Chapter 1 

Jasper grazed the cool fabric, where it pooled like a woven embrace around the brush of his thighs. He shifted it aside—not quite discarded, but there was a sort of pressing fluster in the way he moved. He popped open a small suitcase, tattered and worn with years of constant change. It filled rather perfectly, as it had not been the first time he’d practiced the motions of leaving, though it never not pulled at his heartstrings—the prospect of “what-ifs.” It was then, that all tangled debate whether or not to, froze and settled.

 “Where are ya goin’, Jasp’,” a voice crawled out of the darkness, snaking up into his ears, shaking all confidence in him leaving. Jasper turned. His bag on his back; the case in his hand betraying the words he had spilled last night. Was it a final, and futile attempt to stop the impossible, he did not know. “Nowhere, Kane, I just…need some air right now.” His voice did little to cover the lie he hid at the back of his throat. Kane sat up, his bare chest catching much of the dim light, with the promise of an early morning sneaking into the hotel curtains. “Liar,” he said, quickly peeling off the fevered sheet. It radiated warmth, warmth that did not reach where Jasper stood cold by the edge of the cramping hotel. His mind was already outside the door. Kane moved through the dark, unapologetically exposed, as he struggled to put on what little he had with him. He stayed quiet, and a conversation they had recently, and painfully fresh stood forefront in his mind. “By my tail, you’re serious—Jasper, please… you said you wouldn’t.” 

“You know I have to, Kane. I told you when I first met you,” Jasper said, his mind reeling back to the moment he had said it. ‘I can’t stay for long, really—I am on my way to college.’ It had lasted for almost a year. Kane thought for a moment before stepping back to sit on the bed. Jasper opened the door. His breathing grew erratic, forced.  “Just like that, huh?” Kane asked. More like quivered, really. Jasper froze, before closing the space between them. He breathed out a sigh, the warm air hitting the coyote’s face. “I have to, Kane. You can come with me, if you want, but I’m leaving,” Jasper said, turning to look at the hotel door, now propped wide open. His train left in two hours. “I can’t Jasper! You know that already!” Kane whispered angrily, before getting up, and taking Jasper in his arms. “Please—promise…promise you’ll come back. And if not, at least promise you’ll help me, Jasper. Please.”