in this world it's hard to get it right.

"Please don't leave..."

Those words were simultaneously the best and worst response Elwood could have imagined. She didn't really want him to go; she was sorry, and he knew it. Peregrine had passed the message along initially, and he could see it now in her face. But at the same time, he couldn't shake the image of her face contorted with anger as she threatened to blackmail him. It would take a long time for that picture to fade.

His heart told him to go to her, to wrap her in his embrace, but his head forced him to stay rooted. He had never before felt so conflicted; he closed his eyes briefly, inhaling softly through his nostrils. When he exhaled, he urged himself to move forward slowly. He began to close the gap, though when his paws stilled once more there was still an ample amount of space between them.

"Are you sure?" he wanted to ask, but Peregrine's advice echoed in his mind: Finley was emotionally vulnerable, feeling as though he would never forgive her, and on top of all that there was something that made her shy away from relationships in the first place. It was a recipe for disaster, and all it had taken to ice the cake was his thoughtless action with Grimm. "I'm not going anywhere," he murmured; there was so much meaning behind that statement. He wouldn't leave Redhawk Caldera; he wouldn't leave her. No matter how their friendship transformed after this moment, he couldn't walk away.