This was not how I wanted the new year to begin.

Bright colors of blue, pink, green, red, and even more flashed across my blankets from the window unseen above my head. Booms like thunder echoed above the roof, clapping through the sky in fireworks that I wouldn't get to see. Late into the night, my eyes had adjusted to the shadows hanging over the desolate room, but as the thin blankets draped across my chest and my arms rested over my belly, the subtle outline of the ceiling above me was what held my attention.

The night between the turn of the years had always been so special until now. As I lied among the darkness clouding my room, each thunderous crack sending a spasm of panic into my gut, it was not special at all. I remembered a time when I once stayed up past midnight with my mother, father, and brother, ignoring the droopiness of my eyelids and insisting I wasn't tired, but now I must have been the only one in bed as the rest of the town was out partying for the new year. I couldn't take a party right now.

It had been four nights since I received Lottie's warning, but it had conquered my mind almost every waking moment since then. I hadn't yet mailed or even written a response, but then again, how could you respond to something like that? That was the first reason I locked myself in my house tonight, forcing myself to head to bed early even on a night like this just to have an excuse not to leave.

I could just imagine the number of animals that gathered to celebrate outside tonight—Thirty, forty, possibly even fifty. It was the perfect situation for Redd to make an appearance. He was probably out there now, standing at the edge of the crowd and manipulating unknowing animals for his sales, since that was apparently the kind of thing he did. Or so Lottie told me.

I forced out a heavy sigh, turning abruptly onto my side and settling back down to rest my head on my bent arm as bright colors flashed across my bed. I had once felt so hopeful for the occasion when Redd would finally make a return to the town so that we could spend time together, but now even just the idea of seeing his face made the contents of my stomach feel as though they were curdling and about to spill over. How could our friendship have gone so wrong?

I didn't have the faintest clue what to do. I had only one choice to make, but it was a choice I never thought I would have to choose between and one that seemed like the most difficult in the world: To trust Lottie or to trust Redd. I had known Lottie well back in my puppyhood and with that friendship came the knowledge that she had never been anything but kind and supportive towards me, but at the same time, I was closer with Redd than I had been with anyone else. At this point, I couldn't care less about anything else; I just wanted the truth so that it would stop damaging me to worry about all the possibilities.

A booming crackle of fireworks above the roof struck the air so close and so intense that it seemed to shake the entire house. Instantly, my paws slammed involuntarily over my droopy ears to press them against the sides of my head and block out the powerful sounds, but even when I could hear almost nothing, I couldn't suppress a tremble to shoot through my entire body. A soreness threatening to pull out tears was welling up behind my eyes, but when I squeezed them shut, the sensation didn't go away. Heavily weighted with the risk of nearing tears, every breath that came and went through me was shallow and wavery as my heart thumped achingly in my chest. I can't. I can't. I can't do this.

It was like my mind was lit with roaring flames, each thought rapidly darting past almost quicker than I could register them. What had I gotten myself into? How had I not realized something like this much sooner? I had been down this path of uneasy reflection one too many times since I had first read the letter, but the longer that I thought about it, the more it didn't make sense and the deeper the complexity grew.

The letter. Maybe if there was some kind of correlation with what was stated in the letter to my experience, then I could work my way to a sort of solution or at least a discovery. I desperately strained to recall the words on the paper, searching for the answers just out of my grasp, but it was as though they had been since wiped away and only the main ideas clung to my mind.

Even with a spark of hope that I was finally figuring something out, my attempts were soon proven useless as every warning I had received was forced against by reasons ensuring my safety. If I really was in as much danger as Lottie claimed me to be, then I couldn't see myself neglecting to pick up on such signs before this far into my friendship with Redd. Not only that, but it still wasn't clear how she even knew so much about him, since she had never let on the fact that she knew him at all, and that didn't sit right with me. Then again, I had never thought to reveal our friendship until recently.

All of a sudden, it was as though my eyes had been flung open. The letter that Lottie had sent me warning me about Redd was based on a lot of claims, but where was the evidence in all of that? It wasn't easy for me to think of her making false claims and lies, but with no evidence, the possibilities were limited. Without any proper evidence, everything I had heard simply didn't sound like Redd at all. I just couldn't find anything that really stood out to me to warn me that he was untrustworthy in any way.

When the resonance of the thunderous fireworks seemed to have quieted, I shakily eased my paws from my ears to find that while they were still present, they were distant. A dry soreness from the tears threatening to spring to my eyes snuck through my throat as I restlessly rolled over onto my other side and I stole a glance at my alarm clock as I settled down again, anxious to see how much time I had wasted lying awake in the depths of night.

The alarm clock, sitting on the nightstand beside the unlit lamp, sliced through the dim shadows with numbers in a bright white that read a few minutes after twelve midnight. The new year had finally begun. The year of 2013 was no more and it was time to welcome the new era that was 2014. Happy New Year, I thought wistfully to myself. I could almost hear my family's voice in my head, their joyful celebrations and jubilant cheers, but I knew very well that this was not going to be a happy new year.

I didn't close my eyes. Instead, I allowed my focus to drift through the space in front of me as if grabbing at anything I could look at in my wakeful rest, and soon found my eyes straying on the phone set up on the round table at the foot of the bed.

I hadn't touched the phone since my last few attempts to contact Digby at Happy Home. I had been sending out calls much more frequently in the past two weeks since my birthday; the first couple of times had been with genuine wondering if he would finally answer, but when he never did, I gradually fell into the routine of calling every so often for the little updates in my life. After receiving no form of response whatsoever, it now felt more like some kind of verbal journal, and though I had no idea whether he actually listened to the voicemails when he had the chance, I spoke as if we were finally having a proper conversation again.

There was almost no way that Digby would still be at work this late and was probably at home celebrating with our mother and father, but if anything was clear, I needed to distract myself from the strike of a night such as this that felt like physical blows to my body. Worn down like I had just collapsed down an entire flight of stairs, shaken like I had battled through an agony that had mercilessly torn me apart, I tossed back the blankets and dragged myself out of the bed, reseated myself at the foot of the sheets, and reached for the phone.

An unusual, vaguely disturbing sensation was swelling through my mind as I removed the phone from the receiver, tucking it under my ear to place the call. The atmosphere that enveloped me as I numbly entered the familiar phone number was thin and abstract in similarity to that of a dream, seeming as though this was nothing more than a drowsy hallucination like I would soon come to my senses and I wouldn't be in reach of the phone at all.

The lingering crackle of the fireworks crept above the house as I waited for the familiar voice to collect my voicemail, fully aware that nobody would answer the phone directly, and listened to the dull tone as it tried for an answer anyway. Only after several seconds was my wait rewarded, and it was then that I was able to catch the quieting of the dial tone to give way for the familiar voice.

"You've reached the voicemail for the Happy Home Designer and Academy," the voice greeted me. It held its usual cheerful, bouncy tone, not like it was spoken in the depths of the night or in a room drowned in a thick darkness. "There is currently no one around to answer your call, but if you leave a message, we'll get back to you as soon as possible."

A high-pitched beep marked the end of the voice's statement, and the abrupt silence that followed yanked me back into reality where I sat on the edge of my bed in the heavily shadowed room after sinking into the sounds. Just like that, it was as if all of my words had been snatched from me as I searched for something to say as the quietness settled. How could someone begin to explain something like this?

I had let the silence grow for too long. No matter what I would say, I needed to say it now. I took a slow breath to ease my clenched gut, preparing to speak, and put forth the first sentence to cross my mind.

"This is another message for Digby," I mumbled. My low voice broke involuntarily when I tried to speak after refraining from using it for several hours before now, so I weakly cleared my throat and began again. "This is for Digby. I know that you're not there right now to hear this, but I hope it will reach you in the morning. There's something that I need to tell you. It's something that should have been said a long time ago and so I'm saying it now."

My voice trailed off again. Usually, I could manage to picture Digby listening on the other line as I figured he would in the near future after I had made a call, but something was different this time. It was like he wasn't there at all now. As much as I needed him, he was gone. I was talking to thin air and nobody would ever hear it. So what was the point to all of this?

But it was then that my words slipped a realization into my head like something had just flicked the lights on—I had tried to tell Digby about Redd once before. If my memory served me well, I hadn't gotten the chance. It had been during the extensive period of time where Digby had been pushing me to find work, so it would have made sense that he would be more interested to hear about whether or not I was working than some new friend I had made. If anything, this was my next and possibly last chance I would get. What would have happened if I had told him that much sooner?

It didn't take long at all for me to discover that I didn't have the faintest clue where to begin. I had never gotten this far before. Was I supposed to bring up the problem first and get that out of the way, or would I start with Lottie's warning? Maybe my best option was to start from the beginning and explain it that way.

I shifted the phone to a more comfortable position under my ear and finally forced myself to speak. "Seven months ago, I met someone who I felt like I could trust deeply," I murmured shakily, but my voice was no longer the only sound striking my ears as I tried to speak. The pounding sounds of the fireworks in the sky were becoming increasingly severe again, tearing through my insides with unraveling dread like a sickening poison and squeezing me until I would burst. "His name is Redd. He's my friend. At least, that's how I saw him then. I just don't know what to think now."

Tears burned behind my eyes. I could already feel the damp sniffles sneaking in as I gulped down another deep breath, trying to keep myself calm, but my heart hammered in my chest. Even now, I struggled to find the strength to continue speaking.

"I tried to tell you about him before, but you wouldn't listen to me," I muttered, running my free paw over my face to wipe away my tears that had yet to fall, but as soon as the defensive tone escaped me, I instantly reset my explanation back on track. "That doesn't matter. I needed to talk to you about this because I just don't know what to do anymore. I really thought that I could trust him, but now I'm being told to get away from him and have even gotten these fearful looks from others like they think he's going to hurt me. What if that's what he wants? What if he really does try to hurt me? How am I supposed to get myself out of this?"

My words were snagged suddenly from me with a thunderous crackle of fireworks above my house, snapping through the air and sending a violent jolt through my body. A weak sob involuntarily escaped me as the tears finally began to fall, streaming down my face after my eyes squeezed firmly shut.

"I can't. I can't do this," I gasped through my tears, hearing the awful pained tone weighing down my own voice as I rushed to pull the phone from under my ear and slam it back down onto the receiver before I could process what I had done.

Thin strips of dwindling sunlight peeked through the clouds when I awoke in the breaking of the day. I wasn't certain when I had managed to fall asleep or when the midnight fireworks had come to an end, but one thing was clear: I was awake now and the tormenting night was finally over. The world outside of the window above my bed was just quiet now, a peaceful silence lingering in the air like nothing had disturbed it at all.

For a while, I couldn't bring myself to move. The mattress and my thin blankets cradled me like a gentle embrace, something I needed more than ever now, and I lay on my back without a stir as I blinked at the light of morning sitting in the room. I didn't know what time it was. It couldn't have mattered less to me. It was as if the hours of sleep I had missed last night were holding me back from the day until I was caught up on that time, and so I wasn't eager to get up any time soon; the idea to sleep for another hundred years could have slipped into my head and I wouldn't resist.

It felt like an entire decade had come and gone before the idea to get out of bed finally slipped into my head. With every passing minute that I spent wound up in bed with nothing but my thin sheets to shield me from the world, a sensation like dull, piercing nails gradually began to throb in the depths of my stomach. It wasn't like I was hungry, especially not after what I'd just dragged myself through, but more like I was soon to become sick. The inside of my stomach was utterly hollow and vicious, feeling to tear itself apart from the inside out until I forced a meal into my system. I should have known that brushing off a meal or two in an attempt to keep from disrupting my lack of appetite too much would knock me down so hard.

I finally gave in. Thrusting myself up to a seat in the bed sent a flush of chills to my cheeks like my head had just been dipped in cold water, but this was ignored as I drew back the blankets and climbed out onto the floor. Only when my feet hit the floor did the memories of last night began to spill out into my mind; the crashing fireworks that were too far from me now to cause so much as a ripple in my emotions, an awfully long night filled with tossing and turning, and the face of my best friend distorted through my jagged memories that sent a twinge of discomfort in my gut. I couldn't do anything else but ignore these swirling thoughts as I pushed myself up from the bed and brought myself from the room to find something to eat.

It was a cloudy day today. Dim lights filled the space of the dining room and the kitchen on the left from the heavy clouds crawling through the sky as I emerged into the room from the hallway, but that might have also been because the curtains over the window had been drawn shut. In the steadily increasing warmth that had taken up the final few days of the previous year, snowfall had turned to rainfall, and peering out the window to see dark streaks of grim clouds and scattered puddles of water along the path seemed to dig a void through my gut. I had pulled the curtains closed after that.

Well, it must not have been raining today; otherwise the town wouldn't have been able to put on such a show last night. Maybe a little bit of fresh air would help relieve the numb sensation that coiled in the depths of my chest. Despite the demanding ache that gripped my stomach, I brought myself first over to the window, drifting past the table to reach up and tug open the curtains once and for all.

The sky that greeted me was almost completely overtaken by high-floating clouds, this time white and gentle rather than the dark ones that had threatened the area with rain, and still managed to break in a few places to allow a light blue sky to peek through. The side road that passed by the window was dry now, leaving only small patches of damp rainwater here and there as what was left of the storms withered away. The rain was done, and it was time to open up to bluer skies at last.

A soft, cool breeze tickled the fur on my face as I unlatched the window and swung it open. The air didn't entirely smell of rain anymore, but still left a touch of dampness that clouded my senses. A subtle shiver darted down my spine at the sweep of chilled air, but I didn't stay long at the open window and instead went off into the kitchen to prepare myself some breakfast.

This morning, like several mornings before, I lacked the energy to come up with and prepare an intricate meal such as waffles or pancakes, and therefore I settled with nothing more than a bowl of granola cereal. This was how most of my mornings had begun since Goldie's birthday, so I let the monotony of the familiar procedure carry me through the actions of retrieving a bowl, pouring the cereal, and then pouring the milk. Hardly a minute had passed since I had left to prepare myself a meal when I was back at the table to eat, setting the bowl down at my place but not feeling too eager to sit down and finish it.

The groan of my chair was the only sound to be heard in the room as I dropped into my seat at the table and scooted closer to begin the meal. Sunlight slinked across the hard floor shortly after I had started eating, brightening the open window as the clouds above went along in their way across the sky. Finally, I could see that it wasn't really much of a fragile morning light, but maybe something of a midday glow. It might have even been past noon.

I twirled my spoon cheerlessly through the bowl as I crunched down my bite of cereal, watching large chunks of granola pushing through the milk in the curve of my spoon. The longer that I sat at the table trying to finish the single meal, the deeper I dug into the memories of last night, raking through strings of thoughts, flashing through sights darkened by the thick shadows that had sunken into my bedroom. As I sat to think of it, there wasn't much at all that I could manage to grasp; I could recall the bright colors dancing across my blankets and even shining off the polished surface of the phone, but all words had already plummeted into the depths of the forgotten. It had been one of the most terrible nights of my life, or maybe that was just what I had told myself. It was impossible to confidently call something terrible when the majority of it had dissolved from all memory like it was nothing but an awful dream.

Well, there was something that still returned to me. Despite how much I ached for it to be over, I hadn't escaped the situation with Redd. Just because I had managed to thrust it out of my memory to squeeze in about eight hours of sleep didn't mean that I had freed myself. I blinked down at my spoon in the bowl, which had gone still once again and sat limp in the grip of my paw, but for the first time felt no jab of worry in my gut to consider the problem—After several days of exposing myself to the worst possibilities and the most frightening outcomes, it seemed that I had finally managed to numb myself to it all as if someone had pressed a block of ice to my chest until I felt nothing. There was nothing left of me.

And just like that, I was struck with the very same question that had been eating away at my mind for the past four days without the excuse for ignorance of fear. Between Redd and Lottie, who was really there for me? Who was really someone I could call a friend, and who was using our friendship to break me? These thoughts were all too familiar to me as I stared down at the meal I could not finish, wishing for nothing more than for an answer, and knew in that moment that even in such familiarity, nothing would ever be the same again.

My eyes jumped up to the open window from my bowl at the sudden entrance of an easily recognizable sound from the other side of the wall. At first, I had caught nothing other than an unidentified faint squeaking sound, but as it neared, it gradually made itself clear as a set of wheels from a cart being rolled unhurriedly over the damp path that led to the main road. Oh no.

My heart plunged into my stomach in a split second at the sound and my thoughts instantly whirred into motion again as I lurched into a panic. Was it Redd? Why was he here? If he was here now, then he really must have been working at the party I had skipped last night, just like I had suspected.

I set down my spoon in the full bowl of cereal, pushing myself up from my seat at the table as silently as I could manage before creeping over to the window to be able to peer out. Even my breath had gone shallow, hesitant to come out in case any hint of a sound could have been picked up. I brought myself to the window just in time to see the cart pushed past, striped blue banner flapping in the gentle morning breeze, and directing it from behind was Redd, dressed in the same dark pants and cerulean jacket he had worn to my birthday party in December, the jacket he had decided he wanted to lend to me the frigid afternoon following the event.

Even from where I stood at the opening window watching him shuffle away with his cart, it was easy to see that he didn't have a care in the world; a completely calm, steadily cheerful expression had washed over his bright face, which I could only manage a few glimpses of before he was already walking away, and fit well with his relaxed demeanor in every step like nothing and no one could have bothered him. It was almost as if he were simply lost in his own world and didn't look suspicious in any way that Lottie had made him out to be. How could someone so carefree possibly be that untrustworthy?

I stood at the window as he strolled away from me, silently watching him as he went on his way. Was there a possibility that he didn't even know that others called him dangerous, that they sent him uneasy glances and whispered to their friends to stay away from him? With how upbeat his overall personality was when I spent time with him, it wasn't actually a lousy possibility. If I knew anything for sure, it was that others were always quick to judge what they didn't know or understand. Maybe now that he was here again, my next best step would be to bring up the fact and see what he had to say.

Just as Redd had pushed his cart around the corner of my house onto the main street and vanished from sight did I remove myself from the window again to prepare to catch up to him. I hadn't had any intention of finishing my breakfast even before I had spotted him anyway, so I abandoned my full bowl of cereal in the sink to deal with whenever I would return. I didn't bother shutting the window again on my way back to the bedroom to grab my royal purple sweater for the dropping temperatures, already tugging it over my head as I thrust into the hallway once again and cleared out of the house without a second thought.

A whisper of frosty wind danced through the street as I yanked the front door shut after me in my departure and sent my head on a swivel to search the area for Redd. The town was still this morning and now empty, making the fact clear that Redd had already left to find a place for his sales, but I knew where I would find him. I descended down the wooden stairs with a brisk step to my stride, slipping my paws into my pockets once the ground levelled out again and turned left out onto the road to retrace my steps to the place I had once visited so frequently.

I hadn't walked on for even a minute before I had managed to find Redd again. What first alerted me of his presence were the shuffling sounds of him setting up the display on his cart on my left as I strolled along, and so I drifted closer to the side of the road to discover that the cart had been set up in the break between houses seven and nine, off the road to keep from blocking the flow of currently nonexistent traffic. It was easy to tell that Redd hadn't caught sight of me, since he still had his back to me as he continued to arrange the display, but I couldn't help but feel a sharp jab of anxiety at the sight of him like a knife had just plunged into my stomach. What if this was a bad idea after all?

A faint breeze like ice in the air swept across the desolate street as I stepped off of the road to approach and tried to gulp down my worry, but my mind was already reeling with the worst results of my confession. Maybe me telling him what I had heard about him would be the final push before he snapped. Maybe me following Lottie's claim of how he was untrustworthy would cause him to lash out and I wouldn't have the words to defend myself. All that lay between me and the effect my words could have was just a few shrinking minutes.

"Hello," I said weakly to break the silence as my feet came to an uneasy stop several feet away from where Redd stood to keep my distance. When he dropped his focus from his display and turned back to face me, I forced a smile onto my face in greeting.

Redd didn't hesitate before showing off a familiar confident smile in return, a sure sign that he wasn't yet aware that something was wrong. "Oh, hey!" he replied.

Now that he had seen me, it was too late to move away. I couldn't make him suspicious of me; otherwise he would have the chance to accuse me of hiding something. All I had to do was make conversation like normal and maybe I could lessen the weight of what I arrived to say.

"How have you been?" I began with a generic question, keeping my tone light as I moved to stand next to him instead. He watched me with every step, pausing until I had settled again before he gave his casual answer.

"I've been all right. Nothing new," Redd admitted, shifting in his stance to glance back at the display again, running his gaze over it for a moment as if to check that everything was there before he looked at me. "What about you?"

I hadn't expected him to turn the question around. He hadn't always asked about me, which I had never felt any resentment towards but had attempted to rely on this time. For a split second, the words refused to leave me while I was torn between the truth and a lie, but Redd was waiting for an answer.

"I've been okay, I suppose," I decided hesitantly. It was an answer that wasn't a complete lie, but not fully truthful, either. It was the wrong answer.

"You suppose?" Redd prompted. He was watching me carefully now, and I knew in an instant that he was starting to figure out that there was something on my mind. Why did I give such an uncertain answer?

"Yeah," I said with a casual nod. Please don't ask again, I pleaded silently. "I've had my ups and downs."

But he did ask. "Wanna tell me about it?" he replied. "I'm a very good listener."

"I don't know," I started to respond to try and shut down the conversation, but quickly caught myself in the second uncertain answer and hastily tried again. "I'll think about it. But thank you for offering."

"Yeah, of course." Redd gave another friendly smile, but when his focus lingered on me for a few seconds longer, it came to my attention that he must have been waiting to hear either if I had anything else to say or if I would change my mind. Now was the best time to speak.

However, when I opened my mouth to speak again, hoping that the words would arrive on the tip of my tongue, no sound came out. Thoughts shot through my mind to search for the best way to bring up the heavy topic, but after several seconds of drawing a blank, I settled with a silent half-hearted smile in response and turned my face away to stare at the empty street. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Redd glance away towards the street as well, but neither of us spoke.

In the next several following minutes that swallowed our time without words, my stress had begun to level out again, but slowly. Something about Redd's calmness as he stood beside me smoothed out my emotions as well, finally coming to terms with the fact that if he was calm now, it was increasingly more likely that he would be a bit more calm later once I dropped the news. Nobody stopped by to see us with the exception of the occasional visits of the gentle wind stroking the street and the soft whistle it carried, but this was fine with me. I used the silence to be able to pick through my mind without distraction, stringing together sentences of how I planned to start the conversation, but only after at least a good five minutes had passed did I bring myself to speak.

"My friend says you're dangerous," I murmured, sneaking a glance at Redd beside me and distractedly fidgeting with my paws. My feet were ready to push off the ground and start moving at any given moment, whether that be to create distance between myself and Redd if I would need to or even to run if things went from bad to worse quickly.

There wasn't even a twitch of emotion to cross Redd's face as he looked over at me. "Dangerous? Me?" he asked. He sounded calm, much more so than I had anticipated, and I might have even caught a touch of confusion in his voice. "I guess that's a personal opinion, then. I wouldn't say I'm dangerous, but it depends who you talk to, I suppose."

Why was he reacting so well? I turned to glance at him fully to find that he was watching me carefully without so much as a hint of an expression on his face for me to read. Quietly, I examined his face to scan for any kind of emotion provoked from such news, and suddenly, the truth was clear: I had been right all along. He had never heard a claim like that. If he had anything to hide, I would have picked up on at least a twinge of fluster as he would continue to keep the truth from me, even if it would have only been slight. It was a little bit easier to breathe now.

"She told me to stay away from you," I admitted, but uncertainty was sinking into my words like sharp fangs. Now that I knew that Redd wasn't dangerous like Lottie had warned, I just couldn't put together why she would say such things in the first place. I must have been missing something.

"Well, that's not really fair, is it?" Redd shot back. "We're friends. I don't see what gives her the right to get in the middle of that."

It wasn't anger in his voice, not from what I could tell, but clearly judgment. Just like that, I couldn't help but leap onto the rolling of judgment in my own head as if I had to try to keep up with his attitude or make myself seem bigger in his presence; no, it wasn't fair. This wasn't even any of her business. Why did she have to act that way, anyway?

"I think she might just have concerns, but I'm not sure that I understand where she's coming from either," I said, but it took me a bit too long to realize what I was doing. I was defending her after she had tried to involve herself in my personal life and I didn't even need to think about it beforehand. It was as if the several years I had been close with Lottie had trained me to spit out a justification for her actions like good friends did, but for what? Was it really best for me to go on defending her if she could have been trying to cause me harm this entire time?

"Yeah, it's a bit out of the blue, isn't it?" Redd agreed.

"I think so. I told her that we were friends and she started panicking about it. I don't really understand the situation at all," I explained. Was it resentment towards the fact that I had abandoned her and found new friends? Was it a jealousy rooted from that resentment? Was that what all of this was about?

"Huh," Redd mumbled thoughtfully, nodding slightly as he considered this information. "That is a bit strange."

He didn't need to say anything more for the answer to come to me at last. The conversation alone was already starting to help me understand who was the right choice for me to trust, whose story to believe. No matter what the deepest intentions were, I was going to have my priorities straight.

"I think she might be wrong," I decided. "Even if she means well, I don't think she knows you as well as I do. I trust you."

"Well, that's nice of you to say," Redd remarked. His tone had fallen into the lighthearted pattern again, a sound that marked the end of the heaviness of the discussion. "Thank you."

For the first time this year, I could look at him and see my best friend again. I had finally received the answers I had been searching for for so long, only to discover that nothing was wrong after all and each sleepless night over the unknown had been resolved in a matter of minutes.

My eyes lingered on his smiling face for another moment before I was sure that the conversation had trickled away again and shifted my focus back to the empty street. A faint puff of wind caressed my face as I stood in silence, patiently waiting with Redd for someone to stop by as it was the least I could do. The tension in my gut had loosened but my thoughts still roamed free, contemplating the future that I had just laid out for myself by the choices I had made. Maybe it was about time to focus on the friendship I had with Redd and leave Lottie in the past for now.

And so, that was what I did. After finally letting go of the worry that had kept me from sleep several nights at the start of the year, thoughts of Lottie began to slip away as well. The words I had read in her letter gradually shriveled into almost nothing in my memory as the weeks flew by, bringing January to a steady close and carrying me into the month of February, and I didn't look back. She didn't reach out again, nor did I, and that was fine with me.

This was not how I wanted the new year to begin, but after all, it could have been much worse. If I had let my struggles from the start drag on any longer than I already had, it was likely that I could have ended up losing more than one friend trying to find the answers by myself. Now that I had come to a much-needed solution, my closest friendship had been restored, and it was time to begin the year right.

Snowfall came and went across the months, sometimes heavy and sometimes lighter. Countless days brought hours of swirling snowflakes from the thick clouds and a path covered completely with snow like a soft white blanket over the town. It was a lovely, elegant sight to see, but I couldn't seem to enjoy it as much as I used to.

The opening of February gave way to a substantial dive in my emotional and mental health. Projecting any kind of emotion at all became a chore that I eventually gave up trying to work towards, and expressing this sensation was completely out of the question. The first part of the month was tense after that. After a while, even Redd had started to sense that something was off during our time spent together whenever he had the chance to visit and continued to offer to listen to anything that was bothering me, but I couldn't pile up my problems onto him after he had shown me the support I needed at the beginning of the year. In time, he appeared to have forgotten that something was wrong at all while I tried to do the same, and our infrequent meetings went on throughout the month.

It was already halfway through the brisk month of February that something occurred to me, something that made my situation with Redd so clear that I was stunned I hadn't thought of it before. It was a day spent closed up in my house due to a relentless snowstorm pounding at my windows and Redd being away for the current point in time, dragging myself through the lonely day with books to read, warm beverages, and wandering thoughts that had made the exception to drift through memories of Lottie from my puppyhood. My focus had been straying after trying to read the same paragraph several times and I had recalled how close we had been in our younger years, how clingy and dependent she had acted on the friendship we shared, and the truth had hit me right then and there.

She had clutched onto our friendship so tightly that she couldn't stand the idea of me leaving to make new, better friends. That must have been why she had tried to get in the middle of Redd and me; she heard that I was putting my friendship in someone different and she decided to try and stop me. She certainly tried, but she could never get to me. I had once admired the way she was so devoted to our friendship, but only when I saw it from the outside did I finally see how utterly selfish she was. And that was it. Without a response and without a second thought, I dropped her as one of my friends and tossed her letter in the trash.

The entire month had left me on edge from the act of someone verbally coming after my best friend, but what really pushed me over was the rest of the town fueling this harassment as well. The year had just started but my attitude was already being roughed up at the edges like sandpaper from everything I had forced myself through in the past couple of months alone and if something so much as brushed it the wrong way, anger and sharp words exploded from me like a bomb. Whenever I caught animals in the town whispering about Redd in front of me, casting suspicious glances towards the both of us, I never missed an opportunity to shoot back a piercing glare. My neighbors had once lit up my life like stars in the night sky, but they were no stars of mine now.

I didn't know why I was like this. It wasn't like I could control it, and I did nothing to control it. I'd been on my own for an entire year after being forced to completely abandon my friends and family; I had a right to be angry.

However, towards the end of the month of February, this period of irritability had begun to subside again. It wasn't because I had been trying to lessen the effects, but more so that it laid the path for a new wave of fluctuating stress. For a while, everything had been fine, but that was until I began to feel another shift in my friendship with Redd. A creeping sensation warned me that the energy I received from our visits was ever so slowly turning sour, and yet I didn't have a clue what could have been causing it. Nothing had changed between us. He was still the same cheerful, confident, motivated animal I had known for the past eight months, but once I realized that I had never seen anything otherwise, I couldn't tear the thought from my head. There might have been a completely different personality to him that I hadn't yet seen and if he were hiding it, I would never know. Although, at first, I wasn't worried.

On the twenty-first of February, exactly one year since Digby had begun his work at Happy Home, a haunting nightmare clawed through my sleep. I dreamed of Redd, a dream that mercilessly loomed over me for the rest of the night before the sun rose come the morning. Memories of running as fast as I possibly could, feet pounding against the ground with every step, and concealing my presence in well hidden places again and again were burned into my head and panic seared in my chest as I desperately tried to escape from Redd in his hunt to track me down to cause me severe, possibly even fatal harm.

At one point, I'd slipped up in being able to find a place to shelter myself and was found, but as my life had flashed before my eyes and I knew it was the end for me, the unfamiliar figure of a dog had appeared at the right moment to rescue me, a figure that I only realized after I had awakened again must have been Digby. We tried so hard to find a way out of that horrific place and searched blindly for any kind of escape, and even though it was something we never did find, what had stood out to me the most even after I was thrust back into reality was his fierce devotion to protect me as he once had before I made the decision to leave him behind. As I was torn from sleep in a spasm of terror and my blankets tousled from my restless sleep, something became clear to me: I needed him more than anything.

But what one needed more than anything didn't always come to them. After clinging to a dream where my brother had finally returned to me and promised to protect me until the end of my days, only then did I realize that he was gone and that feeling was in the past. He had neglected to reach out to me for almost half a year, and with no word from him whatsoever, I couldn't help but feel as though he was gone completely. Every memory I still kept of him felt like it had happened in some other reality or it didn't happen at all. I was forgetting what it was like to have him in my life.

The following morning of February twenty-second, I couldn't rip the remnants of the dream from my thoughts. It didn't quite feel right to just leave it be; it had to have meant something and it didn't sit right with me to let it go to waste. It was almost like I needed to relive the feeling of having that protection again, and from there I made the choice, whether on a whim or through genuine need I was not sure, to try and contact him about Redd again.

But that was easier said than done as I sat on the edge of the bed next to the phone to actually place the call. My paws fidgeted in my lap, hesitant to reach out and pick up the phone as my gaze strayed along it as if it would ring anyway and my thoughts spun through my head. A slight ache pierced my head for every second I sat still and my stomach curdled like sour milk. It wasn't the first time I had tried this. I remembered the last time I did. It wasn't something that I wanted to drag myself through again.

For a moment, I had slipped into the consideration to just let the silence between us grow, but my paw shot forward at once when the faded image of his face in my dream flashed through my mind again. Even though I wasn't too eager to try to call again, since it was the first time I had done so for almost a month and a half, I wasn't even fully certain that there would be any answer; I had been told of the technical issues relating to the phone back in December and so it was surely solved by now, but it was already creeping into the hour of twelve noon and everyone could have been at lunch. Disregarding the odds, I would try nevertheless.

I removed the phone from the receiver, tucking it under my floppy ear and punching in the familiar number. Despite the amount of time I had spent not needing it, it was simply muscle memory now, and the numbers were entered one by one without much of a thought to it. Midday sunlight crept across the carpeted floor as I dropped my paw back to my lap and the dial tone began to fill the silence in the call, and so I sat and waited for the possibility of a response, without much hope. If nobody had answered before now, what made me think that they would answer now?

After about four rings, the dial tone was abruptly cut off, causing my breath to snag in my throat in anticipation of an answer at last, and then I heard a voice that was all too recognizable. "You've reached the voicemail for the Happy Home Designer and Academy," the voice recited in its regular bouncy tone, and I forced a sigh to myself. Why had I ever even considered the possibility of an answer? "There is currently no one around to answer your call, but if you leave a message, we'll get back to you as soon as possible."

A high-pitched beeping noise marked the end of the voicemail's message to prompt the start of my own, and then the call went silent. I ran my free paw over my face, allowing just a few moments to try and collect my words before I forced out a fragile sentence.

"I'd like to send another message to Digby," I mumbled. Since I had done this once before, the words flowed a little easier now, leaping from my tongue without much of an effort. My stomach still twinged with anxiety, but I ignored this as I shifted the phone to a more comfortable position under my ear.

"I didn't get any kind of response to my last call, so I just wanted to follow up with the problem," I went on. "I don't know how much of my message was recorded, since I called late at night, but I think I really need help."

A sudden, yet faint sound sent me tossing my head back to see what had happened, shooting a glance at my bedroom door hanging ajar leading into the shadowed hallway. The sound was so far away that I wasn't completely sure that I hadn't imagined it, but it sounded almost like a muffled knock. A rising chill of uncertainty flooded my chest, almost like I was unknowingly being watched, but when no sound came after, I returned my focus to the call.

"I just don't know what to do at this point," I confessed, but the volume of my voice had dropped a few notches once the thought of not actually being alone had crept into my head. "I feel like I should, but I don't. I spoke with Redd about the situation and he told me there's nothing to worry about, but there's a part of me that can't help worrying."

A dim suspicion was starting to inch its way into my mind that with every second I spent on the phone, the more it seemed useless entirely. With the knowledge that this call, like every other, would go without a response made it all feel like I was talking to nobody. Maybe it was finally time to state my intentions and move on. If there would still be no attempt to reach out, then I would be sure it was a lost cause.

"I just really need your help," I urged. "I don't think I can do this on my own anymore. I just need someone to..."

Once I tried to express that I needed someone to tell me what to do in this kind of situation, I nearly jumped out of my skin at the abrupt chime of the doorbell echoing through the house. I really wasn't alone anymore. My eyes darted back to the opening to the hallway, trying to put together who would have been at my door at this hour of the morning, and then the worst question hit me: What if it was Redd?

My heart almost instantly began to thump heavily in my chest. There was no way he could have known that I was doubting him. Even if he did, would he have made the effort to track down my house number to confront me? Both my paws and my voice had already started to shake slightly as I redirected my focus for the last time to end the call.

"I have to go," I managed to say before weakly returning the phone to the receiver. If it was Redd at my door, what was I going to do?

My mind was reeling at the possibility of Redd hunting down my location because he knew something as I brought myself through the hallway to the front door. I had no idea he was even in town today; as far as I knew, he had taken his leave from the area almost a week ago. I had no idea what I was even supposed to say to him or what he could have figured out. Oh no, I silently worried to myself as I crossed the softly sunlit dining room and reached for the doorknob. Oh no, oh no, oh—

"I hope I'm not interrupting something, woof," Goldie said once I had pulled open the door, shyly fiddling with her paws held in front of her. She stood on my doorstep with a vast sea of fallen snow at her feet, and she wore her usual thick brown coat and an anxious glimmer in her eyes. A rush of icy, biting air swept into the room with the opening of the door. "I didn't see you at the holiday party back in December and I just wanted to check in to make sure everything's okay. I would have stopped by sooner, but I was away for a while to visit my family back home."

A warm flood of relief spilled through my gut to see that it was Goldie at my doorstep and not Redd. I must have been so absorbed in the fact that Redd had left the town that I hadn't realized that Goldie was gone as well.

"I'm okay," I replied without thinking. If I knew anything for sure, it was that I was most definitely not okay, but the words came out so quickly that I couldn't control it. It must have been just an initial reaction now after doing so well to shut everyone out rather than to let them know what was going on in my head. It was less work, anyway.

"Are you sure?" Goldie inquired. The space outside slowly darkened as a cloud crept over the sun, and yet a patch of sunlight still fell over her worried face. "I can't help noticing that you seem a little bit distant today. Did something happen? You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to, but I would like to help you where I can."

Something about her request seemed much more genuine and personal than the one that Redd had offered. If my memory served me well, Redd hadn't given anything more than a brief offer to hear what was bothering me and simply brushed it off when I declined. Goldie was persistent, and I could easily see that she wholeheartedly cared for me and wanted me to be okay. It wasn't like I could push someone like her away with a few heavy topics.

"It was a while ago," I began hesitantly, dropping my gaze to examine my paws. Even as I avoided her gaze, I could feel her focus sit still on me. "I don't know if I would know how to explain it."

"If you need some time to find the right words, then I have all the time in the world for you," Goldie said gently. "May I come inside? We can talk if you're ready to."

When I looked at her again, I quickly discovered that her expression had changed. A hint of worry still shimmered in her dark eyes but a slight, unwavering smile had crossed her face. Seeing her standing in front of me on my doorstep after venturing through the heavy snow and frigid temperatures just to show me that she was there for me, there was no part of me that wanted to turn her away.

"Sure," I replied, managing a little nod, and stepped out of the way to provide her entrance. Goldie offered a polite thank you and emerged into the room, already working on unzipping her coat as I shut the door after her.

"It's quite a chilly day today, but the fresh snowfall looks awfully beautiful," Goldie told me, trying to make conversation as she carefully pulled her puffy coat from her shoulders and tucked it over her arm to glance around the two rooms. "Should we take a seat at the table? It would be more comfortable than standing, at least."

"Sure," I echoed before the monotony in my words and lack of enthusiasm for her arrival occurred to me. "I'm sorry that I can't be a better host. I just have a lot to think about right now."

"No worries. You can't control it, and that's okay. I know I have definitely felt that way before," Goldie said kindly. She gave me another patient smile before she drifted across the room to reach the table, drawing out one of the chairs to lower herself into a seat, and I followed her movements.

Goldie bent down to place her folded coat on the floor near her chair as I took a seat in the other chair, yanking to rotate it and face her more efficiently. Only after I had settled again with my elbow resting on the side of the table in a casual seat did she straighten up again, holding her paws together in her lap as her gaze met mine.

"Can you explain to me what happened?" Goldie asked quietly when I didn't speak first. "You don't need to have the words right away. Just take your time. I won't rush you."

"Thank you," I mumbled, but this was the only thing I could say. Goldie only nodded slightly in response, carefully watching me to listen for when I would begin.

As far as I knew, the only way to explain something of such weight was to start from the beginning. "I told someone back home who used to be a friend of mine that I was friends with Redd," I went on after a pause, eyes straying across the smooth surface of the table at my elbow. Goldie was quiet as I spoke, waiting until I would be finished to voice her response. "We were going back and forth writing letters around the end of last year. I told her I was friends with Redd and she just panicked."

"Mm-hmm," Goldie murmured, prompting me to continue.

My stomach was starting to feel as if it were curdling on the inside again. "She told me to get away from him," I muttered. "She told me that he's dangerous and the longer I spend with him, the more at risk I am of getting hurt. She insisted that he's using our friendship to manipulate me and to harm me, but it's hard to see that being true when she's not here to say it directly."

Goldie's silence this time tore my focus from the table back up to her face to see how she was reacting. Her expression had clearly undergone another shift, this one definitely not as pleasant as the last. Any smile on her face was wiped away in an instant, quickly replaced by a stone cold glance of worry by my words, but still she said nothing. And just like that, I saw it: She must have known this long before I had. I had always suspected she had known something I didn't in the fearful looks she sent in Redd's direction and in the way she shut down the conversation once I brought him up.

I anxiously ran my paw over my face again as I spoke again in a strained murmur. "I'm sorry," I told her. "I know you told me to stay away from him and I know that you're already enemies or something—"

"Enemies?" Goldie cut in, her voice suddenly lifted with surprise, and then she shook her head, causing her floppy ears to bounce. "No, not at all. Not friends, for sure, but definitely not enemies."

Huh? Not expecting a response such as that, I dropped my paw back to the table and let my gaze flick back to lock with hers. "What? Really?" I said.

Goldie seemed to sense that the statement puzzled me and quieted for a moment to find the right words to say before she spoke at last in a soft, yet gentle voice. "Life is short and life is yours," she explained. "Why would you choose to have enemies?"

The question brought me to silence. I was seeing the situation in an entirely new light now, a brand new picture being painted in my mind by Goldie's words alone. She was absolutely right, I realized, but she made it seem so simple.

Goldie allowed the quietness between us to grow for a long pause before eventually seeming to figure out that I had nothing left to say and slowly took a deep breath. "Well, that's indeed a very tricky situation," she said quietly, examining her paws in her lap. "I don't want to say it, but I have a bad feeling that your friend might be right. That's a very difficult thing to be dealing with, isn't it?"

"Mm-hmm," I mumbled and could manage nothing more.

"The first thing that comes to mind to help solve a problem is communication, but I'm not sure how much that would help in the long run," Goldie explained, raising her head to look at me again. "Communication is especially good for strained friendships, but I understand that it's much easier to avoid it. All of the worst possibilities just fill your head and it pulls you away from trying entirely."

That statement didn't make me feel better in the slightest. I couldn't find the words to respond to this, wordlessly watching Goldie's anxious face to wait for her to speak again instead.

Goldie quickly appeared to notice that the tension in the room was still rigid and paused again to try a different approach. "I hope this isn't overstepping my boundaries, but may I take a look at the letter your friend sent you?" she inquired after a moment.

She must have been expecting the letter to be tucked away neatly in some drawer or storage place, but that wasn't the situation. I pushed myself up from the table as Goldie watched me patiently and I stepped out from the table on my way to depart from the dining room. The small trash bin that held the crumpled letter sitting on the surface of a bed of garbage was tucked in between the bedroom door and the wall, and so I grabbed it and carried it back with me as I returned into the dining room.

"Oh," Goldie said as I emerged from the hallway with the trash bin in paw, clearly taken aback by the sight, and her eyes followed me as I crossed the room to reach my seat again. Without a word, I set down the bin at her feet and dropped into my chair again to watch her.

"Well, this is... unexpected," Goldie remarked hesitantly after I had taken a seat, bending down to reach into the bin for the crushed sheet of paper at the top. At that moment, I was struck with the creeping suspicion that I hadn't yet said everything I had wanted to, unsaid and unknown words lingering on my tongue, and only when Goldie sat up again with the crumpled piece of paper withdrawn from the bin in her paw did the memories of my disturbing dream flood my mind again. Maybe that would have been something worth mentioning as well.

"I had this haunting dream about Redd last night, but I'm not sure if that changes anything," I mumbled just as Goldie had begun to smooth out the sheet of paper on the table, and her dark eyes darted up to meet mine.

"Can you tell me about it?" Goldie questioned politely.

"I don't actually remember most of the details, but I remember constantly running and hiding from him in terror that he was going to track me down and hurt me," I explained. For a moment, I considered mentioning the second half where Digby had taken me away to fight for my safety, but I held my tongue, reminding myself that it wouldn't be directly related to the situation.

Goldie nodded slightly, considering this. "I think you should definitely listen to the patterns of your dreams," she told me. "I'm not very knowledgeable on the meanings of dreams and what they represent, but I can tell that there's some degree of distrust there."

Once again, I didn't have the words to respond to this. I'd had animals bring attention to the hazards of my friendship with Redd, but never once had I been told to my face that my trust in him was gone. What if she was right? What if, after so many damaging events I'd dragged myself through to assure myself that he wasn't dangerous like everyone said, my trust in him was finally deteriorating?

Seeing that I had nothing more to speak about on the topic, Goldie lowered her gaze again to continue smoothing down the letter on the table and held it gently in both paws to read through it once it was open again. "Oh, I know Lottie," she pointed out after just a few moments of glancing through the letter. "She works at the Happy Home Academy. She works so hard."

Even after she had fallen quiet again to scan the writing on the wrinkled page, Goldie looked so peaceful in her reading. Her eyes were like small pieces of amber, slowly drifting back and forth to follow the words in front of her, and there was no trace of judgement in her face. In the simplicity of the silence, she was nothing but herself.

"Oh." Goldie finally spoke again after a few minutes of quiet reading, and it was only one uncertain word. That wasn't a good sign. "I have to admit that I didn't know a lot of this myself, but I'm definitely glad to know now."

Uneasiness was slowly creeping up inside me, stomach twisting into knots and a soreness welling up behind my eyes, fiercely threatening to start pulling out tears. If Goldie of all animals wasn't even aware of something like this, then how much deeper was the unknown to everyone? If Goldie was this worried, how much danger could I possibly have been in?

Goldie glanced up from the letter in her paws, seeming to realize what was happening. "Oh, no, I didn't mean to cause concern," she rushed to assure me, but the feeling did not subside. "I do think in a situation of this severity, though, honesty is probably the most efficient route. Unfortunately, this is something I don't know how to fix, since I've never experienced something like this myself, and because of that I don't know what to say."

I forced a nod and tried to say that I understood, but no sound came out of me as my eyes began to dampen. I blinked back the tears that had sprung to my eyes but Goldie was reaching out to me, gently taking hold of my paw that rested on the table and offering a weak smile.

"We're going to solve this," Goldie said softly, giving my paw a friendly squeeze. "I'm not stepping through that door again until we find a solution. I have some ideas right away if it will calm your mind. As I said earlier, communication is always best, but observing body language and receiving the facts from outside sources will help greatly as well."

It was as if I had become a pot of scorching water, bubbling and boiling higher and violently until everything would come spilling out at once. All of the new information was whirling through my head and I was about to burst. Before I could stop myself, suppressed words were pouring out of me like a surging river and tears burned in my throbbing eyes.

"I just don't know what to do," I wailed, yanking my paw out of Goldie's grasp to try and wipe away the tears that had begun to stream down my face beyond my control, but I succeeded in nothing more than smearing them across my face. I heard Goldie rush to put down the sheet of paper again at my sudden explosion of emotion, but I couldn't look at her. "I don't want to deal with this anymore. I'm so tired of this. I don't even know who I can trust anymore. It just feels like the whole world is against me and I feel like nobody is there for me. I just want..."

My words were abruptly cut off as something took a sudden hold on my head, and my eyes snapped open again to discover that Goldie's paws had shot out to land on my cheeks as if to hold me still. In a split second, the howl of my cries had become a whisper, hardly even a breath to pass through me, and purely stunned at what Goldie was doing to me, I stared at her face which looked into mine.

Despite the powerful downpour of emotions I'd just fallen surrender to, Goldie was completely calm, cradling my tearstained face in her paws. "I would carry the weight of the world for you if you asked me to, Isabelle," she said softly. "No matter the struggle you're fighting through or the emotions that come out of you, I will always be right here beside you. Even if the whole world was against you, I'd stand by you so that it would be us against the world. You're the strongest animal I've ever met as well as one of my closest friends. If anyone can rise above this challenge, it's you. I believe in you with everything I am."

. . .

The unexpected meeting with Goldie was not easily forgotten. Even as the month of February came to an end and opened up into March and then, in time, April as well as the yearly birth of the springtime, the memories that the event had carried still burned vividly into my mind. Goldie's words continued to dance through my mind as the weeks flew by me as I approached them from every angle in my thoughts, toying with them for every clear and hidden meaning to come to some kind of sign for what I was supposed to do. But an answer was something that did not come quickly for me.

Across the final days of February and the fleeting weeks of rainy March, Redd's presence in the town was something that gradually became more and more infrequent. The length of his visits became shorter and the number of visits fewer. Even if I had managed to come across a solution, I wouldn't have had the chance to confide in him. In the inevitability of his persistent absence, all that was left for me to do was wait until I found my answer and then make sure I caught him at the right moment.

Before I knew it, the dampness of March had given way for the blossoming of life and springtime in April. Vibrant green leaves began to bud on the trees lining the streets, what was left of the snow melting away with each passing day, and from there the grass grew again. With the descent of the new season, temperatures increased as well, sending sweeps of warmer air across the town. Even the seafood restaurant I had become a regular visitor for had reopened in the late days of the month. And then, on the final day of April, a day that I had caught cautious whispers of Redd's return, the answer arrived.

The time had come to meet with Redd again. I easily took advantage of this opportunity, knowing that the last time I had such a conversation with him, he made no attempt to harm me. I would pretend to know less than I really did, in a strategic manner to withdraw as much information as I could through his side of the story. A thorough, intensive conversation was best supported over a meal, and I knew what to do.

On the first day of May, Redd and I met together at the recently opened seafood restaurant. Just like I had predicted, I'd located him preparing for his sales off the side of the street between the hours of eleven and twelve noon and had extended the invitation from there. He was eager to spend time with me after our lack of visits over the past couple of months, an eagerness that I could no longer share, and we travelled together to receive our meal.

The beginning of the meal was spent in silence. The day was cooler than most, washing over me in gentle breezes like a flow of water and sending a faint salty scent to drift through the air. My usual salmon dish sat in front of me but I only picked at it with my fork. Redd, who sat quietly at the other side of the table across from me, hadn't yet received his order and stared off into the distance over the balcony and towards the sea. He didn't know why I had asked him to meet me here.

The most efficient way to get answers was through questions, that much I knew for sure, but the right questions to ask were nothing but void in my mind. With Redd seated right in front of me, thoughts of our slowly breaking friendship invaded my mind. I had once trusted him for advice when I felt the same for my friendship with Digby; maybe I would launch the conversation with a similar topic while doing what I could to keep it vague. At some point, I would also have to get the information I could about his work and find out why Lottie had urged me not to apply for a job. One thing at a time.

"Can I ask you some things?" I spoke up at last, setting down my silverware on the side of my plate and giving up on finishing my meal. As I put forth the first words I had managed since we had sat down together, Redd quickly returned his focus to me to hear what I had to say.

"Yeah, of course," Redd replied, as kindly as he always spoke. His kindness wasn't going to help me now. "What's up?"

"I know we talked about this at some point before, but I think it's a good time to revisit the topic," I said, tearing my own gaze away to examine my unfinished dish of food. He must have had no idea that I was talking about him. "I'm thinking about the, um... the troubles I'm having with some friends. It just feels like we're on this downward spiral and don't get along like we used to. I wanted to ask what you thought of this situation and what I should do."

"Okay," Redd replied, prompting me to continue without as much as a shift in emotion in his tone to hear about my struggles. Clearly, he couldn't care less about what I was going through unless it affected him in some way. Communication is always best, but observing body language and receiving the facts from outside sources will help greatly as well, Goldie's words echoed through my mind.

Taking Goldie's advice in the final moments before she had witnessed my painful breakdown, I raised my head again to find that Redd hadn't removed his steady gaze from me. I needed to pay very close attention to every single reaction, every single emotion, that I provoked to determine my approach.

"Oh, you're finished. I thought you had more to say," Redd admitted when I didn't speak and offered a halfhearted shrug. "Well, I dunno. Maybe talk to them about it?"

It was becoming increasingly obvious that my technique wasn't earning much success, so I pushed further. "What if I want to make things better, but it's starting to feel like it's no use and that nothing can come from it anymore?" I tried again.

"Then let it go," Redd told me simply. "If someone doesn't make you happy or serve you any good anymore, you don't have to keep them around. It just gets exhausting after a while."

His answer had changed from the previous time I had asked. Interesting. He was no longer suggesting for me to work things out and told me to cease the friendship instead. With an answer like that, I couldn't help wondering if his answer would have been different if he knew that he spoke of our own friendship.

"Okay," I said after a moment, as there was nothing else to say. "Thank you."

"So, that's it? You don't need anything else from me?" Redd asked, seeming to be already ready for the conversation to end as he glanced around, probably to see if his meal was being brought to him. But this was not what I had in mind.

"Not of that topic," I told him, taking up my silverware again to resume my own meal as I carried forward the conversation, but kept a careful eye on Redd as to not miss a single twinge of emotion in his face. I needed to choose my words incredibly carefully from here on out. "So, tell me about your work. I know you sell art, but that's about all I know."

Prompting an opportunity to promote his work sparked an interest in Redd, and he enthusiastically moved to rest his elbows on the table in front of him to engage in conversation again. "I do sell art, you're right about that," he launched into explanation with a brief nod. "Actually, I'm in charge of this big emporium and spend most of my time there when I'm not travelling. It's pretty cool."

I silently noted to myself that he enjoyed rambling about his work and if I provided more questions to allow him to talk more, the more information I would receive. "What do you do over there?" I inquired. "What's that like?"

"Kinda boring, sometimes," Redd confessed. "Not much happens when you have only one employee. But it's nice to sell and chat with customers. I just spend most of my time selling, talking to customers, or answering calls."

Now I was getting somewhere. Redd had revealed to me without a second thought the fact that he had only one other animal working for him rather than an entire company, and that was highly suspicious on its own. There must have been a reason for this, a reason why he hadn't gotten very many animals to work for him. I would have to come back to that topic.

"What about when you're travelling?" I kept on. He must have been on his travels now, considering he never remained in town long enough for me to consider the possibility of him officially working here, and it might have been beneficial to hear the explanation in context.

"I just take my cart and do some selling wherever I end up. It's kinda like taking a piece of the emporium on the go," Redd described. That much I already knew. "Sometimes I do scheduled events and stuff but spontaneous sales are more my thing."

"But you're not usually focused on getting more workers, right?" I pressed. After everything he'd just explained up to this point, it surely didn't seem like a priority of his. "You're mainly focused on selling?"

"I never really tend to seek out new workers, yeah. They just come to me on their own," Redd agreed, shifting back into a casual seat in his chair, and nodded. "So, yeah. My main focus would definitely be the sales."

"Then why did you ask me?" I blurted out, the words leaping from my tongue quicker than I could hold them back, and so I withdrew again from my sudden burst of words. "Oh, I... I didn't mean that in any rude way," I stammered in defense. "I was just curious."

"Nah, don't worry about it," Redd said casually, dismissing the mistake with an abrupt wave of his paw. "I asked you because you seemed like you'd be fun to work with."

What was that supposed to mean? "Really? How so?" I prompted.

"Your energy, mostly," Redd told me. A puff of warm air skimmed the balcony, fiddling with the ends of my short bangs, but I paid no attention. "You seem like you'd be the hardworking type, loyal until the end, that sort of thing. The ideal employee."

For a split second, I couldn't find the words to respond to this. Something about the claim didn't quite sit right with me, and I could feel my stomach gradually start to tighten into knots. "Oh, I see," I managed, forcing a slight nod, and for the first time since the meal had begun considered getting out of there.

The meal went on in silence, but the atmosphere was a bit more tense than it had been before. I quietly worked through my salmon for the next few minutes, picking through my mind and what was left in my memory of the conversation I had shared with Goldie but struggled to determine the best questions to ask. Redd's meal was delivered shortly after the silence had begun to grow between us, and for the following several minutes, neither of us spoke as we ate.

Redd didn't speak up again until he had only a few bites remaining of his meal, while I had at least half of mine. "Well, I should probably be getting back to work," he said, tossing his silverware back onto his plate as I quickly raised my head to look at him. "I kinda left my cart and I should be getting back to it to make sure nothing's stolen."

"Oh, okay," I replied hesitantly, my own silverware still resting limply in my paws. The main reason I had invited him here in the first place was to try and get as much information out of him as I possibly could, and now he was excusing himself out before either of us were even finished eating. I'd lost my chance to get any further than I had already.

"So, I'll see you later?" Redd asked, pushing himself up from the table and leaving the dishes and the payment to me.

This wasn't likely, but not something I would admit to him. "Yeah, sure," I said instead, managing another slight nod.

"All right, cool," Redd replied cheerfully, letting his gaze linger on me for another moment as if he needed to memorize the details of my face before he took his leave, and then he turned and strode off towards the door leading into the restaurant again.

I turned my focus back to the meal that still sat before me. I could hear the restaurant door swinging open and falling shut again in Redd's departure as I sliced myself another bite of fish by myself, closely followed by the sound of the door being pushed open again with the entrance of a different animal. I could only gain a few seconds of peaceful silence as I ate as the door fell shut again before a shout hit the air.

"Oh, Isabelle, honey!" a youthful, sweet sounding voice like a pleasant treat after a heavy meal burst into sound, evidently at the sight of me from the door to the restaurant. I raised my head in time to see a petite brown bear in a striking red summer dress hurry to cross the balcony to join me at the table, dark eyes sparkling with delight like those when greeting an old friend.

She obviously recognized me from somewhere, probably from out and about in the town after picking up my name, but I didn't have a clue who she was. "Oh, I... I'm sorry," I stammered as she came to a stop a few feet in front of me, watching me eagerly as if waiting for me to say I knew her. "I don't think we've met before."

"We did meet a few times, but it was quite a while ago now," the bear explained kindly. A soft passing breeze toyed with the ends of her neat brown bangs and the hem of her vibrant skirt. "My name is Maple. We used to stay in the same campsite together. The campsite manager was Katie the kitten, remember? She told me a lot about you, like how you were travelling by means of searching for work and how you were struggling a little bit with making friends, but you had moved on from the campsite before I really had the chance to reach out."

The moment that the name Katie came into sound, a name I hadn't heard for months, several memories from my first campsite resurfaced in my mind. That period of time had been the very last time I'd been consistently close with Digby, making sure to talk on the phone with him nearly every day. I hadn't made any friends in that place with the exception of Katie herself, but I did share a few interactions with a few of my neighbors while I had been dealing with social anxiety.

The brown bear was already offering me a courteous wave as she and her lavender and blue bear friend passed by me. "Good morning, honey!" the brown bear greeted me with a kind smile. The memory stood out to me clearly now that I was speaking directly with the animal I had shared it with. That entire trip had happened over a year ago now.

"Oh, that's right!" I said, my mind reeling at the reunion of someone I thought I'd left behind in my past, and raised my paw to offer the seat that Redd had abandoned. "You can sit and join me, if you want to."

"Thank you so much!" Maple replied, beaming brightly at the request as she went to take her seat. I patiently waited for her to settle again as she slipped into her seat at the table, hesitantly glanced down at Redd's unfinished plate of food in front of her, and reached out to relocate it.

"I think I remember running into you while you were with a friend of yours," I pointed out to make conversation as Maple carefully picked up the plate and moved it further towards the middle to create an empty space before her. "She was a blue and purple bear, if I remember correctly."

"Oh, yes," Maple said, withdrawing her paws from the plate again to fold them politely on the table in front of her. "That's Judy. She can be a bit cold and distant when you first meet her, but when you get to know her, she's very friendly."

She hadn't needed to say it aloud for me to realize that I wouldn't have been liked very much. That would have been an awful situation for me with my struggle to find friends as it was if I hadn't managed to avoid it. Maybe it was best that I hadn't tried to communicate with her.

It took me a moment for it to occur that I hadn't yet switched off my attentively analyzing mind from when I had been trying to get information out of Redd, as it became clear once I began to read into every word that Maple spoke, but I didn't have the chance to give a response before a different animal jumped in first.

"I see we've got a new guest, what what!" the black and red spotted server dog that had earlier taken Redd's and my order burst out in a cheery, confident tone as she strode her way across the balcony from the door to reach my table. She had her small notepad in paw once again, probably after noticing that Maple had arrived and leaving to take her order as well. Maple offered her the same beaming smile she had given to me as she approached.

"Is there anything I can get for you?" the dog asked Maple, stopping at the side of the table to address her. The vivid turquoise tint of her round eyes were enhanced under the thick set of her stylish eyelashes, I noticed as she looked down at Maple across from me. "Something to drink? A bite to eat?"

"I'll just have the sea bass, please," Maple replied respectfully. "Thank you, honey."

"Yeah, no problem! I'll just get this out of your way for you," the dog offered, reaching out and plucking Redd's plate of food from the table before making her departure towards the door, leaving Maple and me alone again.

"You look great, by the way," Maple pointed out after the server dog had disappeared through the door to the restaurant again. "I can see a lot more confidence in yourself. You've changed a lot since I last talked to you."

"Thank you," I said. That was a compliment, wasn't it?

"Well, time provokes change, isn't that right?" Maple allowed a small smile to herself for a moment before she spoke up again. "You know, I really think it's destiny that we were able to meet here today, even if only in part. I just left Katie's campsite about a month ago to explore new environments and by chance ended up in the same neighborhood as you for a second time. It's certainly odd!"

"Yeah, I'd say so," I agreed. Thoughts of Katie were already flooding my mind from her second mention in the conversation, the vague pieces I could put together of her bright, youthful yellow face drifting through my memories. "How is Katie? It's been so long since I've seen her."

"She's doing as well as she can. She's got such a big responsibility hanging over her to take care of the entire campsite, but she's managing it tremendously well," Maple described. The soft breeze sweeping the space still fiddled with the lock of dark bangs that hung like a curtain over her forehead. "Actually, she just celebrated her fifteenth birthday last October, so I thought you'd be happy to hear about that."

Maple's meal was brought out to the table hardly a few minutes after it had been ordered. For the next several minutes, it was clear that Maple had nothing more to say in conversation as we worked through our food, staring quietly off into the distance of the sea over the balcony when she wasn't digging into her fish. I was already close to being finished with my own meal when she spoke up again at last.

"I ran into Redd the kitsune on my way in," Maple said, glancing across the table at me. She had lost her smile in the short period of time that we had stopped talking, but was replaced by a simply calm expression instead. "Was he with you? I noticed there was an extra plate at your table as he was heading out."

Here it comes, I thought to myself. Prepared for another lecture of how Redd was untrustworthy, I drew in a deep breath and forced a nod. "Yeah, we came here together," I admitted.

"No, you don't want to associate with animals like that," Maple told me. A glimmer of concern flashed through her wide black eyes. "Now, I know it's not my place to tell you who your friends should and shouldn't be, but I wouldn't get involved with anything about him if I were you. Don't get too close with him, don't apply for a job, any of it."

Oh. "Why? What happens to those who work for him?" I asked immediately, setting down my silverware again. Of course, Lottie had already given me a vague idea about what happened, but as soon as I heard Maple mention it, I had to hear what she had to say about it.

"Oh, no one knows, honey," Maple said nervously. "All I know is that it must be absolutely awful. To be honest, I don't know if I want to know. Knowing what Redd is like is enough for me."

Something about this statement began to ease the tension in my stomach. Maybe it was the fact that there was nothing more to fear that I hadn't been warned about already that calmed my nerves. But nothing in this world could have mentally prepared me for what occurred.

"It sounds like you don't get along with him very well," I remarked, my voice a bit more steady than it had been earlier as I collected my silverware again to finish my meal.

"I hardly know anyone who does," Maple went on as I proceeded to slice into my seasoned fish. "In fact, if there's anything he's known for, I'm sure that not getting along with everyone around him would be high up on that list, especially with that otter family that runs the HHDA."

My heart dove into my stomach with the force of a hundred-ton weight, catching my breath in my throat. Everything in my head had gone fuzzy in a matter of moments, nearly blinding me from the strike of terror from what I had just heard and my chest became hollow inside. It couldn't be.

"What did you say?" I tried to keep my voice level as it had been before, but I could only manage to squeeze out a pained whisper. My paws had surrendered to a violent shake as my heart began to pound relentlessly in my chest, but I couldn't tear my eyes from Maple's anxiety-painted face.

"Well, I only know what I've heard, but word is that the first owner used to have a pretty rough relationship with him," Maple explained. "It's been quite a long time since he was in charge of the HHDA, so I can't say I'm one hundred percent sure, but I'm fairly certain that his name was Lyle. Nobody I've spoken to really remembers clearly what happened, since it was several years ago now, but I keep hearing rumors like Redd was trying to take down the business or was at least trying to include himself where he wasn't wanted. I think it was Lyle's daughter or his niece that took over the responsibility of running the company about five years ago, but I've been told that he's doing everything he can to keep Redd away from the business in order to protect her from being put through what he went through with him. I hear that she's never met Redd in person to this day, but she can hardly even speak of him without going into a panic."

It was much worse than I had even suspected. All words had escaped me in a single moment and my stomach lurched with a bone-deep dread, but Maple wasn't finished.

"I figure they told that new shih tzu dog they hired last year about the entire issue as soon as he started working there. I'd be surprised if he didn't absolutely despise him for what he must have heard," Maple went on, but her focus was already wandering as she snuck a glance at a black wristwatch on her right wrist and scrambled to climb out of her chair. "Oh my, would you look at the time! I promised Judy I'd join her to shop for warm weather clothing at one and it's already half past twelve. I'm sorry, honey, but I've got to head out now."

I was one more push away from passing out. My head swam and my blood ran cold, frightened stiff from what I was hearing, and I could not say anything to Maple as she left her unfinished dish behind along with Redd's to dash back towards the door, the rhythmic pounding of her footsteps receding with her. I sat in the very same place at the table for what felt like years after Maple had abandoned me in my seat, thoughts still whirling and head still spinning after what she said to me.

Lottie had been right all this time. She had been right and I had thrown away her warnings and her friendship entirely to devote my trust to someone who was toying with my emotions for his own entertainment. And just like that, everything made sense; she knew Redd because her uncle did. She knew Redd because her uncle warned her, and then she had tried to warn me.

Not only had Lottie been right about Redd, she wasn't even the only one that knew who he really was. Digby had known about Redd all along. He had known about Redd before I even stepped foot onto the boat that had taken me across the sea away from home. He had known about Redd before I did. Why hadn't he warned me? Why didn't he say anything? What had he said to me before I left? Was there any way I could have known?

But then, just as I was desperately searching through my memories to find anything that could have warned me about Redd and his intentions, the worst truth finally hit me.

I tore my gaze away to begin examining the writing on the back of the envelope again, observing the inscribed letters in front of me. "An old friend of mine, evidently," I mumbled thoughtfully.

"Oh, who's that?" Redd inquired.

My focus lingered on the envelope for another moment before I lifted my head again. "Her name is Lottie," I explained.

"She told me to stay away from you," I admitted, but uncertainty was sinking into my words like sharp fangs.

"Well, that's not really fair, is it?" Redd shot back. "We're friends. I don't see what gives her the right to get in the middle of that."

I had unknowingly led Redd right to Lottie.

That was it. I couldn't sit and let the problem become any worse than it already had just because I was too afraid of the consequences I would bring about. I couldn't even think about what could happen if I did. It was time to take action, to disregard the agony of an end and make the right choice this time. I didn't have any other option now. I couldn't go on like this anymore, at least not alone. I knew what I had to do.

The journey through the streets back home was nothing more than a blur, driven by racing thoughts pushing me forward step after frantic step. Every second I spent away from home was a second closer to being too late from fixing the catastrophe that still spiraled further and further out of my control. My feet hammered against the surface of the street, determined to carry me home as soon as possible, but no matter how quick I was, I would never get there fast enough. The further I went on my way, the louder one question screamed out in my mind: What have I done?

But that was the problem. I knew exactly what I had done. I was one wrong move away from ruining Lottie's entire life. If there was ever a sign for me to step up and fight for a change, even if it tore me through skin and bone, it was now. If not for myself, then for Lottie.

After stumbling through the doorway into my home again, I had no room for hesitation as I tore through the hallway and thrust myself into my bedroom. My mind was whirring, aflame with thoughts as I scoured the room, yanking blankets from the bed and scrutinizing the floor with eyes sharp as knives for the crumpled sheet of paper on which Lottie had written to me. But after thoroughly foraging every single inch of the room, I realized that it wasn't there. Where was it?

I must have seen it last when Goldie came to visit. If I had no memory of moving it, then it would have still been somewhere in the dining room. I took off from the bedroom again, returning to the dining room from the hallway in a second flat and began the search again. Just like I had suspected, I quickly found the letter on the floor among the shadow beneath the table, and I snatched it up without a second thought.

My eyes still danced hastily over the written words on the page as I grabbed the materials to write a response from the storage room, carrying back a single sheet of paper, a pencil, and an envelope to the dining room table. My paws shook involuntarily but the words flowed from the pencil the moment it touched the paper, minute by minute working itself through the cry for help that was about to change everything I had ever known.

Lottie,

I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know why I thought I could do this on my own. I should have listened to you when you first warned me about Redd. I didn't mean for everything to end up this way. I know we haven't spoken since last year, but I really need your help.

Everyone I've talked to about this keeps telling me not to trust him. I couldn't bring myself to believe them for a long time because I couldn't mentally accept that he was anything less than my friend, but that's what he manipulated me into thinking and I'm worried that it might be too late now. I'm worried that this was all part of his terrible plan and that he's going to try and control me so that I can't escape him. I don't know what to do or think anymore. I've already contacted Digby about this, but I haven't gotten a response from him.

I don't want to be a part of this broken friendship with Redd anymore. I don't want anything to do with him at all. I know that the very first thing I need to do is to get away from him, and no matter how much I want that, it's not as easy as it sounds. I don't want to think about what he might do to me if he finds out what I know.

Please help me. I'm scared.

Isabelle