My dearest Isabelle,

I'm so sorry, from the bottom of my heart, that you have to go through such a thing. I wish that I could make everything better for you in a single moment. I would hold you in my arms and block the world out all day and all night if it would help you in the slightest. Please let the time between our last conversations be the least of your worries. I'm not upset at all. I just want to make sure you're okay.

Digby has not repeated any part of your situation to me, and therefore I must admit that I wasn't aware that he knew about it at all. That being said, if he really does know, then I'm surprised he hasn't stepped up to do what he can to help you out of this, considering he told me himself that he would rather throw himself into danger than to see you get hurt. Maybe he didn't quite receive the message in the way you had tried to imply over the phone and doesn't understand the severity of the situation.

I promise on everything I've ever known that you will find your way out of this problem and I will be here to help you every single step of the way. Unfortunately, I have to agree with you when you say it won't be easy, but I have no doubts that you'll reach the end when the time is right. You need to be very careful with what you do with the information you have and remember four crucial things before you make your first moves.

Recognize your comfort zone and never let anyone, including him, invalidate it. Even if he tries to force you or manipulate you to remain under his control, you have the power to fight against it. Remember that you do not owe him anything and if you feel the need to break away, you entirely have the right to do so. You are strong, you are powerful, and you are capable of everything you set your mind to.

Don't give him any reason to suspect you. Whatever you do, you must always create as much distance as you can from him before the moment arrives to stand up and fight for yourself. Always get the information first before you declare a strategy, otherwise you will never be truly prepared, and do whatever you can to keep him from figuring out that you're on his trail. Once you have all of the information to be able to shield yourself, then you'll decide your best move.

Stay close to your friends and make sure you keep yourself surrounded so that you keep yourself safe. Trying to solve a problem such as this while you're alone will only bring disaster. Even if he does want or try to hurt you, he can't do anything while you're under the protection of your friends. They will keep you safe and they will never let anything happen to you.

Remember that I am always here for you, no matter the outcome. Please let me know if there is anything you need and I will have it done for you. I can rearrange my schedule to take some time off of work to come and see you if you would like me to. I know that with the distance it won't always be easy, but I'm going to do everything in my power to protect you, and that's a promise.

Lottie

On the twentieth of December in the year 1995, a young, loving shih tzu married couple gave life to twin puppies. The older twin was a girl they gave the name of Isabelle, and the younger one a boy they called Digby. The mother and father were wholeheartedly convinced that their children could achieve anything in the entire world that they would set their minds to and that they were born to shine like constellations in the night sky, and for several years into their lives, the children were taught to believe the same.

They had been unstoppable. They had the entire universe in their sights and they would always be prepared for any adventure that was waiting for them. Given the opportunity, they would have ruled the world. But they were much too young to see what the world truly was, and after all, it was much too easy to paint a future of rainbows and success in one's mind when they had nothing but a blind dream to change their world and a silly crush on a friend they met in preschool. It wasn't like one could simply count their way down to a happy ending.

As the years went on, the stars in the sky that illuminated the darkness of night were something that held special resemblances in the shih tzu family and appeared in many lessons that burned into their minds to accompany the teachings provided by life. The mother and father taught their children extraordinary, often profound and not easily understandable, ideas and expressions such as how finding the brightest stars was the finest blessing you could receive and that to wish upon a shooting star was to become so lost in its beauty that you blind yourself to the fact that no matter how much you hope for good fortune, it will never provide enough light that you need in your life. But something they never told them was what happened when stars fall.

And then, when the stars fell, it felt like the entire world had collapsed with them. The younger dog had accomplished his dream of putting his name into the world, but it had destroyed him and sent him down an endless spiral of stress and even depression. The older one was driven out of her own home, abandoning everything she had ever known with the intention of protecting her brother in the only way she knew how, and that was when her reality was turned upside down on her.

My name was Isabelle, the older of the shih tzu twins. At eighteen years old, I didn't live the life of rainbows and success I had predicted for myself. After being on my own since leaving behind my family at seventeen, I'd learned what it truly meant to fear, I couldn't find a reason to trust anyone until they thoroughly proved to me that they weren't going to try and harm me, and I was stuck by myself in a town that I couldn't seem to escape from. There was only one animal physically by my side that I could genuinely call my friend, several acquaintances that I still kept an eye on, and someone pulling my life along by a string that I couldn't break away from to save myself. But then again, as my parents had once told me, it was only when one dreamed of dancing with another that they could realize how much that dance meant to them.

5. Recognize your comfort zone and never let anyone, including him, invalidate it.

I should have known that nothing would ever be the same after I discovered the hostile side of Redd that he had done so well to hide from me until now. In fact, it would have been completely ridiculous to think otherwise. Maybe I also should have known that for the next several months, I'd be forced to my edge for days at a time, cautiously anticipating the worst and waiting for Redd to come to the realization of what I was plotting against him. What I had known from the very start was that it was going to rip who I had once been right out of my soul, sacrificing the innocence that had started to spill out of me since the end of my childhood and running my emotions into the ground to keep myself from going through excessive panic attacks at what still lay in the unknown and to prepare myself for the harsh future ahead of me. Maybe that was what should have told me that nothing would ever be the same.

The town was no longer the same place I had come to visit when I was seventeen, but it was the only place I could come close to calling home. The colors that made up each little part of the town with each season that crawled by seemed much more dull and lifeless and much less memorable than it had been before. The days came and went but never stuck with me, slipping out of my subconscious as soon as each one had come to an end and leaving a massive void in the place of my final several months in that place. Even in the moments that escaped my memory, time stopped for no one, and I was no exception.

The months came and went, and I grew older with each one. Every week brought me closer to my next birthday, a distinct reminder that my time of youth was slipping through my grasp, and I could do nothing. The pleasant summer heat was only temporary, peaking no later than mid-July and descending into the bitter chill that September brought in autumn before all life and greenery in the town died out. Before I knew it, whirls of snowfall had thrust the town into the winter season for another time. And this time, I wasn't sure how I would manage to get through it.

On December twentieth of the year 2014, my nineteenth birthday came around. Just the thought of being surrounded by so many animals for a number of hours at a time was enough to turn my stomach and it was clear that there was no part of me that could have mentally handled a party such as the one that had been thrown for me for my eighteenth year. Because of this, for the first time in my life I spent the day completely alone, locked inside the limited walls of my house with the acknowledgement that I was by myself in a world with no job and no purpose at the age of nineteen.

If only time would just stop, at least for long enough for me to make a real change in my life before I could get any older than I already was. Maybe then the looming thoughts of my persistent failure would cease to accompany any passing wonders of the future. At this point, I was waiting for a change that would never happen.

4. Don't give him any reason to suspect you.

I had known well from the first day of May, the very day that I had met with Maple at the restaurant, that my friendship with Redd was done for. I had known it right from the moment that she gave me her final warning, and yet every day that I couldn't bring myself to end it caused it to live on in vain. There were no words in this universe that could have helped me out of this crisis no matter how many different ways I tried to string them together, circling my mind without end for months at a time. Lottie had stated in her first letter that this was something that wouldn't come to me until the moment was right, and often I was forced to withdraw myself from the pressing need to find a solution and remind myself of her words. I wasn't ready to take those steps just yet; I had a mission to follow.

As Lottie ordered, I obeyed. I kept my distance from Redd at all costs. I avoided him when I could and concealed my face and identity when I could not. The warnings I received to get away from him lessened dramatically with his absence by my side as the year continued to steadily unfold, and yet my caution lay unwavered. Redd's appearance on the side of the street went on in its inconsistent, uncertain manner, leaving me guessing with each day whether or not I would need to put my secrecy to the test, and that was what my weeks became over time.

The most dangerous possibilities that my failure, or even my success, could hold frequently poisoned my dreams in the depths of the night. If I was to be successful, I reflected once or twice, then I would be losing a friend, but if I would fail, I would be losing myself. The thought that I would be completely bound to a connection that was designed to mercilessly tear me apart inside piece by piece beyond any of my control made it feel as though a hundred ton weight sat upon my hollow chest. In the vulnerability that enveloped me like a pair of arms in the presence of dread, one thing was clear: I had to succeed. I had to overcome this. I couldn't bear to see a future built on the foundations of such a failure.

But I wasn't ready for the end yet. I wasn't sure that I would ever be ready. For the next several months after my last meeting with Redd, I wished for nothing more than to simply shrink away into the void of my existence and wait for the problem to pass me by, no matter how long it took. Maybe if I waited long enough, the entire trainwreck of an issue would fade away on its own.

And maybe that was why, once our meetings ceased in May, we never crossed paths again. At least, not for the next nine months that followed.

3. Stay close to your friends and make sure you keep yourself surrounded so that you keep yourself safe.

"Friends" wasn't exactly a word I would have used to describe my neighbors. They were no more friends than they were strangers. Nowadays, I hardly thought of them as either of the two, but more like the players in an active game of trust. The same faces came and went, but most of them meant nothing to me. Where I saw faces, I saw labyrinths of subconscious strategy and the endless storage of unknown information. Putting the wrong information onto the wrong holder could have meant the end for me. I needed to play my cards right or everything would fall apart.

I used to think that friendship was almost a guaranteed factor of life or at least something the more you had of it the better your days were, like when I was still a few months into my seventeenth year going out on my own while knowing nothing of the world, but I knew better than that now. Friendship was something you had to consider very carefully; it was something you had to consider as carefully as making an enemy, as the wrong moves could easily turn it into that instead. And so, I did consider it carefully. I frequently evaluated the connections I still had and only shared information on my situation when I needed to. If I did not know someone well, I trained myself to the default of hesitation towards trust until they proved me otherwise. I couldn't let myself go through what I was going through with Redd with someone else for a second time.

Another thing that I came to experience for myself was that not all good friendships stuck around, either. I had a limited number of individuals to confide in as it was, but that number became slimmer as even Maple eventually disappeared from the town's streets without a word. I'd once picked up in conversation that she had left to explore different environments as she had the first time, but I truthfully couldn't care less what she was doing, since her absence to her support was an absence all the same.

But never once during the time I spent doing everything I could to disconnect with Redd was I ever completely alone. Goldie didn't leave my side for a second and was there to help me whenever I needed her without fail. She was the only one I fully trusted with my situation now, at least of those in person. She was my closest ally, my protector, maybe even my best friend. I asked for her guidance often and she helped me figure out what to do every time.

"What do I do if he tries to force me to stay with him? I don't know how to defend myself," I had confessed once after I had stopped by Goldie's house to make distant plans over hot tea.

"With any luck, you won't have to, unless you mean by using physical harm to protect yourself. You should never inflict pain onto someone else simply to prove a point," Goldie had told me.

"What should I do instead?" I had asked her.

"If he tries to force you to stay, give him a piece of your mind. You don't deserve to be put through that and he needs to know," Goldie had advised.

"What if he tries to lash out when I do that?" I had tried another question as the first worry of a physical fight breaking out still clouded my mind.

"Then send him my way," Goldie had instructed. "And I'll give him a piece of mine."

It was dark times in this town. If anything was clear to me, it was that I wasn't the same animal I had been when I first set foot here and would never be anything close again. With so many thoughts and worries already crammed into my head of the extremely risky mission I had bound myself to, the uncertainty of my near future, and even my own genuine safety, I couldn't afford to think about anything different. In times like these, with all precautions considered, I could hardly do anything more than just exist. And in times like these, I realized that I didn't have a clue who I was anymore.

2. Remember that I am always here for you, no matter the outcome.

On the first day of May, the day I sent out my written cry for help to Lottie, the truth had become clear that I had made a terrible mistake, a mistake that haunted me for the next several months that followed. I had strayed dangerously close to completely destroying the life of someone who had done nothing but show me support and belonging, a consequence that could never be undone, and it would have all been because of me. I wanted nothing more than to rewrite the mistakes I had made, to try again and get it right this time, but now an eternal scream of agony and regret wrenched the depths of my soul at what I had caused. I didn't know if I would even receive a response from Lottie after what I'd put her through; all I knew for sure was that I didn't deserve it. It felt as though I was holding my breath from that day on, waiting to find out whether or not she would spare an answer at all, and I was struck with an almost disorienting flood of relief to find an envelope in my mailbox a week later.

The words that built Lottie's new letter seemed to etch into my soul, circling my mind repeatedly for the next wide stretch of days. It even kept me awake one night, memories of fragments of sentences darting through my alert mind in the room lit only by thin strips of moonlight. As I lay deep into the night pulling word after word from the corners of my mind, I let them sit in my thoughts for a while and tried to hear them in Lottie's patient voice. The sound was distant in my memory, but even after all this time, still reachable.

I recalled at some point in the night that Lottie had wished that she could hold me in her arms all night and all day if it would make things better for me. With the distance, we both knew well that this was impossible. Traces of the memory of our last embrace still lingered in my mind—It had been the early opening of the day that Digby was being sent off to work for the first time and seemed like it had happened lifetimes ago, and it had been the last time we ever saw each other before I abandoned her.

I figured that being held was what I needed now, if it would help me feel remotely safe again. But requesting for Lottie to come out and see me here was completely out of the question; closer to me meant closer to Redd and I couldn't force that upon her for anything, even if it was just for her to hold me until I felt safe. No matter how much I ached to see her again, it just wasn't an option anymore.

Screw it, I had thought to myself after that statement and had proceeded to clutch one of the pillows on my bed close to me as if she were really there beside me, blocking out the world and holding me in her arms as she had promised while I drifted off to sleep.

From there began the extensive period of months where our writing to each other became much more regular. From the time that made up the remainder of my eighteenth year and even shortly into my nineteenth year, discovering an envelope in the mailbox, surrendering to a rush of comfort like warm water surging through me at the sight, and seating myself at the dining room table to scribble down a response developed into a sense of routine. Over time, I gradually began to piece together a realization that by keeping in touch with me so devotedly, Lottie wasn't just supporting me—She was rescuing me. I could have been stranded all by myself in the unknown of a crisis such as this and she still cared enough to rescue me from that even after what I almost put her through. What she was willing to sacrifice for me to be safe was an immense idea to realize, skimming the corners of my mind for countless days as I tried to process it all. Not long after this had made itself clear to me, catching sight of an envelope waiting for me in the mailbox provoked an emotion a bit different than relief.

It was a gradual change, so I hadn't even picked up on it whenever it had first begun to change. As soon as I was aware of it, it was stuck inside of my mind like magnets to metal, but even after clinging to my thoughts I discovered that there was no good way to describe in words just what I was feeling. Fluttery in the stomach. Shaky beyond my own control. Sometimes even an abnormal hammering of my heart in the casing of my chest if I hadn't been expecting a response on the day it arrived. Eventually, I even began to check the mailbox every day, sometimes more than once a day, eyes prying for an envelope revealing that Lottie had sent something my way. And just like that, she had forged herself a frequent presence in my thoughts and for whatever reason, nothing could tell me why.

Our writing went back and forth for numerous months and over time, the thought of receiving mail from Lottie began to hold a special place in my mind. She had quite a specific and compelling way with words, I soon came to realize; the way her phrases were put together was almost like poetry and held a touch of a formal tone, even while she wasn't working. I'd noticed it once or twice before but much more often now as I read everything she sent to me as soon as it arrived. As the months crept by, I was slowly coming to terms with how much she really meant to me, how I anticipated her next words so intently, the way my aimless daydreams of what the future could hold stopped passing through my head without her fulfilling some part of it.

But as much as I imagined spending life by her side, she was still entire seas away and there was no way for me to see her. This was a different thought that slipped through my mind one too many times. In the unknown of what the future could have been, I couldn't help venturing the possibility that I would never see her again. For the first time since my first couple of months in this town, just a few days after the new year had opened up once again, I thoroughly considered the idea of going back home.

One night a ways into the month of January of 2014, only about three weeks after I had turned nineteen years old, my mind pulled me along on a journey of thoughts as I lay awake. At one point in the night I'd arranged my pillows at the end of the bed instead to glance up at the wide window above my headboard to be able to peer out and see the stars in the sky above. The stars looked almost brighter that night, glittering against the darkness that was the sky and holding my peaceful focus as I sprawled out on top of my blankets under the soft light. And I just thought.

I thought about what it would feel like to return to Lottie. I pictured the way I would break into a run the minute I saw her and throw my arms around her in the tightest hug I could give for everything she had done for me. Something about the thought of a firm embrace after being separated from her for so long almost sent tears springing to my eyes, a hundred-ton weight sitting on my chest in longing for the day I would finally see her face again.

I thought about the stars above me, how they seemed so close and yet so far, almost like I could try to reach out and hold them in my paws. I couldn't help but wonder if Lottie was looking at the same stars, watching them carefully just as I was, and this made it feel as though we were connected in some way. All of a sudden, I couldn't tear a smile from my face, gazing up at the star-sprinkled sky as a ripple of warm comfort fluttered through me. I could never be completely certain why or how she was able to bring out such emotions in me even when the entire world felt to be crashing down on me, but that night, I didn't question it.

Wow, I realized that night. She hasn't made me feel this way in years.

1. Keep in mind what has brought you this far, and it will bring you to the end.

About halfway through the month of February, a letter from Lottie showed up in my mailbox like any other. I'd managed to keep my distance from Redd for about nine months by this point and was seeking for that number to only continue to grow. In fact, I had even somehow managed to keep myself from thinking of him and our damaged friendship so excessively in the beginning of the new year, but that was until the most recent letter arrived and everything tumbled down on me once again.

Something in Lottie's most recent letter stood out in my memory this time. We'd been keeping up a steady conversation for our past few writings about the fast-paced rhythm of time and life, something that had a vast gray area of exploration for anyone who chose to consider it, and what to do with who and what we left behind in history only to return to us as nostalgia for a better time. I'd been struggling through this crisis especially recently, many of my nights overcome by the haunting of what no longer was, and since it was a highly rare occurrence for Lottie to break down emotionally or let her emotions get the better of her, I'd asked her for advice on how to keep my head up through life's challenges. Her newest letter brought a particular beautiful, cryptic sentence that still echoed in the depths of my subconscious: Keep in mind what has brought you this far, and it will bring you to the end.

One bleak, frigid February night, I thought about this a bit too much. I ran the idea through my mind and wore it down to its limit because I knew that what had brought me this far was gone. The only reason I was out here in the middle of nowhere was because I had made the choice of leaving home for Digby. The only reason I kept myself put in this town for so many months, even years, was because I had made the choice of staying for Redd. The only reason I still had hope for the future at all was because Lottie showed me why I should. Everything that had once pushed me forward was gone and there was absolutely nothing I could do.

That night, I needed nothing more than to escape reality, life, all of it. For just one night, I needed to return to the one thing that had been lifting me up from the moment I stepped foot off of my home island and out into the world. That night, without a second thought, I put myself on a train with a journey out of the town as far as I could go and rode it until the final stop just so that I could find the stars again.

The dull lights glowing through the train car throbbed against my tired eyes well into the night, the rhythmic clicking and hustling over the tracks almost lulling me to sleep if my mind hadn't been firing with thoughts. The sky outside of the windows was pitch black as the dots of starlight gradually began to peek through, but I could only strain to see them through the flashing brightness from passing streetlights. Seconds grew to minutes and then into hours and I was farther from home with every blink of an eye. As if I wasn't tense enough, the thought alone of straying too far and not being able to find my way back sent a clench to my stomach that only tightened the farther away I became and a dampening to my eyes as I wavered on the edge of a complete breakdown.

After I had sat on the train for what must have been longer than an hour, the gulped sobs in my throat becoming increasingly nearer to finally bursting out, I set off from a station terribly far from home and was on my feet again in a deep, unfamiliar field of grass. Besides the unseen crickets that chirped tirelessly in the dead of night, the only sounds I could catch were the swishing of the grass my ankles pushed through it and the unbroken pounding of my feet against the ground as I ran through the cover of darkness with only the stars above to light my path.

Wherever I had ended up, I was the only living being for as far as my eyes could reach through the deep shadows of night and even a glimpse of the open sky nearly thrust me off my feet with disorientation. The jet-black sky was a dome above me, encasing the world all the way past the edges of my sight with millions, billions of stars stretched across the darkness, and just looking up caused the world around me to sway as if I would lose my footing and fall. Just like that, my smothered sobs began to spill, tears already slipping down my face and a soft whimper escaped from me as I began to break down, but still my feet carried me further and further from the station.

But as the acknowledgment of how far I was travelling from the station flicked through my mind, memories of what had brought me here in the first place instantly swelled in my thoughts again. Everything that I had once had and once felt, everything that was now gone from my life. Everything I thought was going to last forever had already been ripped from me in the moments I needed it most. I had spent my entire puppyhood wholeheartedly convinced that I had no future without Digby by my side, that we were going to be together for the rest of our lives no matter if we succeeded in making names for ourselves or not, and now he was gone. I had once thought that the longest friendships were always the strongest and my closeness with Lottie would be the same, but now she was gone. I had once thought that my friendship with Redd, that beautiful yet so cursed companionship, was destined to last forever by the way he made me feel like I was safe even while everything fell apart, and now he was gone. Almost everyone I'd ever loved and cared about was gone and I just couldn't afford to lose anything else.

A violent cough sent me doubled over from the weight of my tears and my feet finally came to a stop as I weakly gasped for air through my cough. Heavy sobs still escaped from me even at the trailing end of the cough, leaving my chest to feel as though it were caving in on itself, and my head had begun to throb with a piercing ache. I shot a quick glance back over my shoulder at the station from which I had come, ignoring my pulsing headache, but still spotting the distant glow of the streetlights sent me off bolting through the grass again. I wasn't far enough.

The grass sloped in front of me in the dip of a small hill. Upon noticing this, I staggered into a slower pace no quicker than a brisk walk, descending to the base of the hill, but was evidently still too fast in my rush to reach the bottom as my feet slipped out from under me about halfway down. Instantly, my arms flailed out from my sides as if trying to find something to grab to cushion my fall, but since there was nothing to hold, I crashed down onto my back on the side of the hill, my head smacking against the firm ground.

With the air that was thrust from my lungs the moment I hit the ground again came the burst of heavier tears. Wailing sobs tore from my throat as I slowly climbed onto my knees again, tears streaming down the sides of my face that I was unable to restrain, but some part of me held me down to the ground instead of rising once again. The throbbing in my head was impossible to ignore now, but even as I gripped it as tightly as I could manage, the agony refused to ease. Knowing well that there was nobody to hear, nobody to care, I clutched my head and forced a strangled scream through the bitter silence that had poisoned the depths of my chest for far too long.

I didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't want to be here anymore. I didn't want to suffer through the consequences of not leaving this town when I had the chance anymore. If only everything was as simple as when I had first arrived here, oblivious to everything that was to come, or when I hadn't felt the need to come here in the first place. Or when I had a real home at all.

As soon as my tears had softened enough for me to breathe properly, I removed my shaking paws from my head and got to my feet again, feeling as though I'd just been torn apart skin to bone. As the clouded thoughts of the breakdown I was gradually freeing myself from slowly began to give way to rational contemplation, my current reality began to sink in once again like sharpened fangs. I was completely alone in a field in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night and had no clear idea whatsoever how far away my home was. I was here only by a hasty decision made through a tormented mindset and a desperate attempt for some kind of escape.

An escape from Redd. An escape from the fate still yet to come. Just the thought of it threatened to hurl me back into another crying fit, as I could tell by the way my breath turned shallow as tearful whimpers clung to them for another time. Unless he had somehow managed to figure out in the time that we'd been separated the agreement I made with Lottie, then he still didn't have the slightest idea what I was planning against him. But what if he did know? What if he had known all this time and was already formulating his own plans against me in retaliation, even beyond my knowledge?

Breaking my spiraling thoughts of Redd, my focus was immediately snatched away to the endless stars above my head after catching sight of something I couldn't quite identify just out of the corner of my eye. It could have been movement of some sort, perhaps an airplane passing through, or maybe just a simple glimmer. In a single moment, the wail of my tears had become nothing more than a whisper, intently examining the sky for whatever it was to happen again.

And then I saw it. It was a shooting star, darting across the sky for a brief moment before fading into the night again. Even after it had disappeared from sight, I couldn't help but think of what Mom had once taught me about shooting stars, her voice still drifting through my deepest memories. To wish upon a shooting star is to become so lost in its beauty that you blind yourself to the fact that no matter how much you hope for good fortune, it will never provide enough light that you need in your life, her patient voice resurfaced in my thoughts. And that is the reason why you should never chase one in order to try and make it so.

I didn't have the faintest idea whether or not wishing on a star could actually fix something or benefit me in some unlikely way, but at this point, I was willing to try anything that was presented to me. I drew in a deep breath of the midnight air to calm myself, the soft breeze chilled against my tearstained face as it danced through the tall grass at my feet, and despite the situation, shut my eyes in focus.

Please, I just want another try, I pleaded internally to whoever could listen. That's all I want.

That's all I want.

. . .

The soft light of morning cast over my blankets from the window above my bed gently eased me from sleep. A soreness still throbbed behind my eyes from the lack of sleep I'd gotten even as I resurfaced in consciousness again, so I reached up to rub them firmly, letting the day start to sink in as memories of last night left their faint touch in my mind.

I couldn't quite fully recall when I had arrived at home again, just bits and pieces of broken memory. After my breakdown in the field had passed me by and my mind was finally clear again, I had retraced my steps back to the station and stood to wait for the next train back to take me home. I hadn't had any way to keep track of time, but it must have been almost half an hour that I'd been standing in the dark, peering over the tracks for any sign that the train was coming. Entering the train again and then exiting far later on had slipped from my memory as it had been the point where I was surrendering to a wave of tiredness from the late night, but somehow, the memory of sitting on the cushioned bench and leaning on the window beside me to doze off for a while was still distinct in my mind.

I drew in a deep breath to help wake myself up, reseating myself at the edge of the bed to allow for a satisfying stretch and departed from the sun-kissed bedroom with the intention of finding out what time it was. Soft lights danced across the space between the dining room of the kitchen as well as I emerged from the hallway, illuminating the rooms in a way that was almost like a breath of hope and seeping in through the closed curtains near the table. Seeking to let in more light from the new morning, I first brought myself to the window and yanked open the curtains to find a fresh coat of snow decorating the world outside under a pale blue sky, but at the register of an unusual sound I paused. Had I heard nearby conversations outside of the window?

After a few moments of quiet listening, it became clear to me that yes, I'd definitely heard something, but not talking. It bounced against the surface of the window with the rhythm of music, projected from somewhere close by outside of the house. Someone was awake at this hour and playing music in the street.

I only knew of a few animals who enjoyed being up this early in the morning and one of them was Goldie, considering that she had once told me that she found comfort in waking up with nature. If she was already out and about for the morning, then I should at least stop by and say hello. My gaze dropped instantly to my current attire, finally recalling that I'd been so exhausted by the time I had arrived home last night that I had just collapsed into bed in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, but I figured that this wouldn't be a problem as long as I put on my winter coat. And so, I made a mental note to myself to get some breakfast as soon as I returned back home again, slipped on my puffy emerald green coat that I'd dumped onto one of the dining chairs after arriving last night, and headed out the door.

The frigid mid-February air nipped at my cheeks and paws as I emerged through the doorway, yanking the door shut behind me and descending down the wooden staircase as a slight shiver darted down my spine. The upbeat music that had drawn me out of the house was clearer now as I stepped out onto the snow that held no more than a few sets of footprints before mine and since I was closer now, I was able to identify that it wasn't actually coming from somewhere in the street but in the campsite at the bottom of the hill. I flipped open the mailbox to check for mail, though I'd just received a letter two or three days ago, and finding it empty, I shut the little door and continued on my way to follow the existing footsteps to lead me to the source of the music and its listener.

"... the bubblegum pops, I want you to..."

Making my way down the steep hill and putting footprints into the snow wherever I stepped brought me to recognize not only the song, a romantic pop song titled Bubblegum K.K. that was a popular favorite among fans of the artist known as K.K. Slider, but also a couple of voices joined in unison to sing along to the tune. One of these voices I could quickly determine without much of a thought was the sweet, almost soft singing voice of Goldie, but the other belonged to a boy who sounded to be somewhere in his mid-teenage years.

Venturing further into the assemblage of pale tents earned me the ability to spot a particularly large silver stereo positioned on top of the clean snow to pump out music while two dogs stood around it, one familiar and one less so. One of them was Goldie, wrapped snugly in her usual pale brown coat as she lightheartedly followed the tune that the stereo provided. The other was a dog who easily matched Goldie's enthusiasm who, at first glance, I thought was of black and white coloration, but in coming closer realized that it was just his ears that were dark and his face was wrapped almost entirely in white bandages except for one yellow eye that peered out. My heart plunged into my stomach like a stone into water, thoughts darting through my head at the sight: Was he okay? Was he hurt? Was he in pain?

As I neared the area to join the group and offer my greetings, it was the unfamiliar dog that caught sight of me first. Despite being mostly concealed by bandages, the excitement that fell upon his face at the sight of me for whatever reason was clear as day, and he jumped to eagerly shake Goldie's arm to get her attention. Goldie's voice immediately broke off from song, clearly startled by the way the dog had grabbed her so abruptly, and she turned around to face me as I came to a stop at the stereo.

"Oh, good morning, woof!" Goldie greeted me, a beaming smile quickly reaching her face. "I didn't realize you would be up so early."

"I had a bit of a late night, so I didn't get that much sleep," I admitted, thoughts of escaping to a shadow-drowned field to have a good cry piling up in my mind again. I wasn't sure that Goldie would be too happy to know what had caused the late night, so I held my tongue.

"That's unfortunate. I'm sorry that your day had to start like that," Goldie replied, but before I had the chance to respond, she seemed to remember that there was somebody standing beside her as she rested her paw on the dog's arm to introduce him. "By the way, this is Lucky. I don't think you two have been introduced yet."

He doesn't look very lucky, I thought to myself at the name, but didn't dare say it aloud.

"Yeah, my name's Lucky!" The new dog, evidently called Lucky, exclaimed enthusiastically in greeting as his eye squinted in a way that told me he was smiling. His eager, youthful voice was muffled slightly from the bandages wound up on his face. "Goldie's told me so much about you."

"Really?" I said. For a brief moment, Goldie's amber eyes darted towards Lucky before returning to mine as she put on another bright smile.

"Totally! She talks about you all the time," Lucky told me.

"Wow," I mumbled thoughtfully, but I was struggling to find a better response at the unexpected news. The longer that I spoke with Lucky, the more I was becoming certain that he wasn't in pain like I had feared, since there was no hint of pain whatsoever in his voice. When there was nothing more to say in introduction, taking into consideration that he already knew who I was, I put forth a question that had been lingering on the tip of my tongue. "I'm sorry if this is rude, but... Are you okay?"

"Healthy as a dog can be!" Lucky replied cheerfully, but appeared to pause and reconsider his words. "Well, except for the obvious. But I think I'm pretty okay regarding that as well."

"What happened?" I inquired, but Goldie jumped back into the conversation before Lucky had the time to answer the question.

"Oh, he prefers not to talk about it," Goldie explained gently, and Lucky nodded energetically in silent agreement. "He says it was a very difficult time in his life and he just doesn't like to think about it."

"Oh. I'm sorry," I apologized, shifting my focus back to Lucky to examine his bandaged face. Lucky was still smiling brightly, as I could tell by the squinting of his bright yellow eye, but it was in observing his face that I found it had been completely unfamiliar to me until now. "I don't think I've ever seen you around here before, Lucky. Did you come here recently?"

"Yeah, I did!" Lucky burst out, giving another enthusiastic nod. Obviously, he was an animal with an immense amount of energy, especially for this time of morning. "I think Mom and Dad wanted me to create more responsible habits, so they sent me to live in this campsite for a while to learn ways to take care of myself. I got laughed at a lot back home because of my face and didn't really know how to make friends when I got here, but Goldie took me under her wing." Lucky turned his attention to Goldie, studying her for a few seconds before taking hold of her arm as she quietly watched, inspecting her arm in silence before dropping it again and turning back to me. "Or, her arm. She doesn't have wings. I checked."

A small cough of a laugh escaped from my throat at the silliness of needing to check Goldie's arm before a different thought struck me. "Goldie, you live up in the town," I pointed out. "How did you two end up meeting?"

"I go back and forth between staying in the campsite and the town," Goldie explained to me brightly. "I specifically requested to register myself in both a house, how I met you, and a tent, how I met Lucky. Staying in a proper house is good for feeling secure, but it's also nice to return to the basics of life and nature for a while."

Maybe that was something I needed to consider as well. "That makes sense," I agreed.

The song pulsing from the stereo near our feet had returned to its catchy, bouncy chorus once again, and once the conversation had trickled away, I took my silence to listen. Goldie seemed to notice that the music had captured my attention, sparing a glance down at the stereo before looking over at me.

"It's a lovely song, isn't it?" Goldie said. "It has to be one of my favorites."

"What makes it your favorite?" I inquired curiously. It appeared as though the temperature in the air had been slowly dropping in the time since I had left my house, sending another shiver through me and biting at my cheeks, but I ignored it.

"I feel like it genuinely and deeply describes what it feels like to fall in love with another," Goldie told me. "Not many songs are capable of that, I think. This song perfectly captures that heartfelt connection that forms between two souls that are meant to share this special bond for all time."

Lucky had evidently found something of interest in the conversation and was now watching us, wordlessly listening to what was being said. I could tell that Goldie noticed this in the way that she snuck a glance at him after she had finished speaking, but expressed no verbal complaint as she quietly examined her yellow paws for a moment, almost in a shy way, before she lifted her head to address me again.

"Isabelle, have you ever fallen in love?" Goldie asked me.

"Oh, um..." I stumbled over my words from the startling question. For nothing longer than a heartbeat, my mind had been wiped as blank as an empty sheet of paper, but all of a sudden, the very next moment thoughts began to swim through my head. All of a sudden, the only thing that I could even reach in my thoughts was Lottie; just the simple thought of her and her poetic sentences in her writing was enough to set off my heart with a quicker rhythm in my chest. But was that love?

"I don't know," I decided hesitantly. I wasn't too enthusiastic to jump to conclusions and announce that I was in love, and yet something didn't quite settle right with me to say that Lottie felt like nothing more than a friend to me. "Maybe. It's hard to tell."

"What do you mean by that?" Goldie inquired. A faint breeze like ice swept across the snow, causing snowflakes dusting across the coat of snow to dance along the surface.

I brushed back my bangs as they fluttered in front of my eyes, raking my mind for the best way to explain before my words found their way at last. "When I was younger, I used to have a crush on a close friend of mine," I confessed. Goldie watched me patiently, listening for anything I needed to say. "It was just one of those silly crushes you get when you're still learning what love is at all. Nothing too big. I ended up growing out of those feelings eventually, but I think they came back again."

"Oh, I see," Goldie said, giving a short nod as a smile flooded her face again. "Are you two still close?"

"Definitely," I answered. I hardly had to think twice before giving this answer—If there was anything I was sure of, it was that Lottie and I were much closer nowadays than we had used to be, maybe even more than when I had first had feelings for her at about seven or eight years old. If there was anything else I knew, it was that Goldie was aware that I kept in touch with Lottie through writing. "We've actually been sending letters back and forth for the past several months. I haven't told her anything about how I feel."

There was a gentleness in Goldie's unwavering smile, a glimmer in her eyes with an unspoken secret that only existed between us. She knew exactly what I was talking about, even if neither of us said it aloud.

"Well, I wish you all the best in your relationship, whether it stays platonic or becomes romantic," Goldie told me. A silence dropped over the snowy area as the song ejecting from the silver stereo came to an end, but this silence only lasted a few seconds longer before something occurred to Goldie and her eyes widened to deliver the news.

"Oh, have you heard?" Goldie burst out as the next track on the stereo crackled into sound, this time a song of classical piano. "Apollo is moving out today."

I hadn't known Apollo too well, but that was because I'd done well to avoid much social interaction for the past year. Apollo was known as the old, loud eagle of the town who always had a lot of opinions. When I heard his name, I thought of someone who always had something to grumble about, like if something was too noisy or too bright, which was why he didn't see the point of the yearly fireworks—"All they do is hurt your ears. If you just want to see the colors, take a gosh darn walk in the great outdoors!"—but I could tell that he was kind at heart by the way he was always friendly towards me. Now that I was aware that he would be leaving, I should have spent more time getting to know him.

"Really? Do you know why?" I asked.

"No, not in particular," Goldie admitted, but appeared to rethink her words as soon as they came out and changed her answer. "Actually, now that I think about it, he did mention something about wanting to go home. His home before he lived out here, I mean. It makes me feel bad to think about how sad he must be to leave. He's lived in this town even longer than I have, and I've been here for years."

"I'll go and say goodbye," I offered. Considering this was my very last chance to speak with him after he had been so kind to me, it was the best thing I could do for him. After all, it wasn't like I didn't have all morning.

"I think he would appreciate that a lot," Goldie agreed eagerly. "If you hurry, you might be able to catch him before he gets to the airport. He mentioned something about being out of here by eight o'clock."

Fortunately, I managed to intercept Apollo's departure right as he was leaving his house to make his way to the airport. I'd been strolling along the side of the street to approach his house by the number of seventeen just as he was emerging through the door, dressed in a forest green sweater to block out the winter chill. He yanked the door shut after him for the final time, only noticing my presence as he descended down the wooden steps to reach the snowy ground.

"Well, how are you doing today, Isabelle?" Apollo asked politely. I could hear his claws scrape at the wood beneath him as he stepped down to the fresh blanket of snow at the bottom of the stairs.

"I'm fine. Thank you," I said as he paused at the bottom of the steps to watch me, inclined to carry out a conversation even though he had somewhere to be. "I heard you were leaving today."

"Are you here to walk me to the airport?" Apollo joked lightheartedly, allowing an amused smile to slip onto his face.

Another small laugh escaped from my throat at the question. "If you'd like me to," I replied.

"I'm just teasing you, kiddo. But I'd enjoy your company nonetheless," Apollo told me, reaching out to pat my shoulder gently with his wing before shuffling across the snow to start off towards his destination. I walked with him by his side.

For the first few minutes into the walk to the airport, neither of us had anything to say as we drifted along the unseen path side by side. A faint whistle clung to the breeze that skimmed the street and the snow crunched by the weight of every leisurely step taken by my shoes and Apollo's claws. The best words to say goodbye to someone I hardly knew refused to pull themselves to my mind as I wandered in silence, the countless possibilities clouding up my mind, but I didn't have the chance to find something before Apollo eventually spoke up first.

"I want you to remember something, Isabelle," Apollo said at last, turning his focus to me as we continued to stroll along the path. "After I go. You just recently turned eighteen, didn't you?"

"Nineteen," I corrected him. "It was back in December."

"Nineteen, right," Apollo mumbled, nodding slightly in acknowledgment. "Well, I just want you to remember that you have so much time ahead of you to decide the path you want to take in life and to make it so. I know that you probably already heard this lecture when you moved out on your own, but I'm giving you a reminder. You're barely nineteen years old, you have the time and the capability of finding yourself and what you want to do with your life."

My gaze instantly darted to meet his dark eyes. Why did he care enough about me to offer me such validation? "Thank you," I said after a moment, still piecing through his words in my mind.

"No, don't thank me. Just don't say old Apollo never did anything for you," Apollo replied with a burst of deep, hearty laughter at his own joke. "Oh, one last thing I wanted to bring up to you."

"What is it?" I inquired as we made a right turn onto a slimmer, already shovelled path that led to the airport door several yards down.

"Now, please forgive me for turning my ear to some gossip, but I hear that you've been close with someone by the name of Redd, did I hear that correctly?" Apollo asked me, his eyes locked upon me as he waited intently for my answer.

Oh, here it comes. I took a deep inhale of the icy winter air, bracing myself for another lecture, and forced a nod. "Yeah, that's right," I replied.

But unlike Maple and Lottie, Apollo was patient and didn't jump to conclusions. "Hmm? Is that so?" he said, looking down at me. If I wasn't mistaken, I caught a glint of worry in his deep black eyes. "I just want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into, kiddo. I'd hate to see you get yourself hurt. You do know about that fake art business he has going on, don't you?"

I had known about that, since Lottie had warned me much sooner. "Yeah," I admitted as we neared the airport door. "I know what he does."

"Mark my words, someday he's going to get what he deserves, hurting so many innocent animals. Something's going to take him down," Apollo declared loudly as we came to a stop at the door and he reached for the door handle to enter the airport. "I don't like animals like that lurking around the town. I know a crook when I see one."

The shock that struck me felt like a physical blow. It was as though I'd just slammed headfirst into a wall, reeling from the sudden impact and thoughts firing to process what I'd just heard. My blood ran cold and my heart nearly jolted right out of my throat before thumping heavily and rapidly in my chest. What?

Apollo pulled open the airport door but paused, glancing back over his shoulder at me but clearly didn't have the slightest idea how much weight his words held. "Well, I'll be off," he announced, but my head flushed with warmth as my vision began to pale at the edges and I couldn't bring myself to answer even in a whisper. If I didn't get out of there soon, I was going to pass out right at his feet. "I hope we meet again someday."

In the blink of an eye, he was already gone, the door falling shut again in his departure, but my feet were rooted to the ground. The news I'd just received was still whirling through my mind, slow to sink in, and then the truth tumbled down on me and the word left on the tip of my tongue for so long became clear.

I had poured almost two years of friendship into a criminal.