My chest screamed with a burning pain that tore right through it. My feet hammered against the snow-covered path, determined in a gripping desperation to carry me to my destination as fast as I possibly could move. Tears swelled in my searing eyes, threatening to start spilling over at any given moment. The bells in my ponytail jingled and rattled with every pounding step and the gasps for air I snatched were strangled and piercing, but nothing in this world could stop me. There was only one thought throbbing in my mind now: I had to get home. I had to get home. If I was home, I was safe.

This was it. The final warning to push me forward into action. It was over now, the end was coming, whatever end would fall upon me. The time for making and following plans was done. It was time to stand up and fight for myself, to find the strength to make the change that should have been made years ago. The longer I waited, the higher the risk of dragging myself into something much bigger than it was now, something I couldn't even bear to comprehend. I was running out of time.

Different animals had started to wander the town by the time I had made it to the main street, up and about for the morning as I tore through. Eyes flicked to stare at me as I hastily weaved my way through the street, rushing to reach the safety of my own house. Upon passing the hill descending towards the campsite, I was able to spot Goldie and Lucky making their way unhurriedly up the slope to reach the street, but before I had the chance to escape their sight, Goldie caught sight of me and called out as a worried expression flooded over her face.

"Isabelle, are you all right?" Goldie urged to know, quickening her pace to begin scrambling up the hill to join me. Lucky darted to follow close behind, his one yellow eye widened in the uncertainty of what was wrong with me.

I avoided the question, breaking out into a run to continue down the path again to reach my home, but after swerving past a black and white rabbit in a bright pink coat who had been strolling calmly down the middle of the path, my feet staggered to an immediate halt that nearly doubled me over to stay upright as my stomach gave a wrenching lurch.

It was him. It was Redd. He had set up his cart on the side of the street several doors down, standing beside it with a cheerful smile plastered over his face like nothing was wrong, eyes tracking the animals that passed him by for anyone who would stop and visit. He hadn't made any sort of appearance yesterday or even earlier in the month, which could only mean that he was going to stay for the next undetermined stretch of days. He hadn't yet seen me, as I could tell in the way his head didn't swivel to glance in my direction. I couldn't let him see me.

My mind was whirling with the demand of immediate escape as I reeled backward without a second thought, pushing off in a sprint towards the hill so that I could make a different way along the back of the houses and prevent being detected. But since she had already been on my trail from when she had discovered my hurry, Goldie was standing before me in a second flat and blocking my only route of escape. The tears that burned in my eyes had begun to spill down my cheeks at the sudden and unanticipated arrival of the one thing I had needed most to avoid, and so I gave a swipe at my face in a brief and unsuccessful attempt to wipe away my tears and slammed my way past Goldie. Having not expected to be thrust out of the way, Goldie's feet slipped out from under her at my push and caused her to crumple to the snowy ground, but I had already taken off for the hill.

Tears poured down my face, now damp as the winter chill seared against it, like a surging river as I made a break for the level ground down the steep hill. If anyone was calling out to me like Goldie had, I was completely unable to hear it as a pounding ring echoed through my ears. Right at the end of the slope did the slippery snow become a complication, thrusting me right off my feet and down onto my back as I surrendered to a heart-jolting slip, but as the snow was soft enough to cushion my fall I was up again in hardly a second and bolting for my destination.

By some incredible stroke of luck, I was able to escape without detection by resorting to my own path at the back of the houses and made it to my front door within two minutes. I climbed the stairs with a violent tremble gripping my entire body and a hollow, shaken feeling settling in my stomach, shooting a fidgety glance down the street to check that I wasn't being watched. Redd hadn't moved from his cart on the side of the street a few doors down, confidently exchanging his greetings and promoting his art to the animals who walked past, and because of that I went unnoticed. I could barely even properly grab hold of the doorknob with the intensity of the shake in my paws but still I tugged open the door, launched myself through the doorway, and wrenched the door closed after me.

The very next moment inside the security of my own home found me restlessly pacing the sunlit floor between the dining room and the kitchen, thoughts firing to process the situation I had stumbled into and what I was supposed to do now. Heavy tears and choking sobs snatched away almost all of my breath now, causing me to force deep gasps in between them just to get air at all. There was no chance whatsoever that I could sustain my connection with Redd after everything I had heard about him. I had to cut him out of my life entirely. There was no second option now. That was the only thing I knew for sure, but so much still lay in the unknown of such a decision.

Redd had never once tried to physically harm me and I used to think that he would never try, but that was before I discovered the extent of the danger of having connections with him. I had never even seen his anger before and because of that had no idea what it could look like, but now I was venturing farther into the risk of upsetting him than I ever had before. If the threat he posed was serious enough for him to be called an actual criminal, then I wouldn't put the use of physical harm to get what he wanted past him.

That was it. There was no other way out. I was fated to meet my first physical fight sometime in the near future and, unable to deny the fact that I didn't have a trace of self-defense knowledge or skills, to suffer severe injury and pain. And if I wasn't successful in freeing myself from Redd, then I would be stranded in an undetermined, entirely unsafe future that I'd taken far too long to fix.

Easing into a frenzied rush of panic as the realization that I was no longer safe in my own town and was destined to become victim to either complete control or drastic harm, I collapsed into a seat in front of the door so that nobody could enter without my immediate knowledge. My paws, now shaking so violently that I could hardly keep them still, clasped over the sides of my head as if someone was to break in and hit me over it, gulping down air with hysterical tears.

There was nothing else I could do. I had to get away from Redd. I had to remove myself from that situation before it could become any worse than it already had, even if it meant surrendering to attack. I didn't know where the nearest hospital would be and couldn't walk myself there, but surely there would be someone there to ask for help. In the worst case scenario, if I would become immobile, someone could find me in little time and do something. No matter what was meant to happen, it needed to be very soon. I would find Redd myself and put an end to whatever friendship we had left as soon as tomorrow, since I knew well where he would be.

For the longest time, I could do nothing but cry and fiercely hope that for whatever reason, Redd wasn't already on his way. I cried until a throbbing ache settled throughout my head. The sounds of my gasping wails filled the spacious area and bounced off of the walls while all other sounds faded out, and I cried until no more tears would come.

Walking to reach Redd in the morning that would mark our final goodbye was like walking into the battlefield. Showers of fragile snowflakes swirling to the ground thrust the town into the core of the winter season. The streets were completely deserted today as the residents rathered to spend the icy day inside, leaving a fresh slate of snowfall along the path which every step taken along brought me closer to where Redd would be standing. In the utter solitude of the moment, it seemed as though time stood still for this event to finally unfold, surrounding me with the simplicity of the downpour of snowflakes with every step and nothing more. A numbed emptiness hollowed out the pit of my chest but a distinct lump in my throat threatened to start pulling tears from my eyes, but today, I was going to do everything in my power to keep from crying. I wasn't going to cry in front of Redd.

For the first time in so many months, I was struck by no sense of fear to face Redd for the last time. Maybe it was the inevitability of an end, a glimpse of hope for the new future afterward. No matter what came from this meeting today, I was closer than I had ever been in escaping from Redd. Today, I stood in a place where I never thought I would have the strength to stand. Maybe that was why I wasn't afraid.

Just as I knew he would be, he was there. He'd set up his cart on the side of the street between houses eleven and thirteen, the striped blue banner flapping in the frigid breeze as he arranged the display below it. There was something lonely in the way he cheerfully fiddled with the display without a care in the world, having not seen me yet as I shuffled through the fresh snow to join him. This was going to be the last time we spoke as friends, and quite likely the last time we spoke entirely. As I grew nearer to reach a distance where I could speak up, I allowed myself another moment to study him, noticing how calm he was now and the uncertainty of how he would respond when I delivered the news of my decision.

As my mind was notably clearer than it had been amidst the absolute breakdown of yesterday morning, I'd since come to my senses that it wasn't a guarantee that he would lash out and physically harm me. That would have been the worst outcome, but not a certain future. He could simply be saddened by the news and I would walk away unharmed, but in that event would most likely be forced to tears to some extent. All in all, I could only hope that he would have the decency to allow us to come to some kind of understanding and leave our friendship in the past.

As I had emerged into talking range of Redd, the alarms of danger were blaring through my mind and my instincts screamed run, get out, threat, but I didn't turn back. "Good afternoon, Redd," I said instead, keeping my voice as level as I could as my feet found a stop a few yards from Redd and his cart. "It's been a little while, hasn't it?"

Redd whipped around to look at me, a surprised expression locked over his bright face at the sound of my voice, but then that all-too familiar smile crept into place. "Isabelle!" he exclaimed, shifting in his stance to face me fully as the faint breeze flicked at the ends of his cerulean jacket that hung open despite the dropping temperatures. "It certainly has, how have you been? Haven't heard from you recently."

"I've been okay, just... just busy," I told him, stumbling over my words as I struggled to form an excuse for such an extensive absence. How could I even describe what I had put myself through to get away from him? "How are you?"

"Same as always. Just been working and all," Redd explained, giving a slight indifferent shrug as he leaned to rest against the side of the cart behind him, perching his paws against the edge.

"I see," I said, as there was nothing else to say.

"What've you been busy with? You haven't gotten a job behind my back, have you?" Redd asked me, flashing me a teasing smirk for a moment before removing himself from the cart again and turning away to continue arranging the display as he addressed me lightheartedly. "I'd be pretty disappointed to find out after all this time trying to get you to work for me that you've got something else going on."

"No, there's still no job," I answered truthfully. I could hear the sound of shuffling items as Redd set up the presentation on his cart, but he had no words as he listened. "I'm just trying to figure out a thing or two, I guess."

"Oh, like what?" Redd sent a brief questioning glance over his shoulder at me before returning his attention to the cart. "Maybe I can help you out with that."

"Never mind," I dismissed the topic, as it was not the one that still lingered on the tip of my tongue, waiting to finally be spoken. "It doesn't really matter. Listen, Redd... There's something I want to discuss with you."

"Yeah, what's up?" Redd asked. In the way his nonchalant tone had shifted slightly, I could tell that another smile had grown on his face. "I'm all ears."

It was time. I drew in a long, deep breath, collecting the strength that had brought me this far at all, but blurry tears were already swelling in my eyes, dangerously close to falling down. It was now or never, and Redd was waiting for an answer, so I choked out the words without a second thought.

"I think it's best if we don't spend time together anymore," I confessed. Despite my best efforts to keep it level, my voice wavered with my oncoming tears and the force of what felt to be a hundred-ton weight sent a deep strain to my chest. Even after they had left me, the words didn't feel to be my own, escaping as if from some other soul.

Redd paused, freezing in place as if he needed to process what he had heard, before he spoke again but set his paws to rest on the surface of the cart. "What?" he said, the touch of surprise reentering his voice again at such a statement, but he didn't yet turn around to face me. "Wait, why not?"

"I just don't think this is right anymore," I stated, my voice breaking as I reached a shaking paw up to wipe away a tear that had started to fall down my face. I wasn't going to cry in front of Redd.

If he cared about me at all, then I was sure that in dropping the news I would cause distress to some degree, dreading for him to turn around in case I saw clear dejection in his face. But then, when he did turn around to face me, my heart plunged into my stomach at the expression that conquered his face. He wasn't sad about the news. It was worse. It was much, much worse.

"What's not right about it?" Redd urged to know, staring fixedly at me as a glint of fiery displeasure burned in his eyes for the very first time. "I thought we were cool. Where's this coming from all of a sudden?"

"Actually," I choked out, gulping back my nearing tears and forcing myself to look Redd right in his disbelieving face instead of hiding my eyes as an abrupt impulse demanded me to under his sharp gaze. "It's something I've been thinking about for a while."

It became clear to me just a moment too late that this wasn't the best thing to say, as it revealed that I had been doubting Redd for much longer than I had previously let on, and he immediately proved this fact as he abruptly set off into a hasty walk in my direction. My elbow shot up in front of me to block off a physical blow, keeping my distance from Redd with a few staggering steps back, but it took me a moment to realize that he hadn't hit me, nor did it seem like he was about to.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Redd asked shortly as he came to a stop right in front of me. After a couple of years of friendship, there was now only a couple inches of a height difference between us, but he still felt to tower over me as he fixed his stare upon me. "You should have said something to me. I can't fix something I can't see."

With the sudden lack of distance between us as there had been before, I couldn't hold back my tears for any longer, gasping for the icy winter air as the tears slipped down my cheeks. Maybe I should have said something. Maybe I should have brought it up much earlier and all of this would have been over with much sooner. But there wasn't a chance I could have brought myself to say such a thing to his face before now.

"I didn't know how to bring it up," I whispered, knowing that if I spoke any louder, my voice would only break into a sob, but Redd heard me anyway.

"Well, I'm not sure how I was supposed to know something was wrong when you wouldn't tell me about it," Redd retorted.

A jittery, rotten feeling was filling my stomach as I sniffled, reaching up and trying again to wipe away my falling tears. I didn't need any more reason for Redd to criticize me.

"That's why I'm telling you right now," I explained shakily, at this point having said what I needed to and choking out the best sentences to escape from the situation.

"Okay, well, what do you want me to do about it?" Redd shot back, still refusing to remove his gaze from me for even a second.

"I think I want you to stop talking to me from now on, Redd," I told him. If I was already this far in, then there was no going back now. If he was going to insult me, emotionally wound me, this was when it would happen. If he was going to lash out and attack me, this was when it would be.

"Fine," Redd snapped at me in a final affront, but then he turned away to return to his cart and begin arranging the display in a rougher and more irritable manner. "If this is the way you're going to act about it, then I have no problem with that."

"I'm sorry. I don't want to do this," I protested at once. At the final push of the accusing jab, I was losing control over my tears, growing dangerously close to bursting out sobbing. How could he say such a thing? How could he stand in front of me while I completely broke down and treat me like I was doing something wrong? This wasn't my fault, was it?

"Whatever," Redd scoffed at my protests and refused to look at me for another time.

"Redd," I urged, nearly choking on the icy air as I gasped through my tears and pressed my paws to my eyes as if it would hide my face from him. I had never seen this side of him before. It was almost enough to turn my stomach to think that this was what he had been hiding from me for as long as we'd been friends. How long had he been hiding this from me? Had he even cared about me at all?

"Just leave me alone, Isabelle," Redd grumbled as I weakly pulled my paws from my damp eyes again. "That's what you wanted so bad, wasn't it?"

It was time to say goodbye. In the heavy few moments where words weren't present, it was then that thoughts began to flood my mind where I stood. The snowfall around us spilled from the cloudy skies above in a faint shower as I watched Redd, seeing the restrained anger in his abrupt movements as he arranged the display, and it was then that I saw that we were never meant to be friends. It had been the most beautiful thing in my life for a while, a temporary fix to the lasting problem of being truly alone, but it was never meant to be. He was never the light to illuminate my path, just the light to illuminate my next step.

When I saw Redd, I saw weeks, months, years of history. I saw the first day we spoke, that scorching June morning where we first proclaimed our friendship, and the countless reunions after that ever so slowly descended into something I could never have imagined. I saw a stranger, a friend, a best friend, an enemy, and now a stranger once again. As it had once been it would be again, and that was where it would end.

And yet, for a fraction of a heartbeat, I wondered if this was the only way. I wondered if something that had once been so beautiful had to end if the same beauty could be found, but then again, all good things eventually came to an end. What was said was said, and what was done was done. Redd would never have accepted to keep our friendship the same after what I'd confessed, and I needed to remove that negative energy from my life so that I could heal from it. It was like something that Redd himself had once told me: If someone doesn't make you happy or serve you any good anymore, you don't need to keep them around. And then, I knew it was time to let him go.

In my mind, I was already saying goodbye. I thanked him for being my friend, even if our friendship was something that was never meant to last. I thanked him for the way he made me feel, the comfort and belonging that was brought by his presence alone, the way I knew my life would never be the same without him. I thanked him for the memories we shared. There were so many words that I could have said to him in that moment, so many things I could have expressed in the face of the end, but I respected Redd and since he wanted nothing more from me, I shared nothing with him.

"Have a good day, Redd," I said at last, and then I turned to leave.

Just like that, a nine-month mission and a two-year friendship was over.

I knew that this was supposed to mean I was free, after all this time, but this didn't feel anything close to freedom. A weakness slithered up my knees as I shuffled through the ankle-deep snow, enveloped by the showering snowfall that had since become so thick that I couldn't see twenty feet ahead of me, and I wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the street and let my emotions go. Whimpering sobs escaped involuntarily from my throat as the tears tumbled down with seemingly no end and a throbbing ache conquered the depths of my chest as I made my way back home again. I was struck with an almost blinding disorientation similar to one of a puppy after losing its way and finding nowhere to turn to find the way back, stranded in a nightmare that I couldn't escape from as one final question screamed itself in my mind: What am I supposed to do now?

The air was absolutely frigid against my tearstained face, pinching and stinging at my cheeks with all of the force it could manage, and I just wanted to be home. My eyes squeezed shut at the thought, face contorting with heavier tears as I shakily wrapped my arms around my middle to tuck my aching paws under my elbows. I'd had so much of nothing for so long, devoting too much of myself to removing Redd from my life, and because of that could no longer tell who I was without him. In the moments that I dragged myself back home after saying goodbye that seemed to be stretched into an eternity, it became painfully clear that I had been wrong all along—I hadn't rescued myself by escaping. I had destroyed myself.

But as I stumbled through the bulky snow to reach my home again, there was something more that I finally began to understand. Across the numerous months since I'd started picking up on Redd's untrustworthiness, I'd been slowly falling surrender to a change that I had once resented in others, one that I'd been sincerely fighting against as soon as it began. Carelessness and ignorance began to lock themselves into my immediate nature and judgement was something that was frequently flicked on like a lightswitch in my eyes, even when it wasn't needed or wanted, and the worst part about it was that I was entirely unable to control it; it seemed like there was some other soul living inside the casing of my body and directing my life however it chose and I could only watch it happen. Only after today did I come to terms with what was wrong with me: I was becoming too much like Redd. And that was when I knew that if I suffered one more heartbreak, nothing could stop me from becoming the animal I didn't want to be.

Eventually, I arrived at the stairs that led me to my front door, already concealed in a fresh coat of snow, but I didn't climb them. As my knees finally gave way, I collapsed onto a seat on the bottom stair, shielding my face in my arms on a higher step so that nobody could see it, and I sobbed like a child. It wasn't even just a weeping cry anymore but a complete ugly cry with a sticky face, shuddering shoulders, and wailing sobs trapped too long in the pit of my chest. Everything that had happened in the past month alone was crashing down on me at once, faces flashing through my memory and thoughts circling me as if they planned to physically harm me.

I couldn't do this alone. I needed someone beside me to be my grounding point, to acknowledge the animal I was becoming and to bring me back to who I was before. I needed someone who had been with me from the very start, someone who had seen the worst side of me and the best side of me, someone who had stayed with me even after witnessing both. I needed to return to something that had once never failed to show me how to be the best version of myself.

When I emerged into the house again, I emerged with only one face in my mind. I'd managed to overcome my tears to the point where my sobs had receded but a dampness still swam in the corners of my eyes as I thrust my way through the doorway, pushing on towards the hallway at the end of the dining room as if there were motors strapped to my heels and let the door swing shut after me. I was back inside my bedroom within a second flat with a skipping heart from my quickened pace, reaching the phone in no more than two strides and yanking it from the receiver with a terribly shaking paw.

It had been many months since I had last tried to contact Happy Home to try and speak with Digby, but the number still lingered in the back of my mind, gradually sinking into the forgotten of my subconscious. I hastily tucked the phone under my ear, extending my free paw to punch in the number reading itself out in my memory, but before I could even touch the numbers, a thought slipping into my head froze my paw just as it hovered over them.

What's the point? He's gone.

Phone still in paw, I withdrew from the keypad and dropped into a heavy, dejected seat on the edge of the bed at the reminder. My eyes had pinched up tight again at an abrupt and powerful new wave of tears, pressing my free paw to my mouth as they began to slip down again, and I thrust down the phone without a word.

That night, deep into the late hours, I dreamed of Redd. It was one of those distinct, even unsettling dreams that was sure to burn itself into my memory from the moment I had ripped myself from sleep. At the very start of what I could remember, I had struggled to find any sign of life anywhere I searched, and yet my surroundings had changed almost frequently between an endless field of dying grass under a pitch black sky, an unfamiliar building lit only by dim and flickering lights, and more that quickly slipped my memory. Every step that I had taken was accompanied by a perpetual ticking throbbing in my head, similar to that of a clock, but the reason for this I never found out. I had been seeking anyone who could have been there with me, desperate to prove to myself that I wasn't alone, and that was when I had managed to run into Redd.

Around that point, I'd found myself in a very elegant, yet mysterious room. It was an exceptionally tall and circular room with no clear source of light, yet a weak glow sat in the very center nevertheless. Somehow, I had suddenly known that I was not only no longer alone, but that someone stood behind me, and I had turned around to discover that Redd had located me. For whatever reason that made sense in the course of the dream and much less so in consciousness, as soon as I saw him, I'd realized that my intention had been to find him all along and any other intention as of that moment was now nullified.

I'd first started to ramble aimlessly about making some kind of escape, though the words I had spoken were wiped from my mind as soon as I had awakened, but my objective had shifted partway through my speech as I preferred to stay in this room with him and expected my previous statement to cancel out. Redd never said a word, which was, in its own way, creepier than if he had spoken.

At some point after I'd been speaking to him with no verbal response, he had given me this calm, understanding glance before offering me his paw, and in the next moment that I could recall, he was patiently guiding me as we slowly drifted through the circular room in formal dance to the steady rhythm of the ticking in my ears, which had become much louder. In real life, this would have been something completely unusual and I questioned why I had dreamed of such a thing, but while I had been dreaming, the dance I shared with Redd snatched away the entirety of my line of focus. A deadly dance, I had named it while I dreamed, but in waking could not figure out why.

A gray area overtook the dream in that segment, leaving bits and pieces of broken aspects in my memory. At one point, a glimpse through a high window that hadn't appeared until partway through my dance with Redd earned me the discovery that a full moon glowed from a dark sky streaked with gray clouds, but there were no stars. Every once in a while, my vision was flooded with a sensation like static from a television, almost like I had been trying to wake myself up. Time passed much quicker then and for whatever reason I knew that I'd been dancing with Redd for hours, days even, and in the acknowledgment that he hadn't yet let me go came the realization that I was trapped there with him and that it had been his plan all along.

The dream descended into a nightmare from there. I desperately tried to pull away from Redd, to escape from him and the room we were stuck in, but he refused to let go of me. We continued to drift aimlessly through the room beyond my control and in the gripping panic of the moment, it had come to me briefly that I was dreaming, and urged myself to wake up but to no avail before this knowledge evaded me once again as I caught a glimpse of the other end of the room.

And then I saw him. An all too familiar face locked onto the appearance of the seventeen-year-old boy I'd abandoned so long ago, turning up so abruptly after being gone for far too long, standing upon a balcony that had only registered into the dream when I caught sight of it. Dark eyes locked fixedly on Redd and me, thick eyebrows arched slightly in an expression of silent rage, brown paws clutching the railing of the balcony in front of him. My own brother, my once best friend, just another name on the list of those I'd left behind.

Redd and I, though we were no longer dancing by this point, had stood in the middle of the room to look up at Digby above us. My paw was still held tightly in Redd's, as he continued to refuse to let me go, and I could remember that he had returned Digby's unmoving stare but still never said a word. It was Digby who spoke first, the familiar sound of his voice built on the foundation of how I had heard it last, and when he spoke, it was in one sentence that still echoed in the depths of my soul even after I had awakened again.

"Now you see what you've done to us."

In a matter of moments, Digby had been already gone, and whatever stability the dream provided in the arrangement of the room had begun to deteriorate. As I could tell by the way I hardly took a step and nearly sank through the floor, the surface beneath my feet seemed to be quickly dissolving with each fleeting second. It was only then that I had felt Redd's grip on me loosening with the intention of letting me fall, but I could recall launching myself to cling closely onto him to prevent him from doing exactly that and had burst into tears in the way it was much too easy to cry in a dream.

"Please don't let me go. I'm not ready," I had begged through my tears, clinging to Redd as I knew that if I didn't, I would fall. "I don't want to let go. Please, not yet."

But Redd, silent as he had always been, didn't listen. He had pushed me back and away from him with a firm grasp on my paw to examine me from arm's length for a moment. He had given me a smirk, an evil and haunting and ominous smirk that printed itself on my memories even after I had awakened, and then he had thrust me backwards, hurling me into the abyss without so much as a second thought.

I wrenched myself from sleep to find all of my blankets on the floor after I had kicked them off of my bed in my sleep and my cheeks damp with tears from my unconscious state.

Ten o'clock the following morning found me sprawled out on the blankets of my bed after I had pulled them all back on hours earlier, my feet dangling over the side as I lay still. The phone was tucked under my floppy ear, cord stretching all the way back to the receiver, and the dial tone droned on without an answer. From the moment I had picked up the phone in the first place, I knew well that an answer was something I wasn't going to get, so I waited in silence for my suspicions to be confirmed and watched little flecks of dust drift through the sunlight bleeding in from the window to pass the time.

In the earlier hours of the morning, in the short time after awakening in the face of the day that I just tossed and turned for a while, I had worked through the memories of my nightmare from last night. Various elements such as the distinct rage in Digby's face and the disturbing, almost unrealistic smirk that Redd had given to me seemed to be permanently engraved into my thoughts, curdling the contents of my stomach. After thoughts of my brother so far away from me had conquered every one of my waking moments before I eventually pulled myself out of bed to prepare for the day, I had come to the decision to call Happy Home simply to see what would happen if I did. If I got no response as usual, which was the most likely outcome, then I would call it a learning experience and move on with my day. At least it would have certainly been the easiest thing I'd done in a while.

The room was completely silent as my patience unwavered, all except for the ring of the dial tone and my steady breathing. Once, twice, three times the phone rang out, and it was right at the start of the third ring that I was absolutely sure that there was, once again, going to be no answer for me. As the sound of the dial tone cut off abruptly to make way for a few seconds of silence, I simply accepted the fact. Yep, there it is, I thought to myself, listening for the usual voicemail recording that would come into sound in a moment once the silence was done.

But it never came. The silence continued to stretch through the call in the place of a voicemail, though no voice spoke up at all. My eyebrows furrowed at the lack of noise, raising my head from the surface of the bed beneath me, and tried to figure out what was happening. Was someone there, or had some kind of glitch occurred?

The quietness had reached several seconds before I began to hear sounds on the other line. First, it was a faint sniffle away from the phone, a sure sign of restrained tears as I had known well over the past few days, and then a few seconds later, a cheerful voice.

"Happy Home Designer, this is Lottie."

A paw clamped immediately over my mouth to keep a scream from escaping my throat as I bolted upward to a seated position on the bed. My heart had begun to thump heavily and my previously steady breathing turned shaky beyond my control as I gripped the phone in my paw.

"Lottie!" I exclaimed once I had brought myself to remove my paw, which had begun to tremble frantically, from my mouth at last. Was this really happening?

"Isabelle, is that you?" Lottie asked me. Something in her voice had shifted after starting out with her usual professional tone as a clear surprise slipped into the sound as well as what could have been a touch of hope. "Oh, sweetheart, it's been much too long since we last got the chance to speak like this. Times have certainly changed since then, haven't they?"

Between her writing and how she spoke in conversation, it was clear that Lottie hadn't changed at all. Her voice was formal and sweet-sounding even now and it felt like all of her letters were coming to life in my mind at the sound of it. My paw squeezed the phone tightly as thoughts of hugging her flooded my mind again, longing to feel her arms wound tightly around me in the warmth of her embrace.

I drew in a slow breath, trying to calm myself to be able to speak with Lottie, but my voice shook involuntarily as my heart proceeded to pound rapidly in my chest. I love you, I love you, I love you. "Yeah, I think it's changed a lot. A lot of things are different now than when we last spoke on the phone like this," I began, but just quieted once I realized that my fluster was causing me to ramble and silently scolded myself.

But Lottie didn't seem to mind. "We've been going back and forth sending letters for so long that I didn't even stop to consider that this was even an option," she confessed. "Now that I think about it, I think it's been some time since I really stepped back and checked in with you rather than keeping up a conversation on a page. How have you been managing over there? I hope life has been treating you well."

"I could be better, but what can you do?" I cheerlessly brushed off the topic. Memories from the past few days had begun to drown out any other thoughts still lingering in my mind, a tense reminder of everything I'd just lost. It wasn't something I really enjoyed thinking about.

"I'm so sorry that you're not doing well. I just want you to remember that I'm always here for you, no matter what happens, okay?" Lottie said as I carefully lowered myself back down onto the bed again to listen, propping myself up on one elbow and holding the phone under my ear. "These are tough times and it's okay to let yourself feel down for a while. I know that I have definitely felt that way recently. I keep hearing that the best way to get that out of your system is to make sure you take good care of yourself in the way you need it most, but I... well, I understand how that's a difficult thing to do if you feel like you don't deserve it."

I quickly opened my mouth to reply, ready to jump to question her last sentence since I had never stated anything about not deserving it, but she was speaking again as what had slipped through my mind must have occurred to her as well.

"What's been bringing you down? Is it the situation with, um..." Lottie stumbled over her words as she tried to mention my past crisis with Redd, a topic sustained frequently in our writing. She still couldn't bring herself to call him by name, even now. "With... what we were talking about in our letters? Has there been any changes with that?"

"Yeah," I mumbled. I figured that there was no harm in telling her what had happened between Redd and me, since she had been the one to push me to say goodbye in the first place. "I let him go."

"You let him go?" Lottie echoed, clearly taken aback by such a response. "Just like that? Did he try to hurt you? Is that why it's bringing you down so much? Oh, please tell me he didn't hurt you."

"No, he didn't hurt me. He was upset, like I knew he would be, but he didn't hurt me," I explained, sneaking a glance at the alarm clock sitting atop the nightstand at the head of my bed to check the time. It was seven minutes after ten.

"That's good. I was getting so worried for a moment," Lottie told me as I settled back into a comfortable propped-up position on the bed. I heard her give a faint sigh of relief as she regained control of her concern for a moment before she offered a question. "What did Digby have to say about it? Assuming you told him, that is."

Digby. As soon as I had first heard Lottie's voice on the phone, all thoughts of Digby had been instantly abandoned. He must have still been over there at Happy Home with her somewhere. However, talking with him about the entire dilemma with Redd seemed so far out of the question, considering how long it had been since we were actually close.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I don't know what he would say. We haven't talked in a long time."

"What?" Lottie blurted out at the confession. She didn't know the extent of what I went through with Digby. Did she even know the extent of how he was feeling? "What do you mean? Why aren't you keeping in touch anymore?"

"I don't know," I said again, gazing up at the white ceiling above me as it slowly began to darken with a cloud travelling over the sun. I hadn't yet eaten breakfast for the morning and it was starting to become clear as a hollow ache ate away at the edges of my stomach. "He kind of just stopped talking to me and I don't know why. I don't think I ever told him anything at all about what we agreed on."

"I'm not quite sure what to say," Lottie admitted as my eyes danced across the darkening ceiling. "He can't be ignoring you. He wouldn't do that to anyone, especially you. That's just not who he is, not to mention you're much too sweet for someone to want to ignore you."

A jab of nervousness dipped sharply into my chest, causing my heart to pick up in rhythm once again to a firm flutter. "Really?" I inquired as a subtle warmth began to creep up into my cheeks and I fiercely hoped that Lottie couldn't hear the slight shake in my voice.

"Of course, I have no doubts about that," Lottie replied, but my mind was already wandering distractedly, and the very next thought to cross it even took me by surprise.

What if this was the day I told her how I felt about her? Telling her over the phone was already significantly more genuine and personal and it was the closest thing to the best time to say it that I could get. The thought was simply a mere flicker of wonder by the time I took a breath to speak again, aiming to start speaking and find my words as I went along, but Lottie jumped in first before I had the chance to speak.

"Oh, Isabelle, will you hold that thought for just a second?" Lottie said. For a heartbeat, my words were snatched from me, reeling at the question of how she had known what I was about to say, and then I realized that she must have been referencing our previous conversation instead. "There's someone I'd like to put you on the phone with."

"Actually, Lottie, there's something I wanted to tell you," I burst out immediately before I could stop myself, but the silence that followed this statement implied that Lottie was already away from the phone.

Oh well. There would surely be other chances for me to say it. I relaxed again and my heartbeat slowly eased back into a normal pattern as I heaved myself back up into a seated position on the bed, waiting for either Lottie's voice to return or for a different voice to introduce itself. By the way that Lottie had brought about the idea, I was quickly able to gather that she wanted me to become familiar with someone new, someone who could probably help me with my situation. Maybe someone who had experienced a similar issue and could guide me in the right direction.

Only after several seconds did I begin to pick up on sounds on the other line. At first, there was only a muffled rumble as the phone was passed into a different set of paws before I caught the sound of a deep, shaky, almost uneasy drawn-in breath, and then I heard a voice.

"Isabelle?" Digby said.

For a split second, I had to question whether or not my heart had actually stopped beating as my breath caught in my throat and a dizzy sensation descended sharply onto my head like I was about to pass out. This couldn't be real, it couldn't be true. We hadn't spoken since I had started to choose Redd over him so long ago. We hadn't spoken since we were both seventeen. We hadn't spoken for almost two years.

His voice sounded different than when I had last heard it two years ago, even in just the one word. It was a bit deeper now, which I probably should have expected given the length of time we hadn't spoken, but was still built upon the same foundation of sound that brought me to recognize it years later. We were older now, after all, and I was sure that I'd changed as well. He really had grown up without me.

"Digby?" I said weakly when I could force myself to speak, but my voice wavered. A distinct tightness was already stretching through my throat, dampening my eyes at the edges at the sound of Digby's voice after so long of not hearing it. He's here, I struggled to process. He's really here.

For several seconds, Digby didn't say anything more. He was so quiet on the other line that after a few seconds of his silence, I began to catch the sound of distant conversations from somewhere further away in the room. I waited in breathless anticipation, listening for what he would say to me after such time away, and then he spoke at last.

"What do you want?" Digby asked me. The words were disrespectful but his tone didn't match, carrying a level sound that made the question sound like something normal, simply an element of plain curiosity.

"What?" I whispered.

"What do you want? Why are you calling?" Digby urged to know, his voice raising slightly in an emotion I couldn't be completely sure of. Anger, distress, emotional wound I couldn't quite tell. "I thought we weren't speaking to each other anymore."

It felt as though a knife was dragging itself through my chest, creating a deep ache that throbbed in a sliver of agony. Now I remembered one of the many reasons we stopped talking. Suddenly, all I could think of was the last times we'd actually talked to each other. The clear pain resonating in Digby's voice every time I called, the horrible struggle that he was surrendering to as described by Lyle, the way I didn't know how to help him and so I pushed away the problem entirely so that I wouldn't worry. But pushing away a problem only made it grow.

"Digby, I never said I didn't want to speak to you," I insisted. Tears were flooding my eyes, blurring the sight of the wall in front of me and dancing through the corners of my vision.

"You didn't have to say it," Digby told me bitterly. "I already know the truth. I tried to help you and you just kept telling me I was wrong. I tried to offer you my support to reach the goal you left home to achieve and you responded with frustration and defiance at my effort. You didn't care about what I had to say and wanted me to stop getting in the middle of whatever plan you set out for yourself. Whether you meant that to be clear or not, it is."

As much as it hurt to admit to myself, he was right. I knew that he was right. I'd been completely oblivious to the consequences of my actions and completely took him and his words for granted in a desperate attempt to find my own path and to make my own choices. He had been hurting and I had been too absorbed in my own situation to even take notice. I had been hurting him. I should have been there for him a bit more. I disregarded the state of his declining emotional health for my own benefit and now we were here. A broken friendship, a broken love. And I had just let it happen.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for it to turn out this way," I whimpered, clutching my long sleeve tightly until my paw shook to keep my tears from falling down. An empty statement, compared to the past we'd left behind. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I promise I didn't."

"Maybe not," Digby mumbled. For a brief moment, a rush of hope that I could patch up the situation surged through me, a soaring in my heart like a bird taking to the skies, but this sensation didn't last long at all. "But you didn't try very hard to be present, either."

Maybe this was true as well. I remembered the number of calls we had shared over time since I left home, how the number decreased dramatically after a while, and knew that I could have made more of an effort to be there for him but instead had avoided calling him entirely to prevent his emotional state from bringing me down as well. I was selfish, that was what I was. The tears lingering in my eyes spilled down my cheeks and I pressed a trembling paw to my mouth, silencing all sounds of my tears so that Digby couldn't hear it. What had I done to him?

"I tried," I choked out after I had succeeded in straining to keep a sob from escaping my throat. It was the only thing I knew to say now, even if it was only partly true. The full truth would destroy him now. And just like that, everything I'd kept bottled up inside for far too long was spilling out at once in a weak defense for what I'd done. "I called you so many times. I called you even though I knew I couldn't reach you. I know that the phone wasn't registering calls for a while, but I left you so many voicemails that you never even answered. I don't know what you need me to do."

"I already told you that," Digby urged as I made a hasty swipe at my face, wiping away the tears that streamed down the sides. The same rotten feeling as when I had told Redd goodbye for the last time throbbed in my stomach again and for a single moment, a fraction of a purely terrifying second, I feared that I wouldn't be able to fix this. An urge wrenched my soul to scream out at him for all of the answers I still didn't have. Had he or hadn't he listened to the voicemails? "I just... I need time. I need time to figure this out. I need time to make things normal again."

The statement was like a direct jab to the gut, a stinging slap to the face. "Digby, it's been two years," I told him, but my voice broke. "How much time do you need?"

When the only answer I received to this question was utter silence, it was clear that Digby had nothing to say. I wasn't completely sure that he would speak at all if I didn't prompt him, so I had to say something.

"What about when we were still in touch?" I pressed. "I know that I didn't call as much as I should have, but you just stopped talking to me. Why did you stop talking to me?"

"Because you stopped listening, Isabelle!!" Digby burst into a yell, the raised volume in his voice on the phone sudden and piercing in my ear, but through the anger provoked by the question, I caught something different. There was a distinct strain in his voice that revealed he wasn't just upset with me. He was crying, I realized, almost as heavily as I was. "Everything I said to you at all seemed to bother you so much and it makes me feel like I can't do anything right. Do you know how it feels to put every single ounce of support and faith you have into someone you love more than anything else in the world, only for them to stop pretending to care at all? Do you know what that's like?"

I couldn't hold back my tears anymore. My shaky paw found its way back to my mouth and my eyes involuntarily squeezed shut, throat tight as I struggled not to burst out sobbing. The tears that were dropping down the sides of my face were silent, but it wouldn't be like that for much longer if the conversation didn't take a lighter turn.

"I couldn't deal with it anymore," Digby insisted weakly when I couldn't stop crying long enough to force out words, collecting himself just enough so that he wasn't completely breaking down, but the agony in his voice made his suffering clear. "That's why I stopped talking to you. I needed to forget what we were going through and start focusing on my work here instead of trying to help you find work of your own when it was all for nothing in the end."

The silence grew between us after that. I was sure that Digby was able to tell that I was crying from the strangled gasps for air I snatched between each push of suppressed tears, but he had nothing to say about it. It would have hurt more if he did. I couldn't be completely sure how long the quietness on the line stretched on, but after what felt like an eternity had already passed, a deep breath on the other line implied that Digby was about to start speaking again.

"You know, this is a real job I have in the real world. It's time for you to find one of your own," Digby told me. It sounded as though he'd managed to pull himself back together again as he spoke in the same broken, emotionless tone that he had started with as only hints of his emotional pain showed through. "I set this phone to automatically delete voicemails for a reason."

And that was when I completely broke down. Sobs ripped from my throat, breaking into the previous silence as tears poured down my face, but a click on the other line signaled that Digby had already hung up the phone on me. The new information that had just been dropped was firing through my thoughts: Everything I had said about my regret, Redd, and everything else was gone and had never been heard in the first place. That was why Digby had known nothing about my crisis with Redd even after I had trusted him with so much.

I felt as though I'd been torn apart from the inside out to process that Digby would even think to do such a thing just to get away from me, especially with how close we once were. Our friendship was never going to be the same, if there was even a friendship left at this point. Whatever assumption that no matter how many times we fought, we would always find a way back to each other, had been snatched from me in a matter of moments. We had really messed it up this time. We were never going to come back from this, were we?

"I love you," I choked out through my tears, though Digby was no longer around to hear it, as I gripped the phone tightly under my ear. A set of words I should have expressed more when I actually had the chance, but now it was too late. "I love you."

Suddenly, as if beyond my own control, in a flash my paw had shot to slam down the phone back onto the receiver again as I bolted up from my seat on the edge of the bed. Just like that, a new sensation was overtaking my senses by storm, something I'd never ventured even close towards before. A burning, soul-wrenching craving for nothing short of utter violence, paws itching to destroy. I couldn't care less what I did. At that very moment, absolutely nothing lay in my sights other than to be seen, to see what kind of damage I could cause, what kind of damage I was capable of.

The world and the animals in it had done me wrong one too many times. Today, I fought back.

The next thing I knew, my paws were flying in motion. I grabbed hold of the sides of the phone and its receiver that sat upon the small round table and had snagged it from its surface, raising it high to create as much momentum as I could manage, and hurled it against the edge of the table with a strangled yell. Sparks leaped from the dent that I had just caused as colors peeked through to reveal I'd made it to the wires in a single hit, but I wasn't satisfied. Again and again and again, I flung the phone against the edge of the table as hard as I possibly could, each lash putting me closer and closer to irreversible destruction, as sparks continued to dance towards my paws with every hit and bright wires hung out of the damage. Every blow of the phone to the table was driven for every call I'd spent with Digby, every conversation we shared and every call he failed to answer, as his words still spun tirelessly through my mind. My tears were gone and no desire to cry gripped me, but my head spun slightly from my frantic, destructive actions and a repressed scream twisted through my chest, aching for release.

I wish you didn't have to go, but I'm proud of you for having found the confidence to take the first steps forward in your life.

After the nightmare that had haunted my sleep from last night, I had made up my bed in the morning as neatly as I could manage, but now they were torn off much quicker than they had been put on again. My paws seized the thin fabric of the dark maroon blankets, restless to incite more damage once the phone was dropped on the floor, busted and completely unusable, and hastily tugged to rip the blankets from the mattress. Blankets and sheets were yanked from the bed, jerked from their tuck into the bedframe, and sprawled across the floor that slowly became more and more disorderly with the more harm to the room that I caused. It wasn't enough.

But now you're gone, and I can't seem to lose the darkness.

Staggering across the blankets strewn carelessly across the floor brought me to my desk in the corner of the room and the cushioned stool that sat in front of it. I easily sent the stool across the room with a vigorous throw, letting it tumble down onto its side over the destroyed phone before my paws had already reached the desk. My heart thumped in my ears and a heavy panting rose from my throat as I proceeded to withdraw every drawer that the desk held with all of the materials that lay within them, pulling them as far as dislocating them from the desk itself before slinging them to all corners of the room and littering sheets of paper, writing utensils, and more across the empty floor. In what felt to be the blink of an eye, I was left with a desk bearing wide holes where the drawers had once been and a floor completely engulfed in clutter at my feet.

It's like I don't even know who you are anymore.

Thoughts of Digby, Redd, and everything that had led me to this point from the minute I declared this place home were pounding through my head as books were chucked right off the bookshelf, scattering among the disarray that had already overtaken my bedroom floor. Every book snatched from the shelf was like a different thought scorning everything they'd put me through without an ounce of sympathy. I hated the way that Redd had pretended to care about me. I hated the way he invalidated my emotions and twisted situations to make a problem always my mistake. I hated the way he degraded me and my choices to speak my mind against him. I hated the way that Digby would lash out in anger at the littlest things that I did. I hated the way he simply forgot that I existed when our disagreements became too much for him to handle. I hated how he cut me out of my life without even a word after we spent our entire puppyhood together.

I love you, Isabelle. I hope you find your stars.

Suddenly, it felt as though I had ripped myself from a trance. A faint tingling sensation had overcome almost every inch of my body as I felt like I had awakened, finally opening my eyes to my reality, to find the damage I had caused to everything around me and the chaos and disorder that claimed my bedroom. And in that moment, an acknowledgment sank upon me.

This was going to break me.

. . .

The icy rain hammered against the roof and the glass of the window above my bed, lulling me into a doze as my subconscious wavered closer to sleep. The darkness of midnight conquered the room, sinking into a thick space of pure shadow as the cloudy skies concealed the starlight. At about ten during the past morning, once I'd managed to recollect myself after my violent spurt, I had half-heartedly tossed the blankets back onto my bed to be able to sleep at night but struggled to find the motivation within myself to pick up the rest of the mess.

For once, my emotions were steady; not feeling much of anything, but most definitely not distressed. I lay on my side with my blankets draped untucked over me, resting my head on my bent arm and let my eyes close naturally. My mind was not darting with thoughts as it had done much too frequently recently, but instead patiently pieced through them in a rational manner. For the first time in a significant chunk of time, I had the chance to really stop and think.

In the complete silence that my bedroom sustained and the utter darkness that enveloped the room along with my shut eyes, I felt as though I could finally withdraw back into the simple, core sense of self to reevaluate the foundations it was built upon. It almost felt like I had detached from reality and the world as I knew it, aimlessly drifting through some kind of empty, deep void where my soul thrived outside of my physical body. It was in surrendering to this sensation that it became clear that no matter what I was feeling, I would always be more than just my emotions and therefore nothing of that sort lasted forever while I in fact would.

As I knew that a day would come where I would recover from the past couple of years, this relaxed me to consider. In the complete chaos of what the year had held, I found peace within myself. I had once been chained to the suffering that life had thrown me into, and now I had unbinded myself from life's control, free to live it however I chose. My life was mine, and nothing and nobody could take that away from me.

I thought of Digby and Redd, how they had once taken that away from me, even if only one did it on purpose. Digby was going through something absolutely terrible and it had changed him so much, and though it wasn't a good change, now I could understand where he had come from with that. But I still had to draw the line somewhere for how I would be treated and because of that, I knew that our friendship had come to an end, at least until Digby would make a different change by himself. What had happened with Redd was an entire other issue. I had made it very clear to him that I wasn't doing well and he continued to ridicule me and degrade me like I was dirt under his feet. I was a living and breathing animal with thoughts, emotions, and a soul, so I couldn't see how I could have deserved to be treated in such a negative way.

I didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve it. I was alive and therefore I deserved to be treated with respect. I didn't take the risk to go out on my own in the world, learn how to survive on my own, build up my personal strength, and carry myself to this point just for someone to treat me like I wasn't worth it. I was a warrior to get myself here and nothing less. I was worth so much more than what had been shown to me and it was about time for the world to see it.

I didn't come this far in life just to look down on myself and wish that I was better. I wasn't just any simple animal living any bland, insignificant life. I was the animal that graduated high school top of my class at the bright young age of thirteen years old. I was the animal that went on to receive degrees in engineering at nineteen different universities by the age of seventeen. I was the animal that had the courage to leave her own home to make a place in the world to support her family. I was so much more than someone who had no choice but to be taken down by a couple animals who treated her wrongly, and now, all I had to do was prove that.

But it was in exploring the idea of being here in this town in the first place because of Digby that I patched together a different realization. The main reason that I was not home today wasn't Digby or even Happy Home, at least not the most deeply-rooted intention. I had come here to seek work, a search that had been long abandoned. There was no better way to prove myself than to put my name into the world and show it what I was made of.

It was time to begin phase three of my search.

My eyes snapped open at the tumble of an idea into my mind, revealing the heavy darkness that filled the space of the bedroom. At once, I yanked back the untidy blankets of my bed and swung my feet out onto the floor, restless to write down the idea that had struck me before it would escape into my subconscious again. I hastily started off across the shadowed room to reach my desk, misstepping from the unseen crowded floor and crumpling to my paws and knees, but quickly picked myself back up again to fish out my small notepad and a pencil from the floor and continued on towards the desk.

I smacked on the lightswitch at the door, causing lights to flood the room as I bent over the blank sheet of paper in the notepad on the desk without a stool to sit on. Within moments, my pencil was flying across the page, scribbling down every word that had crossed my mind with the appearance of the new idea. A chill had descended through me with a rush of adrenaline like cool water as I proceeded to write, sloppily as to get the message down faster, and by the end my paws were trembling frantically and my heart pounded rapidly in my chest. And when I looked over my work, I could easily see that this was the start of something immense, something that was going to be the final push to proving who I was destined to be.

That night, I remembered who I was.