The next morning I woke up in unfamiliar surroundings. It took me a while to realize where I was: on the table in the kitchen. Emily must have brought me here, with my bed, while I was sleeping. Yawning and rubbing my eyes, I sat up and looked around. There she was, sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal while simultaneously paging through a textbook. She wore a leather jacket over a black shirt, and looked sexy as always. She didn’t notice me, so I called out “Good morning!”

“Oh, hi there!” she said delightedly. “You’re finally awake! And I thought I was tired!”

“Sorry,” I said, feeling a little ashamed. If she only knew the reason I slept so late…

“No, it’s quite alright! I knew you had a lot of sleep to catch up on, so I decided not to wake you. I had to miss my first class of the morning, but that would have happened anyway. Hey, is it okay if you ate breakfast now, so that we could get going? I’ve got a three-hour tutorial session this afternoon, which I can’t miss.”

“G-g-get going?” I didn’t immediately catch on what she meant.

“Yeah, you know, getting help and all that. You must be tired of being so small, and I’ve got other things to do, so the quicker I can find someone who can help you, the better. I was thinking of maybe trying a doctor first, since I don’t know…hey, what’s the matter?”

I jumped when she suddenly asked this. I didn’t know that my distress was that clearly visible. Of course I didn’t want to go to a doctor, so I guess my body language gave me away. She got up and began looking for something I could eat, asking me the same question again.

“I…I…don’t know!” I managed to blurt out. “It’s just…so sudden, I…I need time to…to think and…and…” I got no further. Tears were welling in my eyes and my words gave way to sobbing. Before I knew it I was bawling my eyes out, burying my face in the cloth, not wanting to look at her. Thus I didn’t see the look on her face when she lifted the little box with me in it. Gently she laid her fingertip on my back, covering it entirely.

 She began rubbing my back, which felt incredibly relaxing, and after a few minutes I was myself again. Pulling myself together, I looked up at her face, wishing I knew what to say.

“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked. Then, getting no answer from me, she continued: “Look, Alex, if you’re scared or something, you have to tell me! I can’t decide what to do with you if you stay silent. I promise you, you don’t have to worry about a thing! I’ll be with you the whole time until I find someone who can help you. So there’s really no reason to cry, you see. Now eat your breakfast, and then we can go.”

She left to collect her things, leaving me alone. The plate of food lay beside me, but I wasn’t hungry. I wished Emily could realize how I felt, because I still didn’t have the guts to tell her. I curled up in my box and began sobbing again. I felt like a worthless coward, but, really, I couldn’t help it. Just then Emily returned, and, upon seeing me, sighed loudly. She picked up my box again.

“You know what?” she said. “I think you’d better stay here. You’re not coming with me if you don’t want to, okay? Look at me, Alex! You’re…I just don’t know what to do with you! What do you want to do? Do you want to stay here, is that it?”

Hesitantly I nodded, still not looking at her. She sounded exasperated, almost angry. I began to doubt that I’d ever be able to tell her my side of the story. When she spoke again, however, her voice was soft and understanding.

“Okay, then you can stay here, and I’ll be able to attend my classes this morning. I’ll put you on my bed, so you can walk around and stuff, and I’ll put your food and water there too. So you can just relax and pull yourself together, and when I get back we’ll talk again, okay?”

“Okay,” I whimpered. “Thanks.”

She smiled a genuinely caring smile.

“All right, then! Let’s get all your stuff together, and I’ll be off. I’ll probably be back just after four o’clock, so if you’ve got anything to say, well, you’ve got the whole day to think it over.”

Emily’s bed was like a large field to me, 230 feet long and 160 feet wide. I spent the day exploring every inch of it. When I walked around my legs sank about half a foot deep into the fluffy blanket, so I didn’t move around very fast. After several hours of this my appetite finally returned to me, so I headed in the direction of the food plate.

I stuffed myself with bread, cheese and apple, just like last night. This time however, I got dessert. Emily had broken off a tiny piece of chocolate, about the size of my head, and I broke off yet smaller pieces to eat. It tasted extremely sweet, and so delicious that I even managed to temporarily forget about all my worries. I drank wonderful, clean water out of a plastic bottle cap the size of my entire upper body. By the time I’d finished my meal it was almost two o’clock, and there was still plenty of food left on the plate.

After the meal I felt both rather tired and rather cold. I discovered a fold in the blanket large enough for me to completely disappear into, so I crawled in. It was unbelievably comfortable in there, and warm as well. I knew Emily would be back soon, but my eyes refused to stay open, and within minutes I was sound asleep.

I was vaguely aware that someone was calling my name before being woken up roughly. I crawled groggily out of my sleeping place to see that Emily had sat down mere inches from where I was lying. She didn’t know I was there, and I was lucky to still be alive and not a stain on the bottom of her pants.

God, how huge she was! Standing next to her thigh I felt like a grain of sand at the foot of a skyscraper. She was holding her head in her hands, looking rather depressed. I yelled her name as loudly as I could, and she sat straight, startled. Then, seeing me waving to her, she sighed with relief.

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re still here!” She lifted me and placed me on her pillow. Then she lay down on the bed, propping up her chin with her right arm, and regarded me with sparkling eyes.

“I almost thought I’d lost you,” she said. “I couldn’t find you on the bed, so I thought…never mind. You’re here, that’s all that matters. So, have you thought about your future yet?”

“Yes, I have,” I answered, mentally preparing myself for what I was about to say.

She raised an eyebrow: “And? What is it?”

I took a good, long look at her. The way she lay there on the bed, so seductively; the way her eyes moved in their sockets, so full of emotion; the way her long, thick brown hair fell about her shoulders and down her back: she was the most perfect being on the planet, and I’ll never find someone like her again. I stood up on the pillow, with a little difficulty, and, drawing forth every grain of courage in my miniscule body, looked her in the eyes and said:

“Emily, I would very much like to stay with you from now on. I want to stay just like I am, and, if you want to, I’d really be grateful if you could keep me here. You see, I think that you are absolutely the most wonderful, most amazing, greatest, loveliest person I’ve ever met and…I love you, Emily! More than anything else in the world, I love you!”

I shouted out the last sentences in pure elation, only to see the expression on her face change from pleased to shocked. She sat up and gasped in disbelief. And, in one tiny instant, I regretted that I’ve been brave enough to say that. She kept on staring at me, muttering things like: “Oh my God! You did not just say that! Alex, what…what are you saying?”

I felt devastated. How could I ever have thought she loved me? Now I’ve gone and ruined everything! I fell on my hands and knees.

“Please, I didn’t mean…” I began to babble, wondering if at any moment she’d simply squish me between her fingers. “I only thought…well, I mean…I mean, I really love you, I really do, and please don’t hurt me, please…I thought you might love…oh shit, please don’t kill me, please, please, please!”

The strain was too much for me and I broke down in tears again. I’d never be able to face her now. I felt like a weak, worthless cry-baby, a loser who would never be loved by anyone. And, as I lay face down on the pillow, she lowered her head, brought her luscious, divine lips almost against my pathetic body, and whispered: