“What do you mean you think something’s wrong?”
Todd sat on the edge of his bed, looking down at the floor rather than making eye contact with Sam, who was standing directly in front of him. The tiger knelt down in order to meet Todd’s gaze. “Babe, you have to tell me if something’s wrong. Please.”
When they had met at Milo and Dare’s room about an hour ago to take pictures, the two of them got to speak to both Ollie and Curtis a bit. Well, more so Curtis. Ollie seemed rather quiet the whole time, as if he was thinking about something else. When they did speak with Curtis, Todd couldn’t help but feel as if something was wrong.
“His tail was wagging left…” Todd thought to himself. “Left tail wags mean a dog is worried. He looked happy, but something’s wrong…”
The newly-transformed wolf wasn’t entirely sure how exactly he knew all of this, but he quickly chalked it up to canine instincts. When Curtis invited him and Sam to go and get milkshakes with himself and Dare after they had all gotten their pictures taken, Todd politely declined, telling him he had homework he needed to do. That was a lie. He’d gotten his homework done before the party last night (which he thanked his past self for profusely). The wolf just needed some time to think about everything.
As soon as they returned to their dorm room, Todd sat down on his bed and began to think about what everything meant. Why did Curtis seem so sad? If he was done transforming, shouldn’t he be happy? He seemed happy about his transformation in the days leading up to today, so what was so different now?
Sam asked him if something was wrong multiple times, to which Todd responded that nothing was. Sam bought it the first two times, but not the third time, which led him to where he was now.
“S-Sam…I don’t think you’d be able to understand…” Todd said quietly. “I think it’s something regarding c-canines.”
“Try me,” the tiger responded quickly. Todd couldn’t help but crack a small smile at the tiger’s willingness to help, even if he wouldn’t understand. The wolf let out a defeated sigh as he then realized that sooner or later, he’d need to talk to someone about this.
“I think something’s wrong with Curtis,” Todd finally said. Sam gave him a confused look, which was pretty much what Todd expected. Nevertheless, he couldn’t just stop now without elaborating.
“I don’t know if this r-really is just a canine thing, b-but I don’t think that Curtis is h-happy. His tail was wagging l-left, and there was a s-sadness in his eyes.”
“Maybe he was just sad that it was his last day as a human, you know?” Sam suggested. “On your last day, you said you felt kind of sad, so maybe-”
“No,” Todd interrupted. “It wasn’t that k-kind of sadness. Not only that, but he s-said he didn’t feel c-complete…”
“He didn’t say that.”
“But th-that’s what he meant! I’m p-positive!”
Sam sighed. “Babe, you’re overthinking things. You've just gotta accept th-”
“What if he h-hasn’t accepted his changes?” Todd interrupted. “My ch-changes accelerated when I accepted my l-life was ch-changing. Yours did t-too! We might have f-finished changing first because we accepted what was h-happening to us sooner! We didn’t f-fight these new memories, we embraced th-them!”
“That’s because we didn’t have much we wanted to go back to,” Sam countered. “My family was homophobic and my brother was completely removed from my life because he was gay. Your parents got divorced, your mom was never around, your dad died, and you were verbally abused by your stepdad. Of course we’re going to accept our changes pretty easily if they come with a better life than what we had before, but the same thing can’t be said for everyone here. I don’t know what Curtis has told you about his life before all this, but from what he’s said, his life didn’t sound all that bad. He’s obviously going to have a harder time adjusting to things here.”
“S-So then why would he have been happy about his changes p-prior to today?” Todd asked, a slight hint of aggravation in his voice. “Why would he have talked about how much f-fun he had when playing frisbee with other dogs and r-recommended that I t-try it if he was so upset with his changes? I don’t think that everything is as f-fine as you say they are, and I’m not going to just s-sit around and watch my friend be upset!” The wolf angrily got off his bed and marched to the door. He opened the door and prepared to walk out, but not before turning back to Sam.
“I’m positive something isn’t right,” he said firmly. “I can’t just let something happen that could have been easily prevented if I had just spoken up.” Before Sam could interject, Todd left the room and closed the door behind him. Even if Sam turned out to be right, the wolf wouldn’t be able to sleep unless he knew that everything was okay with his friend.