"But, Brent... I don't want you to go." 

"Soph, I have to. Our plane leaves soon. Besides, I told you that this was happening."

My kit sister sniffled and nodded, wiping her eyes. She had grown a lot since everything that happened two years ago. We all had. 

In my Junior year, in our small, Colorado town, a bit of an uprising started. Furs everywhere heard the story of how I risked my life to overthrow a prominent figure in the pure faction, those humans that thought that furs were an abomination. I hadn't even tried to, it's not like I set out to do it, but things escalated and I felt like it was my only choice to be with the girl I loved who happened to be his daughter. When he caught us together, he was so outraged that he did the unthinkable, and forced the procedure on her, using her as a pawn in his sick, political game.

 The humans ate it right up and it took a hugely publicized court case in which a fur assaulted a teacher after one of his predictable tirades against us, and our kind. The teacher had it coming, I'm not denying that, but I can't believe that the kid mauled him. I was a key witness in the trial, and when the case was thrown out on a technicality, the humans through a fit, and started a riot. It was then that I finally had a confrontation with the leader of the human factions in our town. I almost died when he broke three of my ribs on live TV before SWAT stormed the building, and placing him under arrest.

Video of him almost killing me made its way onto the internet and that's when furs, and pro-fur humans alike pushed for serious legislation towards equal rights. They used my name as a rallying point, and TV cameras dominated my life for the first few weeks after I was released from the hospital. Even now, I'm a meme online and I apparently changed the face of history. I get fan mail now–somehow my address and cell number got online. I probably wouldn't mind all the attention if I had at least gotten the girl in the end, but she moved away to try and get some anonymity. People treated her differently and I had to give her up. 

But, as I was saying, we pushed for equal rights and we got it the fall of my Senior year. Having a cheetah in the White House probably helped. Texas is still talking about seceding from the union but I don't pay much attention to the words of crazies. No one does. 

Hell, if Texas left, the average IQ of the country would rise. Might be mean to say, but that's how I see it. 

If there's one thing Junior year taught me, it's to speak my mind. It's why I told my  best friend and post-op wolf, Jake, to break up with his old boyfriend, Logan. The stallion broke his heart one too many times. Jake caught him swapping spit with another guy for the third time and told him off. 

He came over to my house that night and didn't say anything. Just cried and cried. After a few games of our favorite game, Burn, Zombie, Burn, he was starting to feel better. But he still stayed at my house that night, crying soft, quiet, tears that landed on his lap as we gamed. I didn't know how to help him so I just scooted closer to him and made sure he didn't forget that I was there for him. We were there for each other when things got rough, no doubt about it. 

Soon after then, we decided to take a break from our schoolings. We could apply to college later, we wanted to do a gap year, and spend some time in Europe together. We'd always wanted to go, and we figured it'd be a cool thing to do together. It wasn't even hard to convince our parents. Jake's parents were fairly well off and they provided everything, nice backpacks, travel money, guides, maps, everything. And my parents paid for the tickets in return. They all thought we could use a break after all that had happened to us. 

Particularly Jake. Apart from Logan, he also faced enormous scrutiny for his role in the events. Furs called him a coward for not coming to my assistance, humans called him a disgrace against his kind, his house was constantly swarmed with reporters. Late on night, he slipped over into my house and stayed there where the reporters weren't as hounding.

 Our plan was to work our way from Scotland down to London, take the Chunnel into France and go through Paris on the way to Berlin, wrapping down to Italy before heading back through Switzerland and back to London for our return flight. It was gonna take a couple months, but that was the beauty of it. 

So there we were, in August saying goodbye to our families. I was about to go through security when my nine year-old sister, Sophie, ran up to me and grabbed my hand, pulling me back. 

"I don't want you to go..." She whimpered.

"I'll call you guys as often as I can, Soph," I said."And I'll be back in August." 

"But Brent... I don't want you to go."

"If I could take you with me, I would. But I can't. Besides, you need to look after Mom and Dad for me now."

Jake came over to us and smiled at her. 

"Hey, pup," he said. "Listen, I want you to hold onto something for me."

"What is it?" Sophie said, perking up a little.

Jake pulled off his turquoise birthstone necklace that had been carved into a wolf howling at the moon. 

"You were always saying how much you like it; well I want you to hold onto it for me. So that way, we have to come back for it. And... Don't tell anyone this, but it's lucky."

"Really?" she said.

"Yup. So I need you to be a good girl and look after it for me. Promise not to lose it, okay?"

"Okay." She gave him a great big hug and said, "I'll miss you, fuzzy face."

He smiled, returning the hug and replying, "I'll miss you, pup."

Once they were done hugging, I gave Sophie a big hug, pulling her close to me and squeezing her in my arms. I didn't want to leave yet, but I also didn't want to miss out on this chance to have an adventure with my best friend. So I let go of Sophie, kissed the top of her head, and turned around, walking into the security line and leaving everything I knew behind. 

* * *

I don't know if you've ever gone on an international flight before or not, but let me tell you something, they suck. Ten hours cramped against the seat in front of you, and if you're really unlucky, like me, you can be shoved against the wall with a window seat too. My leg was cramping pretty badly so I had to make excuses to get up and walk around, or go to the bathroom or something.

When I got back to the seat, after one of my excursions to the bathroom, Jake was sitting in my seat. After sliding past the old woman who was doing her knitting for the umpteenth time, I sat down and buckled my seatbelt.

"Why'd you change seats? You hate the window seat." I said.

"You clearly do too or else why would you be constantly getting up?"

"I wasn't trying to be annoying. My leg was just really cramping."

"Dude," he said. "I'd rather be a little uncomfortable and let you be more comfortable. It's called sacrifice. Friends do that sometimes."

"Thanks," I said, giving him a light shove.

"You're indeed very welcome, my good friend." I half expected him to have a monocle and a thin mustache when he said that.

We brought our laptops so we could watch something better than those shitty inflight movies. At some point during the second movie, Jake fell asleep, his head leaning on my shoulder. I closed my laptop and our furs, red and grey, mixed and muddled together as we slept, getting a bit of rest for the start of our great adventure. 

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the memory of when Jake and I shared a brief kiss lingered in my head before I drifted off to sleep.