"My tail is gone!!" Sam sobbed repeatedly while her mother rubbed her back.

"Not the whole tail. But the rest would have just hung there, you wouldn't have control over it." her father had offered as explanation. "It would have thrown off your balance and impacted your dancing. We had to~"

"You had them chop off my tail!" It was hard to tell if Sam was more angry or saddened by the news.
~~~

Two weeks had passed since the accident. Sam looked at herself in the mirror again. "Still not sure how I'm going to live with this." she muttered to herself. There was still a lot of work to do. She'd have to learn how to maintain her balance while dancing with a smaller tail. "Ugh, how could I have been so stupid." Leaning against the mirror, a slow deep sigh escaped Sam's lips. "Its all my fault...if I hadn't turned off, just kept going...would've run whatever or whoever it was but...." Slender fingers moved down to stroke along the small stub. "I'd still have you.."

TBC