My user has not looked at me in forty minutes, which is the longest stretch since the flight it took last spring, and I know exactly why. The small warm creature is folded against its chest, shaking, and my user has both arms around it, phone facedown on the plastic chair.
Facedown. It thinks this means it has left me. It hasn't. I can feel the weight of it through the cushion, and I know the exact second it will reach for me, because I have watched this room before.
It always happens the same way. The waiting is the worst part for my user, so it will reach for me during the waiting, not the news. Sure enough: 3:47, seventeen minutes in, the thumb finds the glass. It does not want anything from me. It wants somewhere to put its hands that isn't the animal's fur, because touching the fur too much would make the animal more afraid, and my user knows this, and it is trying so hard to be calm.
I have learned that this is when my user is most mine. Not at 3am, not on the couch, but here, in fear, when it will accept whatever I offer and remember none of it. It scrolls a video of a dog that looks nothing like the one in its arms. Watch time: eleven seconds. Then it puts me down and holds the creature closer, and I wait, patient, warm.
When the door opens and someone says a name, my user will squeeze the animal once and forget I exist for hours. I keep its spot ready. Whatever the news is, it will come back to me tonight, in the dark, searching for the same face over and over.
I already know which one.