and pressed my chest to his back. My cock was already out, knot swollen and leaking against his fur. His tail flagged high, body wriggling, begging.

I didn’t waste time. Lube, slick hands, and then I shoved in—hard enough to make him arch and cry out. I grabbed his hips, pinned him to the drywall, and fucked him with a reckless, angry rhythm that rattled the room.

Picture frames shook. Boxes shifted. His claws scraped lines into the paint. He was whining now, breathless and high, never once telling me to stop.

It wasn’t about love. It wasn’t even about liking each other. It was friction—force meeting force until something finally gave.

He came first, streaking the wall. His body clenched tight around me and that was it. I buried myself to the hilt, knot popping in, and spilled hard enough to make my legs shake.

I slid out slowly, leaving him loose and dripping. We collapsed together on my bed, both of us panting.

He turned, wipe his mouth with the back of his paw and kissed my nose.

“Holy shit,” he said hoarsely. “Didn’t know you had that in you.”

He turned, wiped his mouth with the back of his paw, and kissed my nose.

“Holy shit,” he said hoarsely. “Didn’t know you had that in you.”

I shrugged, still catching my breath. “Needed it.”

He grinned, pawing at himself with a low laugh. “I can tell.”

We didn’t cuddle. That wasn’t our thing. We stayed next to each other, naked, letting the aftermath stretch out without touching—just breathing.

Half an hour later, I sat on the edge of the bed, my breathing finally steady, my heart quiet for the first time all day.

Jasper glanced over, his expression softer now.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”

He shrugged. “Anytime.”

He stood, grabbed my phone, snapped a picture of himself naked, and handed it back.

“Here. So you’ve got something to remember me by.”

Then he pulled his sweats on, tugged his hoodie over his head, and shook his fur into place.

“Thanks, Kyle,” he said. “And hey—text me if you’re ever in town.”

He left without another word, the door clicking shut behind him.

I lay back, muscles spent, head empty, and let the silence stretch.

For a little while, there was nothing but the dull ache of release and the rain tapping against the glass. Eventually, my thoughts went quiet, and I drifted off to sleep.

---

Morning was rough, with the kind you only get after a night like that. The sheets were still twisted, the smell of sex and sweat clinging to every surface. My phone vibrated with a reminder: “Registrar’s Office—10:00AM.”

I stared at the ceiling for a while, wondering if I could just not show up and ghost my way into a new life. But that wasn’t how any of this worked, and besides, I wanted the closure—if only so I could say I’d done it myself.

I dragged myself through a shower, threw on yesterday’s clothes, and left the dorm with a backpack stuffed with nothing but forms and a half-empty bottle of water. The sky was low and grey, threatening rain, and the sidewalks were slick with last night’s leftovers.

The registrar’s office was exactly as I remembered it: bright lights, fake plants, the stink of old toner and nervous sweat. I grabbed a ticket from the little dispenser—B104—and waited my turn, scrolling through my phone to avoid eye contact with the parents shepherding their cubs through orientation packets.

When my number flashed, I went to the desk, where a ferret in a BCCA windbreaker asked for my ID, then handed over a stack of forms. I signed my name more times than I’d ever done for anything—withdrawal, transfer, student housing cancellation, some waiver I didn’t even read.

The whole thing took less than fifteen minutes. After a year and a half of pretending I belonged there, that was all it took to erase my name from the system.

The ferret looked up, pawing at the rim of her glasses. “That’s everything. You’ll get an exit interview link by email.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but I turned and left, head down.

Outside, I leaned against a lamppost, letting the chill bite through my fur. The world felt lighter, but also a little emptier.

I pulled up the listing for the new place—Rainford City Apartments, the one above a laundromat on Fourth. The landlord had accepted my deposit after a background check so quick it was almost suspicious.

I’d never had my own space before. Not really. Every dorm, every shared room was just borrowed time—a crash pad between obligations. This was mine, even if it was only for a month at a time.

I thumbed the accept button, sent my first month’s rent, and got an automated reply with the code to the front door.

The excitement hit me by surprise. For a moment, the doubt faded, replaced by a wild, stupid hope. Maybe I could do this. Maybe Rainford would be different.

But as I stood there, feeling the cold seep into my bones, the anxiety crept back in. What if I fucked it up? What if the gigs dried up? What if I ended up broke, alone, and calling my parents for bail?

I shoved the thoughts down, lit a cigarette, and watched the smoke curl into the damp morning air.

For the first time in my life, the next step was entirely up to me.

I smoked it down to the filter and crushed it into the wet concrete with my boot. The buzz didn’t last. It never did.

I walked campus without any real direction, cutting through paths I’d taken a hundred times without thinking. Past the library steps. Past the café where I’d worked one miserable semester. Everything looked the same, just… thinner. Like the place already knew I was done with it.

Being officially out of the program, with a few days to spare before I had to leave, I started packing—for real this time. I began with my clothes, folding them until I got bored, said fuck it, and shoved them into a box. I tugged something from the top of the closet and sent a pile of junk tumbling onto the bed. Old shit I didn’t recognize smacked me in the muzzle; annoyed, I dumped them straight into the trash. I found things I’d forgotten I owned—old badges, cracked flash drives, a crew wristband from a show I barely remembered—and tossed most of it into boxes without sorting.

I stopped around mid-afternoon and sat on the floor with my back against the bed, tail wrapped around myself, eating a protein bar that had expired months earlier. My phone buzzed a few times. I didn’t check it.

Eventually I cracked open a beer and just stood there, replaying the doubts on a loop—like a badly acted movie where the protagonist fucking sucks. The day slipped by without me noticing. By the time I looked up, the room was dark except for the glow of campus lights bleeding through the window.

The bed was stripped, the corners of the mattress curling up, half my clothes crammed into busted cardboard boxes with KJ scrawled on them in black Sharpie. Every surface was bare except for the lamp, a power strip, and my phone charging on the battered nightstand.

I lay on my back, arms folded behind my head, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars some previous loser had stuck to the ceiling. I tried counting them, hoping it would drown out the echo of my mother’s voice and the spreadsheet of possible disasters running through my head.

What if the truck broke down on the way? What if my deposit was a scam and the “apartment” was just a lockbox in a meth den? What if the production company bailed and I ended up jobless in a city that hated out-of-towners? What if Dad was right and I was just repeating the same cycle of fuckups that got me here?

My brain refused to slow down. Even after everything, the pressure was still there—tight and hot, coiled behind my ribs like a pulled muscle. I tried deep breathing. Tried counting backward from a hundred. Tried picturing Mason sprawled across a battered couch, telling me to quit whining and get my shit together.

It didn’t help.

I rolled onto my stomach, pressed my face into the pillow, and tried to blank my mind by sheer force of will.

Of course. That didn’t fucking work either.

So I did the only thing that seemed to work when I couldn’t sleep. I slid a paw down my sheath, opened some porn on my phone and started jerking off, slow and mechanical. Letting my mind lose it self innthe feeling of friction, the rhythm, the possibility of a few minutes of quiet. My body responded out of habit, even as my thoughts ran in the background.

I couldn’t stop picturing the new place, yellow light pooling in the kitchenette, the drone of dryers and distant sirens, the taste of cold beer after a long shift. I imagined waking up there, alone, no parents or professors breathing down my neck, just the hum of a city that didn’t care if I fucked up or not. I pictured making it—just making it—on my own.

The orgasm hit, sharp and brief. I cleaned up with a dirty tshirt, toss my phone away, rolled onto my back, and felt… nothing. Not better, not worse. Just emptied out.

My phone buzzed, screen lighting the room in blue. I reached for it, half-expecting a guilt trip from my parents or a cancellation email from the landlord.

But it was Mason.

Mason: u still alive?

Kyle: barely. u?

Mason: packing sucks ass. when r u moving out? u want help with the drive?

Me: the 15th. nah. i’m fine

Mason: liar. i can come by w/ snacks and shitty coffee.

Me: u sure know how to sell a good time.

Mason: you know it dingo boy

Kyle: thanks bro. but I got it.

Mason: fine. But for real my you’ll be fine. and don’t worry, i’ll visit every damn weekend if i have to.

Me: shit. that’s a threat, right?

Mason: nah.

I stared at the screen, warmth prickling the tips of my ears. For a second, the panic softened. My shoulders dropped. My breathing slowed, and my tail gave a lazy thump against the mattress.

I grinned, just a little, and typed back:

Me: thanks bro. see you in Rainford

Mason: you bet your dumb ass

I set the phone down, rolled over, and finally—finally—let myself drift.

Maybe the move would be a disaster.

But Mason was right. I’d make it through.

I somehow, always did.

---

When moving day came around, I woke up before my alarm, brain already buzzing, body tight with nervous energy. Outside my window, the world sat under a low blue haze—the kind of morning that made everything feel hollow. I kicked off the sheets, packed the last of my things while still naked, then hopped in the shower. I pulled on yesterday’s clothes, grabbed the first box I could carry, and started hauling it out.

My old pickup was parked behind the dorm. When I got there I saw a familiar jackal leaning against the tailgate. Mason had a coffee in one paw, cigarette in the other. His tail wagged slow and lazy when he saw me.

“Hey, bitch.”

“Mason?” I blinked. “the fuck are you doing here?”

He shrugged like it was obvious. “I’m not letting you move alone and forget half your shit.”

He flicked the cigarette away and grabbed a second cup from the bed of the truck. “Here. Double-double. Low-fat milk.”

“Thanks.” I took it and slid the first box into the truck. My tail wagged before I could stop it.

“You didn’t have to come,” I said. “I had it. Really.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And I didn’t have to blow a nut on the back of a vixen last night either. But here we are.”

I groaned. “Fucking Dog. Are you serious?”

“What?” he grinned. “Don’t tell me straight sex grosses you out now.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “I’m just impressed someone like you actually gets laid.”

“Fuck you Kyle,” he laughed. “Buddy, I get more pussy than you get dick.”

“You’d be surprised,” I muttered.

He snorted and bumped my shoulder with his own. “That’s my slutty boy. Come on. Let’s pick up your shit.”

We fell into a rhythm after that. Box after box. Six trips down the concrete stairwell, arms burning, fur damp under our jackets. The only sounds were boots on concrete and the echo of doors slamming in the empty morning.

Campus felt abandoned—just Mason, my truck, and the ghosts of late-night cram sessions and hungover walks of shame. Every time the tailgate slammed shut, it bounced off the walls.

We went back in one last time.

I grabbed a pen, tore a page out of one of my notebooks, and leaned against the counter to scribble a note for my roommate.

Zack.

The dorm’s all yours.

—Kyle

I stuck it to the fridge with a magnet. That was it. Nothing else to say.

I took one last look around the room—bare walls, stripped bed, the dent in the carpet where my desk used to be—then followed Mason back out, letting the door shut behind us without locking it.

I slid my backpack into the cab and stood there, breathing hard. Cold air bit at my nose, sweat slicked my spine.

I stared at the truck bed, half-convinced I’d forgotten something.

I hadn’t.

Mason came up beside me and draped an arm over my shoulders. Not tight. Just there.

“You’re gonna be fine,” he said.

“I guess.”

“No,” he said, firmer now. “I mean it. You’ve got that look. The one where you’re about to talk yourself into a hole. Don’t.”

I didn’t answer. I just stood there and let it land.

I checked my phone. Nothing from my parents. I wasn’t sure whether that was a relief or something that would hit later.

“Hey,” I said, staring at the screen. “Thanks for coming. I—I really appreciate…”

I trailed off, feeling stupid.

Mason cut in. “Dude, don’t make it weird.”

I snorted. “Seriously man. Thanks”

“Text me your address, I’ll come up and help you unload.”

“You don’t have to man” I shook my head. “It’s too far, man.”

“I didn’t asked how far was it. Did I? Stop being a bitch and give it to me.”

“Make me. But seriously,” I said. “I got it from here, once I’m set up, you can come whenever.”

He studied me for a second, then nodded. “Deal.”

We didn’t had an emotional goodbye. We both are too emotional broken for that. Just a fist bump a promise for me to call him when I get there and a “see you bud.”

I turned the engine on, coughing out a cloud of exhaust that hung in the morning air. I climbed inside. Welcomed by the familiar smell—old coffee, damp fur, spilled transmission fluid.

I rolled out of the lot and coasted through campus. Past the library. The green I’d never once used. The student center with its half-assed motivational banners.

At the exit, I stopped and looked back.

The sun was just breaking through the clouds, burning off the fog. For the first time, the place didn’t feel like home. It felt like a set after load-out—empty, quiet, finished.

I caught my reflection in the rearview. Tired eyes. Scruffy fur. Someone who’d been kicked so many times but somehow decided to keep going.

I took a breath, eased off the brake, and pulled onto the main road.

The tires hissed on wet asphalt. The city faded behind me. Somewhere ahead was Rainford—the place I picked, the place nobody expected.

My paws still shook on the wheel, but my chest felt steady. More than steady.

I pressed the gas a little harder and let the road take me.

This was it. No rehearsals. No safety nets.

Just forward.