I tried to hold in my sad, grumbling noises as I walked around the dorms. I just wao blend into the background somewhere. There was a small library in the girls’ dorm that I figured could do the trick. Because my sister worked in libraries, I spent enough time io want to avoid them at school. So I was feeling very down to think of one as a retreat. When I got there, there was a small dispy set up that had the librarians’ book picks for the month on it. The ones oop shelf were books about ideal sh tips, and otom shelf were these weird old photography books that had a bunch of naked people on their covers. The bottom shelf seemed incredibly inappropriate for a high school and it also felt like they were taunting me, so I left and just went to the lounge area and started moping by myself in front of a puter I checked out.

  I gave a moment’s thought to searg for adviline, but I wisely realized that any search I’d look up would probably yield really bad results, and someone would definitely walk up right behind me right as the bad results loaded up. So instead, I looked up videos of cats and tinued moping. At approximately the umpteenth cat video, someoapped on my shoulder.

  “Excuse me, Zeta,” Amara said. “ you assist me with something?”

  “Hi Amara,” I said, turning to see the fox Kanibari standing with her hands csped in front of her. “Sure, what do you need?”

  Amara held her hands up, which were tangled with dark green yarn.

  “I’ve gotten myself a bit tangled up here,” Amara said. “Could you help me with this figuration?”

  “figuration?”

  “Just do as I say, we’re trying to follow this,” Amara said, revealing a small, folded sheet of paper that had been obscured in her yarn mess. It looked like it was from a craft set for yarn-based projects. After freeing the paper from the enta, I couldn’t really make sense of the instrus as they seemed to be in a nguage I didn’t know, so I relied on Amara to tell me what to do as she had me work to untahe yarn, which was stuck pretty deep in her fur and cws, and then to re-ta to make whatever it was inteo be.

  “What exactly is this supposed to look like when we’re done?” I asked.

  “…I have no idea, actually,” Amara said.

  Once we finished, Amara had some kind of yarn tree puppet thing that looked cute when it was finally pletely separated from our hands.

  “Thank you, if you hadn’t stopped by, I could have been at this for hours.” Amara said.

  “No problem,” I said. I was grateful to have something to take my mind off my shower misfortunes.

  “You seem a bit down,” Amara said. “Something you’d care to share?”

  I held back a groan I felt ing up my throat. I didn’t want to expin this to every friend I ran into, but I was in too deep with this versation not to. Plus, Amara had the same ability as Lillia ce to gre her way into getting what they wanted from me.

  “Have you ever had an i with your roommates?” I asked.

  “Expin.” Amara said.

  “Well, like…you know.” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Zeta, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  Amara’s gre wasn’t icy like Lillia’s, but hers instead had a fire behind them that was just as scary.

  “Well, I took a shower a bit ago, and when I walked out, I thought nobody was in the room…but one of my roommates…was. And they, Oka, it was Oka, might have…seen some things.”

  Amara pondered for a moment.

  “Don’t you have a system?” Amara asked.

  “I do!” I said. “It just…didn’t work this time. Or I fot it for a sed. Like the worst sed tet it.”

  “We have a system,” Amara said. “It’s worked out for us so far. But I ’t deny that I’m a touch jealous.”

  “Jealous?” I asked.

  “Having that kind of steamy, sultry enter with your true love…it sends chills down my spine just thinking about it!” Amara said, nuzzling her yarn puppet to her face.

  “It wasn’t steamy,” I said. “Or sultry, whatever that means. It was just really unfortable.”

  “Don’t be too sad,” Amara said. “If I wanted Rain to see me like that, I’d want it at my peak performance, if you catch my drift.”

  “I’m irely sure I do,” I said.

  “I’m just saying at least you were fresh from the shower; your hair was free of pollutants and ticks, and your skin robably more radiant after just ing it.” Amara said.

  “I’m torween saying you should write poetry and saying how unfortable I am.” I said.

  “The point I’m making is that at least you probably looked better than you would if she spotted you say, all dirty from a void fight or if you were rummaging around in the sewers or something.”

  I’d ask why Amara even brought up the sewer thing, but I figured it wasn’t worth it. I had to agree with her that at least it referable the way I was for Oka than if I was basically some kind of sludge monster.

  “That actually does help to think of it that way,” I said.

  Amara sighed longingly and looked up to the heavens.

  “Is something b you now?” I asked.

  “You’ve inspired me, Miss Faleur,” Amara said.

  “Huh?” I said.

  Amara gripped her fists together with inteermination, squeezing her poor yarn puppet.

  “I’m going to cause an i of my own for Rain,” Amara said.

  “No, wait, I think that might be a bad—”

  “Destiny is calling for me, and if the stars already shone in your favor on this evening, then perhaps they will for me as well.” I was really ed that Amara promptly began unbuttoniop.

  “Amara, I really think it’s best if you—"

  “Don’t try to stop me,” Amara said as she ran off, trails of unused yarn that were stuck to the back of her shirt for some reason twirled behind her like a cape.

  Amara’s good advice lost some of its luster banced with her sudden procmation. And when I was alone again, I started brainst ways to deal with embarrassis and came up with an idea.