FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Space was a lonely place, especially when you were waiting for your laundry to finish in an empty laundromat with nothing to look forward to other than another mindless shift as a deckhand. Station Theta was a relatively small station barely out of Earth's shadow, from the days of chemical rockets and government-owned space agencies, but dammit it was a space station.

The monitor above the row of drywashers displayed a static exterior shot, the Earth appearing as an orb floating in a black void. You shifted on the hard plastic seat. At least there was no one else in the laundromat to disturb you.

The room was filled with the hum of spinning machines, on top of the background rumbling of life support. You stretched your legs out in front of you, the twinging of cramped muscles drawing a frown to your face. The light, though from the same exact panels as the rest of the station, carried a grimy-ness that the others lacked. Maybe it was the slight hint of mold, or the scuff marks on the white painted walls around the recessed machines. One of the drywashers thumped loudly, then settled down into a vibrating thrum.

You hated downtime. Just another indication of failure. On your tablet, a video played in a little window over a website. You paid no attention to either.

The dull click of a drywasher opening made you twitch. A cheetah anthro peered into the machine right in front of you. Your breath vanished and you looked back at your tablet, pretending to read. How the hell did they get there?

You peeked at them over your tablet. They—she picked up a bag of clothes from the floor next to her, clutching it close to her chest before dumping it into the drywasher. She tugged at the bag with a hand, brushing back a long lock of blonde hair with the other. She tugged harder at the mesh bag, reaching down with both hands to peel it away from the clothes it carried inside. She huffed, wispy golden strands of hair falling back over her face.

Shit, you recognized that hair. Amy. Pilot. Good one, too. Too good, in fact, for this run-down station. You narrowed your eyes. This section of the station was the tech block. Her hair floated in the air as though she was underwater. Her hair was very long, outside of her helmet. Way longer than regs allowed. A shiver of indignation ran through your chest. Pilots always thought they were above everyone else.

She managed to separate the bag from the clothes, tossing it away and tamping the clothes further into the washer. The muscles in her back twisted and rippled through her thin fur—amber with black splotches broken by a matching red sports bra and shorts. The fabric glistened in the light, the splash of color dazzling in the off-white room. Her tail stood proudly in the air behind her, tip curling lazily. It was a magnificent sight, one that tweaked at something deep inside you. It nearly doubled the length of her spine, and you wondered where she stuffed it during flights.

Amy slammed the drywasher closed and waved her hand over the ID reader. It beeped and the machine hummed into life. She glanced around the room and you dropped your eyes to your tablet. You mentally prepared for a confrontation—after all, why would a pilot bother to come to this side of the station if not to trash its inhabitants?

“Um, hi," Amy said. You glanced up at her. She smiled. “Fancy meeting you here." Her tone was false cheer and you saw a flash of what appeared to be panic in her eyes. You turned back to your tablet. This wasn't what you were expecting, but the tightness in your chest refused to go away. “You worked on my ship that one day." You frowned. She remembered something like that? Because you didn't.

“She flew better than I've ever felt," she said softly.

“Just doing my job," you said, checking your machine. No good—it wasn't going to finish any time soon.

“You know, I don't see all that many techs around my age on this station," she said. The feeling of cold water sloshed through your chest.

“Thanks," you said through clenched teeth.

“Wait!" You lifted your head, anger washed away with her shout. “Uh, I mean, they like to go for the outer reaches—" She winced. The anger seeped back in and you turned your attention to the video on your tablet. You pressed play. The talking heads resumed their prattle but you weren't listening.

You were back in flight school, frantically studying in your dorm room. The test was tomorrow and you still had half of your notes to go through. The words on the page all blended together and the people in the next room over were shouting. Muffled music thumped away down the hall. You would have gone to the library but the smell was worse than the noise. The rational part of your mind knew that this was all for naught—you were going to be put on academic probation and there was no way to get out of it.

At the rate you were going you would be lucky if they let you touch a ship when you were done.

“Can I start over?" Amy said. You wanted to ignore her, to watch your video complaining about the latest advancements in spaceships and sink into a sea of self-loathing. But the quiver in her voice drew your finger across the tablet screen to pause the video. You looked up, and were transfixed by a pair of worried blue eyes. An image of the Pacific Islands from ten thousand feet popped into your mind, from the first time you had been in an airplane. She steeled herself, white-furred hands clenching. Mumbling something to herself, she turned around. You only caught the word “direct." She took a deep breath. Then she hooked her thumbs into her shorts and bent over, pulling them down. “F-forgot something," she said.

You face burned but her flagging tail and bare cream cheeks held fast to your attention, your eyes unable to look away. She scrabbled at the drywasher's door. It refused to open. She threw you a brittle smile, continuing to pull at the door handle.

She froze, her eyes widened, and then she whipped around and prodded at the machine's display. It beeped, the drum slowed to a stop, and the lock thunked open. She all but ripped the door off, the plastic window bonking against the machine's metal casing. She threw her shorts in and slammed the door after them. She straightened, sighed. You couldn't think of much more than how long her tail was, how it flopped over at the very end like a flag on a pole, and how its start nestled in-between her two lower cheeks, a smooth extension of her spine. Now that you saw an anthro with a proper tail the others would be missing something—they were bobbed. Every anthro you had seen in flight school had been bobbed. It did something weird to you because all you wanted was stroke the damn thing.

Amy flipped around and marched over to your seat. You eyed the display on your drywasher again—no dice. You didn't want to just up and leave, but you would rather her attention be somewhere else. You were half-convinced that she was here to make fun of you, the pilot flunky. The other half assumed that she was here to get you in trouble. Most of the actual pilots on the station had better things to do, but once in a while you would run into one that would ruin your day. She didn't seem like the type, but she could have lost a bet or something.

“Can I sit here?" she said, pointing at you. Your eyes focused on the blunt claw at the tip of her finger, the hint of a black pad underneath.

“Sure?" you offered, thrown off by her pointing at you. She took a step forward, twisted, and sat in your lap, pushing your arms out. You felt the blood pulse in your face. Meeting your eyes and leaning into your chest, she locked you in place with a strained smile. The scent of mint and lavender bit at the inside of your nose.

The tips of her ears barely crested your eye-line. You expected her to be taller.

“You know," she said, “my cockpit gets rather lonely when I'm flying." She jumbled all the words together at the end of the sentence, trailing off awkwardly. Any response you thought of would only lead to putting your foot in your mouth.

The laundry door slid open with a soft whoosh. Amy froze, her body like a steel statue leaning up against your chest. You eyed the entrant over the tips of her ears. Looked like some loser service writer, if that rumpled polo tucked in over a flabby gut said anything. He ambled over to a machine that was off before you arrived and started pulling clothes out, dropping them into a nearby cart. He didn't so much as turn his head in your direction.

Amy pressed herself into your chest and trembled. You put your tablet in front of her in a way that you hoped would provide some sort of cover. A fuzzy warm thing snaked around your ankle and squeezed. You responded by patting her thigh with a hand before returning it to the tablet.

Rumpled polo shirt rummaged around in the drywasher for a moment, then dropped his last piece of clothing into the cart. He grabbed the basket from the cart, hefted it, and waddled out of the room. The tension in the air deflated. Amy relaxed against your chest. You listened to the distant rumblings of the station, the warmth from her body spreading through yours. It was more comforting that you cared to admit, like the warming coils of your space suit plus the pleasing addition of a reassuring weight behind them.

Tablet forgotten, you stared at the screen on the far wall without seeing it. You imagined that you were somewhere else—anywhere but in that musty laundry room, Amy in your arms and nothing to do but be content. There was a yearning in your chest that you were surprised to feel again—the last time you felt that pull was from the sleek lines of a spaceship on the flight school's recruitment poster.

The ringing of a machine finishing made her ears twist around. You eyed the one that went off. Damn, it was yours. But she didn't have to know that. At that moment you understood those images of people with cats sitting on thier laps. The warmth, the feeling of wholeness—for once in your life you felt a completeness. To think that it would be in a laundry room on a station that was barely considered to be in space, of all places.

“I understand how you feel," you said. The memories from flight school were piling into your mind, bringing with them scars that you had tried to forget. “When I was in the sim and they would push one of those buttons that break things—" You shuddered. “That's when you realize there's literally nothing outside the hull and you're going to die if you get it wrong."

“You were training to be a pilot?" Amy asked. For a moment you felt annoyance at her—how could she not know that?

But then you were gone. In your mind you were stepping out of the sim for the last time—though you didn't know it then—drenched in sweat, flight suit clinging to your back like a drunk friend. The inspector came over, clapped a hand on your shoulder and steered you away from the exit and into the control room. You flopped into a chair while he closed the door. He sat down, locking eyes with you. He cleared his throat, studied your face.

Son, he said, I think you need to take a break and think about what you want in life.

Sir, you said. What I want?

He leaned forward, clasped his hands together. I know you won't want to hear this, he said. But someone has to tell you. Your heart raced, mouth dry. You fought to swallow. You knew this moment was coming but still you thought that there was a possibility that it wouldn't.

You're not cut out to be a pilot, son. His eyes were soft, a sadness to them that told the still-rational part of your mind that he had said those words many times before.

I know my grades aren't that good, the less rational part of you said. but—

How many hours do you have in the sim?

I don't know the exact number sir, but this is my first year—

How many hours, son? There was a quietness to his voice that made you feel ashamed for yourself, ashamed that you weren't being the best you could for him.

121, sir.

And you're still barely passing.

You looked up at him, met his eye. But I am passing—

He sighed. You may think that spaceflight is a solved problem, and at times it does appear to be that way, but people die out there, son. He leaned back in his chair, eyes refocusing on some far away point. I don't want you to be a statistic.

Anger built up in your chest. You knew you shouldn't but the words would be too good to say so you say them. It's because I'm human, right? The instructor didn't move. I'm only human, and I can't even get implants because my brain is broken.

His eyes snapped back to your face. They hardened, though his expression remained stoic. 'A bad chef blames his tools.' Take a break, son. Think about what you want. That's an order.

There was a thrum in your chest that wasn't the station. A pair of hands wrapped around your free hand. You looked down. Amy was focused on your hand in question, playing with your index finger. You eyed your finished drywasher. Your clothes could wait.

Another drywasher clicked off and played a short chime. Her ears flicked at the noise, and she raised her head. She leapt up with a surprising grace for how long she had been sitting and padded over to the finished machine. She pulled her clothing out in clumps, stacking them on the next machine over. They piled higher and higher and you were certain that they would all come tumbling off the machine—though with how close the room was to the station's axis of rotation it would have been a very slow tumble.

The cold of her missing body seeped its way into your bones and you stood up—in a manner that wasn't quite as graceful as her—walking over to your machine, you stuffed your tablet in your back pocket and got down to the menial task of folding your shit.

“Oh, you're done too?" Amy said in a small voice. You spared her a glance but quickly turned back to folding.

“Yeah." It was still difficult to tell what she wanted, and doubt seeped into your thoughts like a perforated hydraulic line. Had this all been a prank? Had she been put up to this by one of the other pilots? Shit, you had nearly spilled your guts to her back there.

“You're heading out now?"

“Yeah, I have a meeting to go to." You fished around in the machine for a matching sock to the one in your hand. The lie tugged at your chest in a way that you desperately tried to ignore. Frankly, you were weirded out by the whole situation and needed to take a step back. She had been awfully personal, and yet you wanted more.

Fucking pilots. They never made your life easier, did they?

“It was nice meeting you," she said, a nervous smile on her face. She looked like she wanted to say more but she kept her mouth closed and you gathered the last of your clean clothes.

“Same," you said. “See you around."

“Of course," she stuttered out, ears folding flat against her head.

You gathered your meager amount of clothing and left, the awkwardness clenching your chest in a painful hand.

((-0-))

Out on the flight deck, the various vibrations of ship engines combined and cancelled each other out in random rolling spurts, making the very deck feel like it was breathing. Several ships were warming up to head out to the Moon mines and it was a good thing that the deck was vented because otherwise it would have been painfully loud. The first steps out onto the deck still instilled the terror they did all those years ago, when you were fresh off the shuttle and on a tour of the station. The deep vibrations rolling up through your legs and into your chest always felt like the snoring of the mountain king, a thundering beat that warned you to stay on your toes.

You hadn't seen hide nor hair of Amy since that day in the laundromat. Her ship stood cold and dry in the corner of the hanger. You hadn't seen a single tech or maintenance on it either, though you were lucky enough to have two days off in the week since. You paused next to a freighter, floating in the microgravity. You couldn't remember the last time you had two days off in a single week. A couple ships away was the opening to the flight deck, a large rectangular slot that showcased a rotating field of stars. Even now, after all this time, the sight still took your breath away. You wondered, as always, what was out there—while cursing the fact that you would never make it farther than the orbit of the Moon.

You wanted more so much it hurt.

Another deck worker floated past. You crushed those feelings deep inside yourself and pushed off. Any more waiting around and crying to yourself and you would be written up for a `performance metric slump.'

Your earpiece squawked. “Hey kid, we need you on berth 43," the controller said. “Don't worry about your current assignment, this is hot. Warm her up, give `er the once over, and don't fuck it up." You reached out and grabbed a passing landing strut, whipping around to head to 43. You felt your heart rate increase, and it wasn't because of the extra exertion. 43 was her ship. Your stomach churned. You wondered if it was a mere coincidence, or she managed to pull some strings somewhere. You weren't sure which you preferred.

Using the docking terminal to stop your forward momentum, you gave her scouter a once-over. The surrounding ships dwarfed the two-seater, lending it a quaint air. The feeling was further justified by its bird-like design—stubby wings slapped onto a chunky fuselage. It was an anachronism amongst the other ships, having clearly been designed by planetary aerospace ideals. The surrounding ships were geometric oddities that would never have worked in-atmosphere.

Her ship brought back memories from your childhood, ones of playing with toy aircraft and imagining you were a pilot.

You swiped into the terminal with your hand and sent an unlock request. The canopy—of course it had a canopy—popped open and slid forwards. Pushing off the deck, you floated over to the ship. Hooking a hand around the forward part of the canopy you brought yourself to a halt. You reached into the cockpit and flipped the switches highlighted by the screen in your helmet. The control panels came to life, flashing white before displaying a splash screen. Warning lights came on for the fuel pump and other assorted systems. The screens switched over to instruments. Pulling up the boot self-check came up with nothing but green, and you flipped the switches off.

Pushing away, you headed towards the back of the ship, checking for micrometeor punctures in the outer skin. Nothing but dust and glancing blows. Then you were on top of the engine nozzles, plugged with their bright red safety covers. Grabbing the edge of a nozzle you swung under the ship. Aside from some weeping around the seals on the landing struts there was nothing of note on the underside, either. The seals on the landing struts wouldn't stop a take-off, but you would have to put that in your write-up. You used the forward strut to hook out and back to the terminal.

“Hey there," a voice called over your earpiece. Female, not your controller. A movement caught the corner of your eye and you turned to see Amy, all kitted out in her flight suit and helmet. For a moment you wondered where her tail was. The fingers on the hand she raised to greet you curled inward like the legs of a dying spider. “I know I wasn't really clear the other day, but I really meant what I said."

You dropped your gaze to the terminal and requested permission for fueling. She probably did arrange this meeting, somehow. A message granting permission appeared on the terminal and a thud shook your feet as the hose safety lock disengaged. What was her goal, here?

“The lonely thing, I mean," Amy continued. You would have been more interested in what she had to say if you hadn't been working at the time. Loose lips while working on deck resulted in injuries. If there was one thing the other deck hands agreed on, it was that. “My ship—I get lonely out there." You pushed off in the direction of the fuel hose drop. “This flight, too. What I mean is I need a nav operator this time and I want you sitting behind me."

You heaved the hose from its hidey-hole in the floor and had pulled it halfway to the ship before you mind could truly parse the words. You locked eyes with her, searching those blue orbs for the slightest hint of a lie. A moment later you crashed into the hull of her ship and had to scramble with a free arm to stop yourself from bouncing off into the open void. You stared into those vivid blue eyes until their very color was burned into your mind.

All you could get out of them was a hopefulness that asked will you do it? You couldn't help but nod. You no longer cared if it was a joke or a prank, you were not missing an opportunity to fly a space ship—even if you were flying bitch seat.

Her entire body relaxed in a way that made you wonder how you didn't notice her tenseness earlier. Absentmindedly, you plugged the fuel hose coupler into the receiving port on the ship.

“Got a new assignment for you, kid," the controller squawked in your ear. Another tech came floating over. You caught what appeared to be a grimace of envy on his face when he drifted past your spot on the hull. “The pilot of 43's been complaining about noises. You're going flying, my friend."

Amy smiled at you and leapt to the cockpit with all the practiced ease of a radiation-hardened pilot. She skimmed the hull with millimeters to spare, hooking into the open canopy and slotting into the seat as though she belonged. Which she did, being that it was her ship and she was a pilot.

It was quite the break from her in the laundromat. You wanted to pinch yourself but your suit wouldn't allow it.

Joining Amy in the cockpit, you took a seat behind her and jacked into the ship's life support. You glanced over the instrument panel, committing as much of it to memory as possible. It was of similar vintage to the flight sim you trained on, so thankfully it matched the layout burned into your mind. The only thing it lacked was flight controls.

Amy spoke her way through the pre-flight checklist, and a curdled nostalgia rose up the back of your throat.

“Gonna make a pass around the Moon," Amy said. “Nice and simple. Just need you to watch the sensors—for that noise I was complaining about, you know."

Boxes got checked and systems tested and Amy asked for clearance to take off. Control responded and the ship rumbled and shuddered, the deck clamps releasing their hold. Amy taxied the ship towards the vast open expanse of space. With more and more of your vision filled with black nothing, the feeling that it was only a dream grew stronger. Your heart pounded away, sweat beading under your arms. You were in a real goddamn space ship that was in space.

Amy called your name. You blinked. She said something about traffic control. Glancing down at your instruments, you read off the flight plan to her. In the back of your mind you knew she had a copy of the same thing in front of her, but you assumed she wanted to keep you in the loop. You should have been paying more attention anyways, she didn't bring you along just so you could gawp at space. Or had she?

The station was now behind you, the ship banking so that the outer rings became visible off to your left. The Moon slid in above you and then was blocked by the back of Amy's seat when she pitched the ship up.

“How far away are we from the burn?" Amy asked.

“One and a half klicks," you said, glancing at your screens.

“I'm not going to take it easy on you. I hope you've kept up with your exercises." For all the faults that held you back in your attempt at becoming a pilot, thankfully poor g-force tolerance wasn't one of them.

The station was now completely out of sight, and you only had the numbers on your instruments for orientation. The distance to the end of the main thruster restriction zone shrunk and a giddy anticipation grew in your chest. The training sims were good, but they could never quite replicate the raw feeling of power you imagined a real spaceship would give you.

“Here we go," Amy said a couple hundred meters out. The ship vibrated, fusion drive spooling up. It tensed like, well, a large cat ready to pounce on its prey. The distance clicked over to zero.

The heavy hand of inertia pressed your body into your seat. Breathing became physically intensive. It was distressing and comforting at the same time, knowing that you were now truly along for the ride. You checked system parameters. Everything was still in the green. The distance to the next waypoint shrunk quicker and quicker. Then you were past it, the thrust easing off to a more manageable feeling of having a sandbag on your chest.

You looked for traffic, but there were only a couple freighters heading to the Jupiter cluster. None were in visual range. You looked up at the stars above.

“How are you doing back there?" Amy asked. It took an effort to pull yourself away from the view, and not because of the burn. There was something different now that you were looking at them through the canopy of a space ship instead of the station's observation deck. Likewise, your times in the simulation couldn't compare either. Now you understood those kids who pressed their faces up against the station's viewports a little better.

“Fine," you said. There was no way you could distill all your feelings into words at that moment. It would take time to even sift through all of the feelings.

“We've got some time before we have to do an orbit insertion."

“Yep." The black void drew your head back up. The spaceship shuddered, and the thrust died to zero. Your stomach rose in your throat and you grabbed hold of the “oh shit" handle.

“Why did you want to become a pilot?" Amy asked. Seemed like she was going straight for the neck. You admired her bluntness.

“I wanted to escape," you said. “Small hometown, no money, and nothing to look forward to other than taking over the family shop." Looking out at the stars above, the memory of a chilly summer night breeze swept up your arms. The cicadas had finally gone quiet and the itchiness of a fresh sunburn stretched across your face and forearms.

The heated lining of your suit was warm but there was a chill deep in your bones it couldn't reach. A part of your mind pushed to continue, to seize this moment and dump everything on this poor girl. Your failures, angers, everything that you had kept bottled up since the beginning. She wanted to know more about you? She could know more about you.

But the view above stole the words from your mouth.

“I never wanted to be a pilot," Amy said. Your breath left your chest in a way that made you double-check for leaking life-support seals. “The tail should have told you that—it gets uncomfortable stuffed down the leg of my suit." Her voice was small and quiet, a whisper that was more suited to your original impression of her. A queasiness formed in your stomach, and it wasn't only because of the zero-g. “I refused to cut it."

It seemed like such a simple thing to lose, a tail. You would have done so if you have the option. For Amy, though, you had to admit that you couldn't see her without a tail. It was too much of a beautiful thing to lose, like a night sky without stars.

“I don't care if this is what I was made to do," Amy said, voice bitter. “I envy you."

“There's nothing to envy about me."

“You could have done anything. If you wanted to do something it was you that wanted to do that."

“If it was that simple I wouldn't be sitting bitch seat in a spaceship."

“But you decided you were going to become a pilot."

“And look where that got me—a shitty technician job on a shitty station where my chances of living past middle-age is a coin flip." Anger crept into the base of your skull, whispering dark words to your very soul.

“But that was your decision."

Your old instructor slipped into your mind and said, think about what you want. You tried to batter him away, to erase him from your mind, but his eyes stayed. Sad and pitying and a bit hopeful, they stayed. Amy's eyes joined his, showing a similar mix of sadness and hope.

The ship slewed to its next position and the Moon slid in above you, bathing the cockpit in a cold light. The anger poking at the back of your brain withered away, no match for the endless detail of the satellite above. You managed to tear your eyes away from the sight for a brief moment, glancing at the back of Amy's seat. She did that on purpose, you were sure of it. The Moon drew your eyes back up. No picture would ever do it justice again, now that you had seen it this close with your own two eyes.

Despite knowing Amy was only a couple feet away, you had never felt more alone in your life.

((-0-))

The two of you were settled in one of the pilots' lounges to go over the “noises" Amy had been hearing in her ship. Said ship was locked back into its berth on the deck, barely visible as a mess of pixels on a wall screen. The room was small and cramped, a couple low-grav chairs strewn around. Their spindly legs always reminded you of sabers, and whenever someone sat on one you expected the legs to sink into the floor. The room was nothing like you imagined—no pilots one-upping each other with stories, no dimly-lit bar with a wall of bottles, and no sense of belonging.

It was a room that made you think of performance reviews and weasel words, not excitement and the accomplishment of a hard day's work.

“So," Amy said. “What did you think?" She shifted from one foot to the other, staring blankly at the wall screen. You could imagine the whipping motion her tail would have made had she not still been wearing her suit. Her helmet sat on a chair by the wall. You held yours in your hand, turning it over, brushing specks of dust from the visor, and occasionally glancing at Amy.

“Why?" you asked, gripping your helmet tight. Amy turned around, face questioning. “What are you trying to do?"

Her face flew through several emotions and landed on determination. “I don't know." She turned away and crossed her arms, ears flattening out to the sides of her head. “That's the problem."

“I'm not sure what you expect me to do about that."

She turned back to you, face full of a saccharine hope that forced you to avert you gaze. “We're the same, more or less. Don't you see?" You stared at a freighter, watching the deckhands crawling over its hull like insects. She moved closer and reached out a hand. “We were meant to be together."

You glanced at her outstretched hand. “Is that what you think?" Locking eyes with her you looked past the hope, looked for something that hinted at a motive that wasn't childish naivety.

“We both want to be something that we're not, that we can't be. It's like poetry, it—"

“That's not how it works."

“Why not?"

You turned away and traded the helmet in your hands for your head. “I don't know anything about you. You don't know anything about me."

“That's not true. I know you want to be a pilot."

“Everyone on this goddamn station knows that," you said, jabbing a finger at her. “That doesn't mean anything, and it certainly doesn't mean you can just waltz right on down, stick me in your spaceship, and expect me to fall for you."

Amy took a step back. Her face fell, ears pinned to the back of her head. “I never meant it like that."

You turned away and grabbed your helmet off the floor. “I'm tired. I need to get going."

“Wait," Amy said, a gloved hand landing on your shoulder. “Can't you stay a little longer?" She wrapped her arms around your stomach and you swore you could feel her body-heat radiating into your core, despite your suit most certainly not allowing anything like that.

For a moment you were no longer alone—Amy was with you again as she had been in the laundromat. Your chest clenched with the same pain as it had that day, and you recognized it for what it truly was. She was right.

You looked at the door, thought about the trip back to your box of a room. There would be nothing there for you. There you would go to sleep and wake up, go to work, come back and go to sleep again. You would be alone.

“Okay," you said. “I'll stay."

Amy's arms tightened. You found yourself smiling, a warmth blooming in your chest that you never wanted to lose again.