Her Alien Protector: A Sci-fi Romance

Part 28

Rigel

Ava is withdrawn. She has been this way for days,

I fill her food bowl with a wide variety of fruits, including ones she likes. "Kata Ava."

Ava reacts to the food the way she has to everything else. She lays on her blanket and faces the wall, ignoring me and the bowl.

I don't pressure her to eat (not this time), but I reread the entirety of the pet manual, Your Human and You. It is when I get to the section about the importance of socializing and exercising pets that I realize yet again, I have been neglectful of her.

So, during my lunch break, I take Ava to the park. Initially, she sits at my feet, looking at a clump of grass.

"Go play, Ava," I say wondering in what ways I am failing her now.

There's a peeping sound. Ava looks up. The little rahoni flies around her and when she opens her arms, the animal goes straight to her.

"Glow Ball," she says, hugging the little animal.

"We wondered how your pet and you were doing," says a familiar voice. It's Delphinus, Glow Ball's owner.

"Have you met Sagitta's pet," asks Delphinus.

I turn my head, only now seeing Sagitta, the owner of the horrid pet that scratched Ava. Unlike the last time I saw Sagitta, there are fewer scratches on his arms.

I look about, wondering if I should swoop Ava into my arms before Sagitta's pet springs out. "Oh no, where is it?"

Delphinus pats my arm. "Ah, there is it. Your pet has already found it."

"Guinea pig," says Ava, excitedly holding up what looks like a plump rodent while the rahoni swoops around her.

"Snuffy," Ava excitedly calls to an animal that looks like a tangled shrub.

The tangled shrub as I have dubbed the animal eagerly wags its large ears and brings me a ball over and over again. It isn't until I lob the ball far away and the shrub chases after it. If only the shrub were the only one to bother me because when I sit on the bench, it is as if the other pets are drawn to me, wanting to sit in my lap, flap around my head, or bring that infernal ball back to me to have me throw it again.

Right before I leave, Delphinus tells me the times they meet each day in the pet park.

Park time is for me and Ava, not all these scourges and their annoying pets, except for the first time in days, Ava is talkative and engaged, which is a response I have been unable to elicit in a while.

I need Ava to get better. I want her to be like she was before. Maybe this is the way?

So, for Ava, I change my schedule and establish new routines—meeting with these pet owners and their pets in the park and on some nights (like tonight) bringing Glow Ball into our home for sleepovers.

With Glow Ball in our home, Ava sleeps well, sheltered under my wing. I do not, since the rahoni digs its claws into my hair or the back of my wings and glows.

In the morning, I'm tired and grouchy. I don't think I can work and go back and forth from work to home and to the park during a lunch break, so I take Ava and the rahoni with me to work.

My workday is extra stressful, mainly because of Kayla's new computer program to implement some sort of program to identify pets at risk for abuse by using an algorithm (not that I know what she's talking about), but since this is a secret program and she wants to ensure they are properly screened, she sends those owners and pets to me. That means my workday is full of hostile scourge owners and stressed pets.