When Perry got into work the next day, all he could think about was Naomi. He completely blanked Victor and Christina as they had yet another big argument, even though this was not unusual. He had no idea what they were arguing about, but he thought it was probably nothing.
Then Victor dragged him into it. "Perry, help me out here!"
Perry looked blearily up at his friend. "What?"
"Don't bring Perry into this," Christina snapped. "Can you not fight your own battles?"
"I can't when my opponent is refusing to admit that I'm right!"
"Oh, you're right?" retorted Christina. "I'm sorry, it happens so rarely, I didn't recognise it when I saw it."
"Ouch," commented Perry softly. "What exactly are you arguing about?"
"You've been sitting right there," said Victor in confusion. "How do you not know?"
"Victor's trying to take away my freedom and rights," snapped Christina.
"What?" Victor turned back to Christina. "No I'm not!"
"Yes you are!" Christina laughed bitterly. "So saying that I can't go to the OWCA party with Terry is NOT taking away my rights to choose?"
Victor opened his mouth but Christina apparently wasn't done. "I hate you sometimes! You think that just because we hang out every day, I'm obligated to go to the party with you! Well, if you don't ask, you don't get, and I was asked by Terry. Were you even planning to ask me?" She ploughed on without waiting for an answer. "I'm not here for your pleasure, Victor! You should have treated me like a living being and asked me to the party if you wanted to go with me, instead of assuming I'd be so unattractive to other guys that it would get to the day before the party and I wouldn't have a date so I'd have to go with you. Well, I'm done with you! I never want to see your face again!"
With that, Christina turned on her heel and stormed out.
Perry waited to see Victor's reaction to this. If the otter reacted angrily, then it would be obvious that Victor didn't really have true feelings for Christina. On the other hand, if he reacted guiltily or sadly, then it would become clear that he really loved Christina.
Perry wasn't sure what he was expecting as he steadily watched his friend. After a few moments, Victor sighed deeply and let his shoulders droop. "Was I really taking away her freedom and rights?" he asked numbly.
Perry paused. "Well…I didn't hear the whole argument, but from what I heard…it sounds like you might have been."
Victor let out what sounded like a sob, to Perry's utter shock. "That was not my intention. Now that I think about it, I feel disgusted by my actions. I can't believe I made Christina feel like I thought she was only there for me. I don't believe that at all. Now…now she hates me."
"It was a misunderstanding," soothed Perry.
"Was it?" asked Victor bitterly. "You saw her face. She said she never wanted to see me again. And I don't blame her. If someone treated me the way I just treated her, I would hate them too."
"Talk to her," Perry insisted. "Show her what you're showing me: how bad you feel."
"She won't listen," Victor said sadly. "Why should she?" He heaved a sigh as Perry opened his beak to speak again. "No offense Perry, but I'd prefer it if you left me alone to think right now. I need to decide what to do."
"Go home," Perry suggested. "I'll cover for you."
"Really?" Victor looked gratefully at Perry. "Thanks. I-I'm not in the best condition to be working right now."
Perry nodded and watched his best friend leave. Almost as soon as Victor left his sight, Pinky the Chihuahua came rushing in, looking very excited. "Perry, guess what! I asked Tess to the OWCA party and she said yes!"
"That's great, Pinky," said Perry absently.
"She's already gone dress shopping," laughed Pinky. "Women, eh?"
"Yeah," Perry said, his thoughts back on Naomi.
"Anyway, Major Monogram called me on a mission. I just wanted to stop and tell you. See you later."
"Yeah," Perry said for the second time, as the Chihuahua left his office.
He got up, stretched, and decided to see if Major Monogram needed him for anything. If not, he knew where he wanted to go.
As he exited his office, he bumped into Tess the Toller. Her dark brown fur was silky and beautiful as always. Her normally cheerful face was dampened by a worried frown. "Perry, you might want to check on Christina. She's been crying really hard."
"I know why," sighed Perry.
He thanked Tess and moved on. On his way to Major Monogram's office, he heard crying coming from the girls' bathroom. He awkwardly opened the door and looked inside, to the horror of two female bird agents, who threw little bars of soap at him. He closed the door briefly to avoid them, before calling Christina's name softly into the room. The crying stopped, and a moment later, the red-eyed bobcat came to the door.
"Do you need a drink?" asked Perry softly.
Christina nodded miserably.
"I have some cola in my office. Do you want?"
She nodded again.
Perry took Christina's paw gently and led her back towards his office. He sat her down and placed a bottle of coke in front of her. She took tiny sips of it, all the while crying. Perry felt awkward around crying people, even if he knew why they were crying.
"I hate," she said eventually.
Perry looked at her. "What do you hate?"
"Everything," choked Christina. "I hate myself, I hate Victor, I hate OWCA, I hate life."
"You shouldn't hate everything," Perry said in alarm. "Look, Victor feels really bad. He had to go home because he's not in a great mindset right now."
Christina glared ferociously at Perry, who felt the need to take a step back. "How the hell does he think I feel?!"
Perry raised his hands in surrender. "Don't shoot the messenger."
But Christina ignored him and went off on a rant about Victor. Perry nervously watched her. He had never seen her this mad at Victor before. It made him wonder if they were ever going to make up.
"Will you ever forgive him?" Perry asked. "Did you mean what you said about not wanting to see him again?"
Christina sighed and didn't immediately go off on another rant, which Perry took as a good sign. "I don't know," she admitted. "I-I care a lot about him, despite his stupidity. But he had to go and basically say I was only allowed to go with him. He was basically implying that he assumed I was so unattractive that other guys wouldn't ask me to the party. My self-confidence took a bad knock, and I don't know if I can forgive that. I've always been self-conscious about myself. Terry asking me to the party was a great compliment to me, since the only guys who have ever paid attention to me are you and that idiot. I don't know if I can forgive, but even if I can, I can't just forget how he made me feel, how insignificant I felt."
"You should have seen him after you left," Perry said quietly. "He was furious with himself. He hated the idea of you not wanting to see him again."
Christina's face turned stony again. "Well, for the moment, he's going to have to put up with it. For the foreseeable future, I will not forgive him and I have no wish to even see his face."
She set the coke bottle down hard on the table and got up. "Thank you for taking the time, Perry." Then she left the office.
Perry watched her go sadly. He hated arguments, and the thought of Victor and Christina never even being friends again made him feel unimaginably sad.
However, he pushed it to the back of his mind and left the office as well. There was somewhere he wanted to go.
