A Furry Story

Chapter 3 - It's A Jungle Out There

“Why do you want me to look at him so badly?” I suddenly blurted out.

“Just. Look.” She muttered, making me turn around and seeing him enter the cafeteria that left every girl’s mouth drooping open.  Her boyfriend, Kevin Withers, was looking at Damien with a pang of jealousy, probably thinking of ways on how to have a better body than him.

When I saw him, I didn’t feel anything. Probably because I am accepting the fact that I will never end up with a guy like that. He was laughing at a joke one of his friends made and he was unconsciously running his fingers through his hair like some kind of stereotypical hot guy; which he is.

I looked around and I got surprised to see the one and only Stephanie McKenzie, staring at him too like he was a treat waiting to be gobbled up in one sitting.

Everyone got quiet when he fell in line to get his food. As he carries his tray to his table, and as soon as he sat down, everything goes back to normal and the cafeteria was filled with hints of conversation and laughter.

I looked around and saw the normal sight that I always see every day.

The dorks were acting like dorks, the nerds were fighting about which sword to use on their role-play, artists discussing about which colour to use in a cool setting, popular people talking about…well, themselves, and normal people talking about the fact that they hated the weather.

Yep, this was high school all right. And for the first time in a long time, I was pretty happy about it.

***

Too bad that happiness I was talking about didn’t translate until the end of the day. As my dad picked me up, I secretly hoped that he would forget about the whole thing. I know it’s kind of impossible, but who knows? Maybe through my ‘positive energy’, I could get the things that I wanted.

Wrong.

These are my thoughts as I stared at the sign;

McHale Animal Shelter

Adopt a pet, make a friend!

I studied the sign and I felt my tummy vibrate. No mister, I am not adopting a pet to make a friend. I almost hyperventilate with the desperate attempt to make a furry friend. I almost make a dying whale noise every time I see those creatures so no.

I actually wanted to throw a tantrum and start crying like I did when the first day of my kindergarten class just started. I wanted to hurl myself across the street and get hit by a sixteen wheeler truck. I wanted to throw up but I couldn’t.

“I don’t know if I can make it in there.” I whispered to my dad, which had a very composed face the whole entire time. He looked at me and I saw that he really was starting to age.

“You can do it.” He said. “Face your fears, honey.” He patted me on my back, trying to console me. “Face your fears.”

***

“How the hell am I supposed to face this?!”

Damien stares at his wall, unable to sleep due to his parents’ voices bombarding the whole house. He shifts sideward, closing his eyes on the process. He was so tired of hearing this almost every night.

“I don’t know, Jane!” His father screams. He swore he wanted to press his pillow against his ear. “It’s not my fault the company’s shutting down!”

This sparked an interest in him. Shutting down? His father has been working for the same company for as long as he can remember.

You see, Damien and his family weren’t really rich. They purely depend on his father’s salary, and his mother stayed home to cater their family’s needs. He had an older sister and a younger brother which resulted to him maturing earlier than the average teenager.

With their mother at home and not earning any profit, hearing this was a shocker for him. If the breadwinner of the family loses his job, then the family is going to face a lot of serious issues.

“What will happen to us?!” His mother shouts, obviously frustrated. “I don’t want our kids to sleep on the streets!”

He heard enough. It was time to answer some of his questions.

He stood up swiftly, which he quickly regretted because he felt his head throb, and opened his door as quietly as possible and started going downstairs to confront his parents. When he reached them, they were frozen with shock. And that wasn’t because he wore nothing but his boxers.

“What do you mean by that?” He asksquizzically.

***

This place was way worse than I expected.

When I thought of an animal shelter, I honestly expected some too good to be true shelter with properly behaved animals and staff that are cool, calm and collected. But as what I am seeing right now, this is the total opposite of my expectations.

Total chaos ruled the atmosphere and the staff were almost close to pulling their hair out of their heads trying to control the intolerable behaviour of the animals.

I felt the twisters in my tummy worsen and I swear this was the start of my internal apocalypse. I looked back at my dad and he gave me a look that kind of portrays that he feels sorry for me and at the same time a comforting look that wasn’t very convincing.

“Don’t worry, this will not even feel like two months.” He said, trying to comfort me.

“Two months?! What the, nobody told me it was two months!” Thanks for the comforting gesture, really.

“It is.”

Then he shuffled out of the animal shelter and I was left alone standing there like an idiot, staring at him while he headed for his car.

This will be a complete disaster.