POV: Jordan's Mom

Jordan was sleeping on my shoulder. Her slow and steady breathing gave me some sort of comfort in the hospital. Where animals got sick, where animals died, she was sleeping. It made me feel like a horrible parent. God only knows what she saw, I hated to think that she was alone, I hoped she wasn't alone in that bathroom where she found her friend.

Her clothes were still colored a deep red, a deep crimson from what I knew to be blood.

Probably his blood

The waiting room was calm and quiet. It was what you would expect from a hospital waiting room. Light blue wooden chairs, dark blue carpet, white walls, and a receptionist desk. The only difference being the animals that sat next to us. A lioness was trying to calm her restless children who ran around the place. A black bear held two babies in her arms, trying to lull them to sleep with a whispered melody. Herbivores sat on the opposite side from us, never intermingling.

I didn't want to wake Jordan up from her peaceful sleep, from the sleep I knew she didn't want, but needed. But it was getting late and I didn't want to stay here to hear the real news about her friend. I told Jordan he had lived, but I didn't know if he really did live. They didn't tell me anything, I thought he had died, so they rolled him off to a room for his parents to see him. I never saw his chest move and the doctors were like robots.

Who knew his parents were herbivores? That must've been so hard on him. To live in a household where nobody was like you, where you were the apex predator, and try to be someone you're not. I understood why he did it, I understood the pain he was probably going through. I just never realized this is how it would end up.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, it was Richard. "Hello?" I whispered.

"Hey...how's she holding up?"

I sighed and looked towards Jordan. "She's asleep right now."

"Are you gonna be home anytime soon?"

As much as I wanted to stay for Jordan, just to hear any news of her friend. I knew that we had been here long enough. The doctors weren't telling us anything because we weren't family. "I wanted to stay for longer, but since we haven't heard anything…" My voice trailed off and pent up emotions were tearing through the seams. "I don't want to assume the worst, that would destroy Jordan. I don't think I'm ready for that."

"Ok, take as long as you need." Richard hung up the phone and I felt my heart crush.

What if it was Jordan? What if she was feeling so alone, so horrible inside, that I found her dead on the bathroom floor?

No, stop it Madeline, Jordan would tell you.

I brushed a finger across her muzzle and her eyes opened weakly. "Hey baby, are you ready to go home?"

Her eyes fell to the floor. "He died...didn't he?"

"I don't know," I said it like he was still alive, we just didn't know if he would wake up today or tomorrow. Jordan nodded, and her body shifted in its position. Her eyes were dull, dark, almost grey. She had been broken, inside and out.

I stood up slowly, taking her hand and lifting her up. Sometimes I wished she wasn't taller than me. I hugged her in the waiting room, not saying it, but hoping she wouldn't end up like Alex. I hoped that I was a good enough parent for her, good enough for her to talk to me, to tell me how she was feeling. I didn't want her to feel like she had no one to talk to.

"This world doesn't deserve him," Jordan said as we walked out of the hospital. "If only I had known."

I put my arm around her. "Sometimes knowing only makes it harder."