The building was very nearly larger than I had remembered it to be. My eyes flitted slowly across the words, tall and bold as they stretched across the wall in their commanding presence. The Happy Home Designer and Academy. I had been approaching the building by the main salmon-colored path, around the fountain and through the precisely-trimmed hedge borders, but found a halt several yards back from the doors to examine the building in all of its nobility. The immense clock that hung on the white wall read a few minutes past eight in the morning—I was meant to be inside by now—But it was as if an invisible barrier stood between me and the entrance.

The air was already baking, searing in the morning summertime sunlight as its rays pummeled my face. A dampness had gathered between the pads on my paw and the briefcase handle it clenched. I read through the title once, twice, and then again, like the letters that glistened under the screaming lights were foreign to me, and then my eyes flicked up to sneak a glance up at the windows instead. The first two on the left were shut, shading my view from the office behind them, but the one on the right hung open.

Lyle's office, I remembered. Both he and Lottie would have been in there right now. They both arrived earlier than I had. It was merely seconds before I would discover myself in their presence again. Just like it used to be, before the suspension.

No. This wasn't how it used to be. My connection with both of them had been severely disrupted. Not just that, but as I scanned the front of the building, a nagging feeling told me that something was off. Something was different. Not only was the image the same, but the click of familiarity somehow fooled my brain into the subtle acknowledgment of a place I'd never left at all, that the last time I'd been here was hardly yesterday, though something still wasn't quite right. Maybe it was the history behind me, the knowledge of a million stories forced to be rewritten.

Well, in that case, I couldn't keep history waiting forever. Ignoring the hesitance clawing at my mind, I set my feet into motion, allowing my briefcase to swing at my side with every step as I approached the double doors. I would have been meeting with Lyle first thing, and since it was Lyle, he would have easily sensed if I'd been stalling for time. He was intensely perceptive, as I'd come to learn about him, and having him think I lacked the devotion to even be on time wasn't something that I needed. The door emitted a whine at length as my free paw eased it open, emerging into the entrance area, and was instantly smacked by the sensation of difference in appearance.

It hadn't changed drastically, but the changes that were displayed did so obviously. The round ceiling light on the far right before the hallway began was half burnt-out, casting shadows down the pearly wall. The silver tablet bolted to the back wall between the splitting halls, once listing off directions from where I currently stood, was still intact, but from the door I noticed that the glowing text had changed. I wonder how long that had taken to redo. Above the tablet, more letters were fixed into the wall, serving as what the tablet used to and detailed what turns to take for nearby locations within the building.

Second floor   —>

Open Advisory   —>

Main gathering   —>

<—   Happy Homeroom

<—   Studies

It had been further developed in the time that I had been gone, that much was for sure, and yet with the dysfunctional light and utter desolation, it just didn't seem to have the same love as it had before. If I hadn't known better, I would have genuinely questioned whether the place had been abandoned. The door shut behind me as I stood at the start of the pristine entrance hall, taking in the new surroundings as the sound of the latch echoed loudly and suddenly off of the walls, and then not another sound touched the air. Not the steady ticking of a clock, not the soft pattering of footsteps, just utter silence. Something drooped inside of me at the depressing greeting, leaving my feelings injured even though nothing had been done or said.

Unless Lyle was lurking around somewhere in the hallways, waiting to run into me, then he was most likely up in his office on the second floor. Lottie must have been just beginning her work in her own office, as well. I considered this, starting off down the main hall and rounding the right corner. Maybe I should have poked my head into her office to say hello. It might have been a start for smoothing things out to ease the tension of interacting during the day.

I would be seeing her within minutes. My heartbeat stumbled in its rhythmic manner as I turned a left corner to reach the door to the stairs. I wasn't certain if I would have managed to get out anything but a polite greeting, a brief 'good morning', before I would begin choking on my words. That was if I passed by her door and managed to keep from freaking myself out too much to so much as knock.

Once I had crossed into the next hall, I noticed that the right wall beside the shut door to the stairs was occupied with directions fixed to it as well.

Second floor

STAFF ONLY ONWARD

<—   Open Advisory

<—   Main gathering

I elbowed my way through the doorway and proceeded to ascend the stairs. The steady tapping of my shoes against the steps remained the last evident sound. My briefcase swayed at my side with every climbing step, bouncing and thudding against my leg. Even the milky hallways of the second floor endured the same complete, unbroken silence as I cleared my way from the stairs. I had forgotten how quiet it was in the morning before the doors opened to the public at nine. In such a massive building, only the three of us occupied the space for the entire first hour.

The door leading to Lottie's office was the first around the corner. From the moment I caught a glimpse through the window fixed into the door, I spotted the second window across the way, the shade of its reddish tint blocking the sunlight that hid behind it. As I slowed to a stop in front of the door behind me, separating me from the animal I had waited to see for a whole year, my heart skipped hastily and my stomach twisted and writhed. I should have been excited to see her again. Why was I so afraid of it?

I lifted a shaky paw, bringing it near the window to give a soft knock, but it froze again barely inches from the glass. My eyes refused to budge from the tinted window across the way, hesitant to glance near the desk and see Lottie sitting there. Maybe I didn't want to do this after all. Maybe I could have ducked out before she could see me and follow the proper directions I had been given in her letter. But I would have been crossing paths with her anyway at some point.

I knocked on the window before any second thoughts could draw me back again. As I withdrew my paw from the glass, I gulped down my heart slipping up into my throat and tried to ignore how my mouth had gone drier than the desert. The seconds inched along. Not a single face appeared on the other side of the window. I struggled to point out any sort of muffled footsteps nearing the door. She might not have heard me. I resorted to standing awkwardly at the door and waiting to be noticed through the glass, unintentionally sneaking a glance towards the desk. It was a tidy surface, the screen rotated towards the swivel chair, which nobody sat in. She wasn't there.

Oh. Well, that was that. I abandoned the office door, shuffling further along the hallway where my office door and then Lyle's would follow. A throbbing ache was building in my paw as it clenched the handle of my briefcase, so I adjusted my hold and kept on moving. Farther down the hall, I allowed another pause, this time at my own office door in the middle. My desk was positioned in the same place in the room that Lottie's was, but I hadn't expected that to change. The polished surface of the desk had been fully cleared, the computer facing front rather than tilted towards the chair in its lack of use. It was precisely how it used to be.

I bent down to gently set my briefcase at the door, retreating my paw from around the handle and started off walking again without it. Lyle's door, shut like the rest, was the very last across the hall and standing near the next corner. After approaching the door, I peered through the glass to check the desk at the left end of the room, exercising caution at the new possibility that he wouldn't have been present. He was, in fact, and was seated at his computer where I had anticipated Lottie to be. He wasn't currently typing, but instead leaned close to the computer screen to examine what it had presented. Through the reflection in his glasses, I caught the glowing white screen.

I didn't bother knocking. He had known that I would be arriving today. I twisted the doorknob, forcing open the door, and stuck my head into the room to announce my presence as Lyle raised his eyes from the computer screen in front of him. He acknowledged my appearance, adjusting his thick glasses closer to his face in one sharp movement, and rolled back the chair to rise.

"Digby," Lyle greeted blankly, offering a slight nod as he stood from his chair. It might have lacked emotion, but it was peaceful, not the passive-aggressive edge he'd spat at me the last time we spoke. That was a good sign already. "You're a bit late, but I'll excuse it."

"Are you upset with me?" I began with the question that had reached me countless times since we had last spoken while Lyle casually crossed the room to return to the doorway where I stood. I needed to get that out of the way before anything. That was what I needed to know the most. I wasn't talking about the fact that I was late and he would know that.

Lyle stopped in front of me, waiting to get past me to the hallway, but I was waiting on an answer. Before he spoke, he pushed out a reluctant sigh.

"No, I am not," he admitted. "Not anymore, at least. It takes too much energy to be upset for so long. Here, walk with me."

I recoiled out of the way of the door, quickly allowing his passage. I had my answer, but more questions lined up to leap from my tongue. Lyle stepped through the doorway, closing the door behind him almost noiselessly, and we were in motion again in a leisurely stroll together down the way across the hallway where I had come from.

"Is Lottie?" I asked.

Lyle seemed to be stalling from the answer, making a point with other fidgets to avoid it. He straightened his sleeves, bunched one back to take a glance at the watch on his wrist—Ten past eight, I noticed—And straightened his sleeves once again.

"Well, no, not really," Lyle told me. A mountain's weight of tension lifted from me. "No, I wouldn't say she's upset. That doesn't mean she's quite at the point of completely forgiving you, though. I won't go over what you caused for her. I'm sure you've heard it enough. But she's willing and able to look past it now for the sake of professionalism. Basically, she's not upset with you anymore, but I'm also doubting that you'll be able to mend the damage to your friendship for a while. I love her, but she can really hold a grudge like that."

"Oh," I mumbled. This time, it was my turn to fidget with my sleeves as we shuffled side by side across the hall, inching past my office door. There was nothing more to be said.

"Let's not waste our time on that, okay?" Lyle advised. "That's not why you needed to come talk to me. You probably remember doing this from a few years ago when you first started working. You know the drill here. We're just going to go over your general responsibilities while working here at the HHDA. You know, the different tasks you need to achieve in your daily routine."

"Right," I agreed with a firm nod. I failed to put together a distinct memory for the occasion he mentioned, but it was years ago and unimportant to the topic.

"Right, yeah. You get it," Lyle replied. We neared Lottie's door at the end of the hall. "Your schedule will be the same as last time, so be prepared for that. No, mostly. Mostly. It's mostly the same. You'll still be present in Open Advisory from nine until noon, but Lottie won't be coming by to help you anymore. She has her own set of work during that time, same as you."

We passed Lottie's office door, making the next turn into the first hallway that would deliver us to the stairs.

"As usual, you'll have lunch with the two of us," Lyle went on. "You won't be going back to Open Advisory to work with Lottie after that like you used to, but you're going to go back to your old schedule and do your teaching work in Studies. That goes from twelve thirty until three, just like you used to do. Happy Homeroom is running properly again, so that comes next. Oh, that's another thing I should mention. That activity has been in development since you left and it's making great progress. It's really regained its popularity and is even growing in demand. Now that it's a little more well known, we're fitting in more clients into one full block."

"How many?" I inquired as we filed through the doorway, starting in an unhurried descent of the steps.

"Three," Lyle said, casting a brief glance back at me before refocusing on where he was going. "That's all we have the time for. Each session is structured to last an hour. It doesn't always take that long, but that's the cutoff point. We'll be supervising the participation of three animals a day. I believe that's all the information I have for you. Do you have any questions for me?"

We reached the bottom of the steps, resurfacing onto the first floor and ducking through the door. We had returned to the letter display detailing exclusive staff entry. The door latched back into place, but Lyle had come to a halt at the letters in front of it. I stopped as well, turning my focus towards him in search of the reason why we were no longer in motion. Lyle reached up to rest his wrist against the doorframe, not looking at me but instead down the hall. There was a sort of distant expression in deep thought hiding somewhere in his dark eyes as they sat behind his glasses.

"You know, Digby," Lyle spoke at last after a pause at length of what almost seemed like dozing off with his eyes open. "Lottie has been working harder than ever since you left this place. I don't know if I've ever seen her work as hard and as efficiently as I do now."

"Was it because of the damage?" I questioned.

"Yes, that and several other reasons, I think," Lyle answered. In the break between his sentences, his eyes abruptly regained consciousness and snapped to meet mine as he broke out of his trance. "She's been doing so much to fix everything that went wrong. I've done some helping, but she's come up with developmental advances that my tired old mind couldn't have in a million years. She's done some work on every branch we have in this company, learning what our clients need the most and applying it completely and beyond. We owe a great deal of our recent success to her efforts."

Wow. She was getting so far. Something softened in my chest, beckoning a twinge in my cheeks that even brought a small smile. I'd always known she was capable of advocacy such as that and now she was accepting that for herself. That was probably where she was right now, somewhere off completing crucial and important work in advancing one of the branches. And I was so proud of her for it.

"Anyway, that's not what I was going to say," Lyle interjected again before I could speak, dropping his wrist from the doorframe. "That was something that just came to me in the moment. I was going to let you know that Open Advisory looks a bit different than what you're used to. Let's take a look."

Lyle's eyes only met mine for a moment longer before he was heading off towards the end of the hall. I followed close by, straying after him as he arrived at the second and final left door of the hallway. With a short glance back to make sure I was still on his trail, he thrust the door open and disappeared through it. I quickened my pace to join him, hardly blinking before I found myself in the doorway.

It was true, I realized, scanning the room corner to corner as we quietly moved inside. Things had certainly changed in here. For the most part, each room design exhibit laid out along each wall hadn't undergone any apparent changes. It was at the opposite end of the room from where I stood that Lyle had clearly been referencing a minute ago. An entire row of designs had been torn down, leaving only two finalized exhibits at the left, the first being an assorted set of antique furniture and the next what was put together as a modest office space, a Z-shaped desk conveniently seating four different seats, each displayed with a laptop computer, a bendy lamp, and a stack of filing cabinets fitted tidily beneath the desk. The approach screamed with a modern touch that wasn't common to come across and certainly recognizably creative. There were four more available plots for designs across the row, bare and blocked off by metal poles and vivid yellow tape. They were getting rid of the oldest designs, the ones finalized all the way back in the nineties, and building over them with the new.

"As you can see, we've been installing some new builds," Lyle explained, slowing to a stop in the center of the room and turning back to face me before flinging out an arm to present the new additions. "The first one on the left over there, that old-fashioned looking one, that one was installed in October of last year. The one next to it was finished just a couple months ago, actually."

I studied the two drastically different designs as Lyle thoughtfully folded his arms to examine them with me. I observed each flat surface between the two, each curve of the chair, each tiny detail that would have been overlooked by most. I wasn't entirely sure how a build was installed. Or even planned for, for that matter. I likely should have known, given it was such a prominent aspect of my work, but this was the very first time I'd ever witnessed installation. How was a design even decided on, anyway? With the context of the company, it was probably a design manufactured for a client with such outstandingly high remarks that it was displayed right where everyone could see and admire. A sudden jolt of movement from Lyle snapped my attention back towards him as he gave a start, seeming to remember something else to let me know of, and sent a hasty wave towards the modern office.

"Oh, you're probably going to want to check that one out," Lyle told me, folding his arms once again. "That one on the right."

This pricked up my curiosity—What was so special about that one that I would want to see it over the rest, or even just the other newest one? I wandered forward, drifting closer to the exhibit, and searched the surfaces for anything that would have sparked my interest. I struggled to find anything of particular passion, finding nothing but a simple yet creative office design before me. My eyes dropped to the slanted square slate that protruded from the floor, tilted upwards for my reading and casting a small but dense shadow behind it under the bright lights above me, and discovered why Lyle had drawn my attention to it.

Workplace Concept

Established by Lottie of the HHDA

Third of March, 2016

I stared blankly at the words near my feet, strongly illuminated to read and understand but somehow too complex to sink in. The modern design of an office interior was Lottie's work. This concept had come from her directly. It was a piece of her, just a whisper of an element to her work, but I knew that it was there and now that I did, I could see it. It must have been her very first installed design as well, since I had never once seen her name inscribed into one of the plates like this. Her name was out there in the world. It was genuinely out there, written in history for every animal to see. My childhood best friend, a famous designer. Not that she wasn't already, but she'd reached an entirely new level of fame. The fact that I knew her so well even in such tremendous fame astonished me.

After a moment, I sensed the presence of Lyle standing beside me after having silently walked forward to join me.

"This is her first design that got installed in here," Lyle said, confirming my suspicions. "She's had many before that she's still proud of to this day, but they never quite got this far. That day was pretty much life-changing for her. She felt like she was really reaching her dreams of becoming a successful designer."

And I could have seen why. I lifted my gaze to study the design for a few moments more. The Z-shaped desk shape, the tidy and efficient storing of not just four chairs in the space-restoring fashion, but filing cabinets in the right places for each. Wow. It was almost supernatural how one could have invented something so convenient. Even in my years behind me as a designer, I sincerely doubted that I could have ever formulated something to that point. It deserved its place among the best.

Next, I shifted my focus to the design to the left and the plate it sported.

Timeless In Midsummer

Established by Lyle of the HHDA

Twenty-Ninth of October, 2015

The entrance double doors unlatched behind me, whining in its opening swing. The sharp click of high-heeled shoes against the polished wood appeared, tapping across the surface, but the sound had abruptly faltered before it registered what had happened. I whipped around on my heel as the doors audibly fell shut. My heart rocketed down in a dive into my stomach before I'd even turned around fully. I faced the doors, faced the animal who had just emerged into the room, and descended under a spell of what I could have only identified as an eruption of emotion in a single moment. A wave of flutters—No, not even flutters, but the mighty current of a tsunami—Washed through my stomach. Either my heart had expanded ten times its size or my chest was caving in on itself as a streak of tightness across it snatched away my breath. My body stood petrified, rooted into the floor beneath my feet, eyes fixed unblinking in place while Lottie's dark eyes like nightfall stared back at me from across the way.

Everything around us froze in time when we met each other's gaze. I had instantly become involuntarily and irreversibly mesmerized by the likings of her face, prying into her eyes like there was something there to find. I'd also become strangely conscious of my own breathing, known and yet still scarce. Lottie was holding a clipboard, tucked away in the bend of her arm, but she'd completely forgotten it was there. All of a sudden, my paws itched to reach her face, to rest upon her cheeks and cradle her in a warm embrace. I realized that my feet had begun to stray forward, closer to her, and she stirred into motion as well. She wasn't walking towards me. She had turned around again, clicking her way back across the polished floor and pushing her way back through the doorway to leave me behind.

The thrill of seeing Lottie again had faded, leaving the numbness of rejection as I eyed the double doors she had escaped through before I could even say a word to her. The soft pats of nearing footsteps from behind me told me that Lyle was walking to join me again, but I refused to move my gaze from the doors in case they flung open again. Maybe he had lied to me. It wouldn't have been the first time. That didn't look like the behavior of someone who wasn't upset with me.

"Does she hate me?" I asked, finally tearing my eyes from the door to glance at Lyle stopping at my side. It might have been a rather harsh question, it struck me after the words had already tumbled out of me without thinking, but it would have been a more difficult thing to lie about.

"No, Digby," Lyle told me. An audible certainty built up his voice, accompanied by a hint of the tone that I had asked something obvious. This time, I trusted that it was the truth. "Lottie doesn't hate anyone. You know that. I don't know if she physically can hate someone. She's not like that. And I already told you that she's not upset with you, too. But you have to understand where you stand right now. She learned more about the kind of animal you've made yourself up to be. After that, you can see how it influenced how she feels about you entirely, and maybe even permanently."

.   .   .

The massive clock hanging outside of the building spelled out a quarter to nine o'clock when I made a reappearance at the main doors. With the fueling of Lyle's last comment about my friendship with Lottie or lack thereof, my mind had begun to bully me with torments about what I had caused for us and how she saw me for it and I decided to take a brisk walk to clear out my head. Mom had told me during these self-torturing episodes that I tend to overthink and most times I agreed with her, but that conclusion didn't settle quite right this time. No matter whether I was overthinking or not, it appeared as though I had a huge, huge problem to fix.

It wasn't long after reemerging into the building, away from the baking heat, and climbing the flight of stairs to the second floor on the way to my office that I stumbled into not just Lyle, but Lottie as well. They stood together in the middle of the hallway, nearby to my office door, and had struck up a discussion. Lottie still carried her clipboard from earlier, but now wound it between both arms like she was giving it a hug. This time, I remained in control of my own feet, but as I advanced further into the hallway, something still drew me closer to where she stood like some kind of powerful magnetic pull. Even if I couldn't hold her or even speak to her, standing next to her would have been enough.

It was Lottie who noticed my approach first, turning her face to look at me while Lyle's gaze momentarily followed the action. The same surging wave of flutters fired into every direction through my stomach and my face softened in a dumbfounded manner, a surefire ticket to accidentally slurring my words if I tried to speak. If I could have focused on anything but the tingles trickling into my stomach, I might have been embarrassed.

"Hello again, Digby," Lottie greeted me. They were the first words she had spoken to me today. A whole separate jab of fluster punctured my stomach at the peaceful sound of her voice. "I'm ready to meet with you now. If you'll join me in my office, we can begin a little chat before you get to work in Open Advisory."

Something was just slightly different about her voice from the last time I had heard it. It wasn't a different tone, not that I could catch, but maybe a different shape in the foundation. Maybe her voice had grown in the months of my absence. It might have been just a touch deeper, more mature and controlled but still just as melodic. It was more relaxed. That must have been it. Lottie had been conspicuously shy before now by means of a softer voice and more attentive movements, but she had grown out of it. Now I just needed to manage to keep my nervousness in check.

"Hum," I replied, realizing a split second too late that I had misspoken. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Mm-hmm."

We didn't have far at all to travel, as I was essentially standing right outside of Lottie's office door. Still, I waited patiently for her to pass by me as she clicked her way across the marble flooring and I followed her guidance into the room. Lottie seated herself behind her desk, directed my attention to a chair positioned at the wall, and I situated myself across the desk from her. The meeting was set to begin.

Once seated, Lottie rolled her chair closer to the desk. She murmured something under her breath with a light sigh that I couldn't quite catch, folded her paws politely on the table, and glanced across to address me.

"There's quite a bit to discuss, as you probably expected, but before we begin, is there anything you'd like to put out first?" Lottie inquired.

Immediately, as if on cue, the words sprung to my mind. The words that I had waited months to say, what I had dedicated myself to saying first before anything else. It wouldn't have been all of them, with the number of messages I had waited to express, and it wasn't exactly the first thing I'd said to her, but the request couldn't have been more apparent.

"Yes," I blurted out, almost before Lottie was done speaking. "Yes, there is."

"Please go ahead." Lottie nodded to prompt my response.

"I wanted to say that it's my promise to you that I'm going to fix the damage I've created," I told her.

Now that I had actually started talking, the acknowledgment that I was having the conversation I had toyed with and poked at for months on end broke through the barrier into my mind and the reaction set in. My stomach wriggled in nerves, my hammering heartbeat clawing back up into my throat after I'd managed to gulp it back down before. It was all I could do to hope that the tremble sneaking into my voice wasn't as distinct as my quivering heart made it out to be. I had anticipated more of a moment than this; this wasn't exactly what I had pictured. My mind told the plot of us standing face to face, maybe in a hallway where we could thoroughly express our feelings towards the situation, just not a professional conference. It lacked that certain sincere impression.

"I'm going to fix this," I echoed. Lottie watched me, politely hanging on to every word. Even just the fact that she was watching me stirred up another level of anxiety pooling in my stomach. "I genuinely didn't mean to cause so much harm. I would never try to hurt you or the company. I'm going to do my best work every single day and make sure this doesn't happen again."

"I believe you," Lottie said.

More explanations had lined up to spill into the air, but every word that lingered on my tongue melted away in a heartbeat at the words. My mind had been washed clean, erasing any little thing that had sat there, and I sat stunned. Out of every option of response I had prepared myself for her to take, this was far at the end of the list, maybe not even there.

"What?" I said.

"I believe you," Lottie repeated herself. Seeming awkward, she opened her paws to examine them as if hesitant to look me in the eyes. Not shy, like she once was, just awkward. "I know you didn't mean it. I just felt too angry and betrayed at the beginning to consider the situation as a whole. If you're the animal I think you are, then I trust you wouldn't go out of your way to bring harm. The only reason it still sticks with me is because when I think about everything that happened, it's difficult not to go right to what caused it."

A stab of guilt sliced through my middle. I kept my mouth shut and only held my gaze into her eyes. There wasn't anything left to say, and even if there was, there wasn't anything left that would help. After a short stretch of silence, Lottie seemed to sense this for herself and changed the subject.

"I've changed my mind about something I wrote to you earlier this month," Lottie pointed out, outstretching a paw and pivoting the screen of her computer to more efficiently face her to study it for a few seconds before tilting it back to where it had been before. "I originally told you that you'd be returning directly to your old schedule in full right away as soon as you arrive. I later realized that doing so would be impractical after being absent from it for almost a year. The flow of it has likely worn off by now. I'm going to have you ease into it instead. Until you feel as though you've adjusted well enough, I'm going to give you the responsibilities of monthly progress reports as well as your presence in Open Advisory. Since it's almost the end of the month, I'll have you begin the reports next month unless you'd prefer to start early. With that said, I'll put it in the system that this is all the work you are doing until you come to me directly and let me know that you're ready for more."

"I understand," I agreed.

"Good," Lottie replied, folding her paws on the desk again. "I've already put together your lessons for the week, so you can expect that to be brought to your office before the end of the day. If you don't end up utilizing it yet, you can simply discard it once the week ends. I'll still have your lessons prepared for you every week in case you make your decision to pick up on them in the middle, just so you'd have it. I'd recommend reading up on them as they arrive, since even though you're not on the schedule to teach them, the topics may return once you are. I would say that's a beneficial place to begin for you. Would you agree?"

"Yes, I would," I replied. "I have no complaints there."

"Wonderful," Lottie answered. "If you'll excuse me for a minute, I'll just enter that in the system. We can resume our discussion afterwards."

After turning the computer screen back to face her again, Lottie was already typing away on the keyboard. The sound ticked against the silence as the wait persisted, only pausing when she snuck a glance at the keys or leaned close to examine something on the screen. My eyes did not itch to stray, comfortably resting on her even when she was no longer paying attention to me. She really did work so hard. Within the downtime cutting into the conference, the wait was nothing of bother as I watched Lottie type wordlessly in front of me.

"That's that," Lottie spoke up after a few minutes of extended lack of conversation. She withdrew her paws from the keys, rolling her chair a short ways away from her computer to better face me. "I know that you're going to work hard, Digby. I hear you saying that and I believe it for you. I think it would be a bit bad-mannered of me to ignore how hard you worked before because of the mistakes you made. I do trust that you will take this seriously as you have before and I appreciate it."

A firm knock on the door's glass interjected Lottie's statement. Both of our pairs of eyes flicked to the window to find Lyle standing outside, peeking in at the two of us from the other side. He didn't enter, but instead he motioned briefly to the watch around his wrist. Lottie and I both snuck a glance at the clock hanging from the wall to discover that it had struck nine o'clock sharp. Lyle must have been on his way to unlock the doors to the public.

"I just need you to be more careful with your decisions," Lottie went on as I returned my focus to the discussion at hand. "You've made a lot of hasty decisions in the past and I need that to be reviewed. I believe in your ability to change your behavior and I believe in you, but what I need from you the most is for you to show me I'm right to do so."

"I will. I'll make it my first priority," I promised.

"That's certainly good to hear." Lottie eased herself up from her seat and stepped aside from it, closer to the side of the desk. This was the cue that the meeting was dispersing. I rose to my feet as well as she went on speaking. "Since it's your first day back, I'll allow it if you want to take your time heading down to Open Advisory. If I'm correct, you haven't had the time to settle into your office again. Why don't you do that first and be downstairs in half an hour? I've shared everything you need to know, so you can do that now."

Due to us both standing up together, the space between us had shrunk to not much farther than a foot and a half. Lottie was looking up at me, a gentleness swimming somewhere deep in her eyes. A mercy. For so long, I'd been awaiting rejection, and instead I got mercy. It seemed that we were both learning new things about each other. It seemed that we both had changed, that we both had grown. I owed more to her than I could even express in words.

Lottie was clearly waiting for me to leave, due to the verbal dismissal, but this was not something I particularly wished for. My next action initiated with barely a pause of thought. In a blink, I had flung my arms around her, enclosing her in a firm embrace. As soon as the moment struck, it occurred to me that I hadn't the faintest clue what I would have been expecting. An abrupt squirm from Lottie in my arms nearly sent me staggering, a response that instantly drew my arms back. Oh no. It was too soon. We stilled as the brief event sunk in, my eyes locked upon her face as her gaze met mine. Instantly, I searched for fright, intimidation of some sort in her face, but instead, I noticed the contemplation whirring from behind her eyes.

After a moment, once the rush had eased, she leaned in with her arms locking around me and buried her face in my shoulder. Not too soon after all, I realized. Just too sudden. I closed my arms around her once again, cradling her close to me, and for a flash of a moment I wasn't certain if I would have let go for several minutes to come.

And just like that, even if it were only for the moment where we sank into each other's arms, everything was just as it had been. Neglecting whatever world waited for us once we parted, drowning in the only reality that mattered in that very second. I was utterly oblivious to what she could have been thinking now and still I breathed in every ounce of her presence and her warmth. I had lost her once. I was never going to lose her again.

My paw found its way to rest on the back of Lottie's head just under her hair bun and enveloped her close to me in a manner of proving to her that I would keep her safe, that no harm would ever reach her if I was right beside her. The question of it, if it had remained a question at all, was void.

I was going to fix everything for her.

The momentary occasion still shuffled through my head like a rolling train as my paws perched upon the edge of the window in my office as I stood to gaze out. The time was five past nine and Lottie had since departed from the second floor to leave for her teaching sessions, but the warmth in her presence still swarmed my senses as if we had never broken free from the embrace. Or maybe that was the scorching summertime air that blazed down from the cloudless skies and high sunlight. I was never one for the heat and had always found it bothersome when it baked everything in its path, but today I relished in thorough relaxation.

From where I stood, I watched clusters of animals sauntering up and down the salmon-pink paths. Some waved themselves with their paw to cool themselves down, others with a paper program, others didn't care enough to try at all. The buzz of conversation was only a hum to my ears, too far away to make out any distinct words. Each and every one of them that appeared from the doorway in their exit or approached from the far side of the path endured a bustling, ever-changing life that I would never know and even then they took an hour or two out of their day to stop by. Even after the dwindling numbers that I had witnessed last year, the crowds were as dense and populous as the day I had first started working here.

A light smile climbed to my face as something softened in my chest. Yes, it was like the day I had first started working here. The same inviting aura. The same quiver of anticipatory possibilities. The same home. Here I was, standing in the very same place three years later, and now I was back where I had begun. From a history of swinging between two vastly different identities, avoiding the four-letter name of a commonly-scorned criminal, picking trustworthy friends, resorting to untrustworthy decisions because of picking the wrong friends, battling to sustain the glory of the company's name, and now a year of the trials and errors of discovering myself, it was time to begin again. A fresh new start. An entirely new list of possibilities. I could hardly wait to experience for myself what was yet to come.

I wouldn't have been able to achieve this alone. If I had been by myself all this time, I probably would have still heavily relied on the dead habit of failing to climb out of bed. No, this success wasn't only mine. Mom and Dad had brought me where I was today. Every shred of my triumphs today was because they lifted me to it. Well, their hard work had finally paid off, and considerably well, I would have said. They would have wanted to know where I ended up. It was only fair of me to tell them everything.

I had no reason to wait. With twenty-five minutes remaining to finish settling in and a phone sitting on my desk, nothing stopped me from reaching out. I removed myself from the window, crossing the room to reach my desk and lowering myself into a seat in the swivel chair in front of my computer. The screen was darkened, likely having been for who knew how long, and didn't face me but past my shoulder as it sat front. With the summer sunlight that pooled into the room from the open window, I noticed a thin layer of dust across the surface, but I ignored it for now. I plucked the phone from the receiver on the right side of my desk, punching in the numbers for home, and tucked the phone under my ear.

The phone rang once, twice, and then ceased to ring as someone picked up from the other line.

"Shih Tzu residence," Mom greeted from the other line. Her voice was strained with drowsiness, almost like she was stretching or stifling a yawn. She must have just gotten up recently.

"Hey, Mom," I greeted in response. "It's Digby."

"Oh, Digby!" Mom exclaimed at the sound of my voice. Every ounce of sleepiness had receded from her voice in an instant, resonating instead with a pleasant warmth. "Sweetheart, aren't you supposed to be working? Is everything all right?"

"Don't worry, everything's fine," I assured her, sneaking a glance up at the clock hanging from the other side of the room. A touch before ten past nine. I had time. "I'm not required to get to work for another twenty minutes today. It's like an extra break to settle in just for today."

"In that case, I'm so glad that you called," Mom said. As she spoke, it just then struck me how quiet it was in the halls outside of the office. Then again, I might have been the last one on this floor. "I wanted to check in, but I was going to wait until lunchtime because I thought you were too busy. I'm terribly sorry if I sound a bit tired. Your father and I have just been enjoying our cups of coffee at the table and thinking of you. How are you settling in, then?"

"Surprisingly well," I confessed. "To be honest, I was just really grateful to find out that nobody's upset with me anymore. That made this process a whole lot easier."

"Good. I had a feeling it would all be in the past," Mom replied, a gentleness that seeped right through the phone. It's all in the past, I echoed in my head. "What about your work? I understand you're taking a little break right now, but are you returning to your old schedule? I think Lottie specified that in her letter."

"Not completely, no," I explained, pivoting my chair to closer face my computer instead. "I'm only doing a few things from that schedule for now. It's not like I've been permanently removed from those responsibilities, though. It's just for a little while. You know, to ease me into it. I suppose they don't want me to take on too much too soon and get burned out."

"I'm so glad they changed that," Mom remarked. A rustling muffled her voice for a few seconds as she appeared to be moving around. "I was worried about that. I didn't want you to overwork yourself. You said that nobody is upset with you? How are you getting along with Lottie? I know that you care about her deeply."

"That's putting it mildly," I told her, reaching out a paw to adjust my computer screen and turn it towards me. I saw my face reflected in the dimness, the round face of a twenty-year-old brown Shih Tzu dog. There was such an obvious peace in my expression that it nearly rattled me. "No, she's not upset at all. Actually, she's past everything as well. I still can't believe it. We're still not as close as we used to be, but I think we'll get there. We talked about what happened and she said she knows I didn't mean any harm, but she expects that I'm going to do better anyway."

My own dark eyes met mine in my faint reflection. For a moment, I just watched myself, processing the face in front of me. I understood that I had grown tremendously, all physically, mentally, and emotionally since the last time I had seen it on this darkened screen, but of course I couldn't see it for myself.

"I really feel loved here again," I admitted.

"That's fantastic news," Mom replied, snapping me out of my sort of trance in my rant. "I told you that the universe is looking out for you. It really wants the best for you, Digby, and so do we. I think this is the beginning of a change in your life for the better. I have no doubts in my heart that you're going to make this work. I'm so, so proud of you. More than words can say."

Mom had begun to near tears on the other line, audibly choking up as she spoke. She sniffled before she spoke again.

"Well, you'll probably need to go soon, so I'm going to get back to my coffee," she went on. "I love you, my little star. Forever and ever. Now, go on and be your very best self."

"I will," I promised. "I love you too, Mom."

A click on the other line implied that she had hung up. I did the same, setting the phone back down onto the receiver and swiveling back to the computer. That was something else I still needed to do to prepare myself for my upcoming work. There wasn't much I could do until I logged into my old account, after all. A pale yellow sticky note had been slapped onto the bottom rim of the frame, reminding me in the tidy writing of Lottie's of my username and password. I allowed myself another small smile at the effort, clicked the mouse to activate the screen, and logged the information into the prompt as it lit up the screen.

ACCOUNT REACTIVATED

DOCUMENTS FROM PREVIOUS USE SAVED

READY TO PROCEED