Regrets of Pets

      We all know how it goes. You do something, it turns out it wasn't the right thing, and you feel bad. Sometimes, you only feel a tiny bit upset, and you move on with your life. But other times, you feel terrible, heart-crushing guilt that you would ever do such a thing, and you cannot pull yourself out of that moment in your mind. It lasts for weeks, months, years, and it just won't stop. Your life now revolves around what you did.

      My names is DiamondClouds, and I'm here to tell you what my life revolves around now. But first, let's start with my owner.

      My owner has a bad habit of adopting and creating pets that she cannot keep. I know the cycle all too well. She sees a pet in the pound that she just can't go home without, and immediately signs the adoption papers. Or she notices an available name that is just too beautiful not to have, and creates one. Either way, it ends in a sibling staying here for a while until she realizes there is no room. My owner is constantly seeking "dream pets", pets that are literally her dream to have. When she realizes that she has nowhere to keep a dream pet if it were to come along, off goes the unlucky sister or brother to the pound. My owner gives them her standard apology speech about how it's really for the best, that there is someone in Neopia that will love them like she does, that she will never forget them.

      She forgets them, sometimes. They forget her, too. Occasionally, I forget them too.

      I know she means well in what she does. She wants to help, but she can't. If you ask me, it does not help at all. It crushes dreams.

      But what does any of this have to do with me?

      A lot, actually. You may think I'm lucky, being a "permie" in the middle of all this. Only the permies are safe from this fate. But permies have it rough too. Your friends, your siblings, they walk out one day and don't come back. The ones you've played with every day, the ones you've accepted as a part of the family. Sometimes, you don't even get to say goodbye, and it hurts.

      But that's not what hurts the most.

      This brings me to what I am here to tell you, what I regret.

      She was here for two or three days. Maybe four, I can't even remember. What a short amount of time to spend in a house. An Orange Cybunny. Did I mention my owner has a soft spot for Cybunnies?

      I can't recall her name, either. It had a long string of numbers after it, and I never bothered to memorize them. I never thought I'd need them.

      I think she had become "stuck" in the pound. My owner wanted to help every stuck Cybunny she could, and how could she leave a painted one? That was all it took, and she came home with her that very day. I later found out that she had debated whether or not to adopt her, if this was the right thing to do. How different my life would be if she had only left her!

      Only a day. That's all it took for her to realize that she could not be kept. That was remarkably short, even for her. At the time, I was glad. I though I was making a good decision.

      What decision?

      To ignore her. I had gotten all of my siblings to ignore her too. We had agreed that it was too painful inside to have friends and family leave us. All the memories and fun we had with each and every pet that had stayed here, and realizing that it can never happen again, we refused to feel like that. We simply would not attach any memories to her name and face.

      How would I know that because of this, I'd have even more painful memories to attach to her?

      For a few days, I don't know how long, my owner stayed out all day at the Pound Chat, hoping someone would take her, so that she wouldn't have to deal with dragging her away to the pound. But because of that long string of numbers I mentioned earlier, no one took her.

      So there was only one option left.

      The pound.

      Meanwhile, we'd all been busy shunning her this whole time. Every question she asked us received the shortest answer possible, if we couldn't get away with pretending we didn't hear her in the first place. It's strange now, how we tried to protect our feelings, yet completely disregarded hers. We never gave a single thought to how she was coping. She had just been brought into a whole new family and was about to be thrown out. We were all she had, but we refused to accept her, even for a few days. We refused to lessen the pain.

      On that final day, I woke up to see everyone at the breakfast table, chatting over their omelette. Everyone except her. She was sitting in a corner at the other side of the room. She held no food. We all knew what that meant: she was being taken to the pound. My owner would not waste a perfectly good breakfast on her when it could feed one of us tomorrow.

      Only a few hours later, she was being lead out the door by my owner, paw in hand. I did not want to see her go, in fact, I had planned to stay in my room when she left, but I was grabbing some toys for my baby brother, Fowol. I meant to be quick and get back to my room before I could see, but curiosity got the best of me. I would only take a quick peek, just to see that she was leaving for sure. Just as I noticed her and my owner walking out the door, she shot one last glance at the house, and at me.

      Her eyes said it all. The fear she had felt being put in the pound the first time, the hope she had felt when she was adopted, the rejection when we shunned her, the crushing disappointment when she found she was to be sent away. I saw all that and more.

      For as long as I live, I will never forget that glance she gave me. I'll never forget the moment that I realized I was not doing the right thing. I never had been. She needed someone in her life, and I had not been there.

      I do not know what became of her. For all I know, she's still stuck.

      ***

      Today my owner has adopted a new permie. Another baby Lupe. We call him Snypo.

      I will always be there for him, through every step of his life. He will never have to feel alone or unwanted. He will always belong to our family.

      I know my owner will adopt more pets that she can't keep, eventually. She never learns. But no matter how much it hurts when they're taken from me, I will make sure to welcome each and every one of them.

      Thank you, Orange Cybunny Girl, for teaching me this. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you.

The End