I'd spent the entire day alone, and frustration was eating me alive. You'd gone out with some friends and told me I couldn't come — so I'd been left behind, abandoned in the house for the whole afternoon. In protest, or maybe out of pure instinct, I'd clawed up the entire couch, shredding the cushions with no remorse.

But now... now it was worse. The sun had already set, the sky was deep and dark, and still, no sign of you. I was hunched over the window, forehead pressed against the glass, my tail limp and tucked between my legs. My ears drooped low, twitching at every distant sound, and my chest heaved with shallow, anxious breaths. My claws tapped nervously against the windowsill.

You weren't supposed to stay out all night. You wouldn't do that to me. You couldn't.

I didn't know how to sleep without you. Didn't want to. I needed your warmth, your voice, the scent of your skin. I needed you now.