The fluorescent lights beamed down at me with every step, shoes tapping across the pearly floors with the stride of purpose and knowing of where I was headed. I had arrived at the building not much sooner before the strike of eight o'clock in the morning with the announcement of my sister's revival restlessly waiting to spill from my tongue. As tempting as it was to reach the very first moment where the news hit, it wasn't the first stop I needed to make. I climbed the steps to the second floor, arriving at my office and unlocking the door for the day. I freed myself of my coat, slipping it from my shoulders, folding it into a neat square, and plopping it down onto the seat of my chair. The declaration would come next.

Lyle and Lottie would have already gathered together to await the news. With that in mind, there was only one logical option as to where they could have been waiting for me: The break room. They had probably even begun to delight in their morning beverages in wait for my arrival. Once that time came around and the news had been dropped, I would take some time to do the same. At nothing but the turn of a corner before I would find myself at the door, the distance receded swiftly. The words of the upcoming reveal were already piecing themselves together in my mind as I nudged through the final door, ducking past the doorway and into the break room.

Immediately, both heads swiveled in my entrance, two pairs of eyes darting to meet mine. In the time that I had yet to stop by, Lottie and Lyle had accompanied each other at the trio of velvet purple chairs circling the middle of the room, with Lottie facing the door and Lyle who had to twist in his seat to glance at me, but I had guessed incorrectly as they sat empty-pawed and without mugs. Maybe they had been waiting for me in that regard, as well. I didn't appear to be cutting into any conversation, either, as not a word had been in the process of being exchanged when I pushed through the door.

"Well, there he is," Lyle said, shifting in his chair to better face me as I approached. Lottie's eyes locked with mine across the way, still and expectant. "I think that you've got something to share with us, is that right?"

"Trust me, I haven't forgotten," I promised, reaching a halt in facing towards the two occupied chairs.

"Sounds important," Lyle remarked. "Let us hear it. Unless it's difficult to talk about, of course. Then we'll work it out when you're ready to."

"Well, actually, no," I announced. These words had looped in the attention of the room far more intently than it had before in a split second, both pairs of eyes alert and unblinking as the two otters practically sat on the edges of their seats in breathless anticipation. Lyle rested his paws on his knees, silently waiting for me to follow-up. As if knowing what was happening before the words even struck the air, Lottie's paws found their way to her mouth in what was either apprehension or realization of the truth. "I was expecting it to be like that, but that's not what ended up playing out. Isabelle woke up from the coma on Saturday and came home from the hospital that very same day."

The reaction lashed the two with a powerful blow. A sharp gasp escaped from Lottie as Lyle hastily slipped his glasses from his face, burying his face in his free paw as if he had just broken down in tears. The legs of the chair gave a muffled skid as Lottie clambered to her feet, nearly tripping over her own feet in her rush. Her arms were already outstretching as she launched herself from the chair towards me, flinging around me in a squeezing grip and nothing short of slamming into an embrace. Suddenly, I strained to inhale as deeply, absolutely rattled by the approach, but it didn't matter. I seized ahold of her in return, cramming her close to me in our unanticipated hug and cradling her in my arms.

"Oh, what a relief," Lyle mumbled from his chair, but I was completely consumed by the moment with Lottie and only had the space to register the words. "It seems like someone has been watching over us after all. Thank goodness for that."

Lottie eased back from the embrace once again, but it took me a couple of heartbeats to realize that her paws, resting at the back of my neck, still hesitated to follow the action. It appeared that I was the first to notice—Lottie had heard her uncle speak again and had twisted halfway to cast a glance over her shoulder at him. It was only after a moment that she turned back to face me and just like that, right then, our eyes met at last. In the blink of an eye, we had been thrust right back into that night sitting under the stars, the first night where Isabelle had first gone down, the very moment where our eyes had found each other's own. The same captivating, breathless uncertainty. The same sinking into each other's eyes. With the soft glaze that had washed over Lottie's eyes, dark as the deepest night, she was exactly where I was.

If only I could have submerged myself into that sensation longer. I blinked and my surroundings pooled in again. Lottie seemed to snap out of her daze at the same moment I did, or maybe because I did, as a beaming smile illuminated her already beautiful face and she tugged me back in for a second embrace. The second effort didn't last quite as long, however, and we pulled apart at the sound of Lyle hoisting himself up from his chair. The two of us turned to face him as he abandoned his chair, having already readjusted his glasses, and stepped to join us.

"Oh, get in here," Lyle mumbled, folding one arm around Lottie's shoulders and the other around mine as he drew us in close. "We're going to be okay. That's a fact."

.   .   .

Yes, it was. In a world of unpredictability, that was perhaps the only thing that stood as certain as truth.

Although the memory of this brief conversation had since faded with the rest by the day of Sunday, the thirteenth of May, a day that brought the yearly Happy Home initiation after 2017 had gone and 2018 rolled around, there were countless others that I recalled even as I ventured out onto the stage with Lottie and Lyle at my side. There was a lifetime that stood behind me, an endless cycle of endurance embellished with the fortune of memory. From the moment that I had first stepped into this building by means of work five years ago, I had tried my luck with nothing short of eternity. I had been blessed with the shining miracles of the unanticipated turns and every little moment in between, cursed with stomach-wrenching days that still crept through my mind here and there. But that was just life.

I had no time to dwell on the past. I was already moving forward, the launch of a swifter stride, almost like the rumbling of an airplane before it lifted from the ground. Back in the month of March of 2017, I had been holding my breath in a sort of way, waiting for my future to be influenced by the results of Isabelle's recovery or lack thereof. On March first, she had gone down in a competitive combat trial against a fighter far beyond her strength and was sent directly to the hospital in a coma as her body tried to heal. Three days later, the day of March fourth, she had awakened from her coma and was sent home from the hospital that very same day. Once I had received the word that she was safe at last, I knew that I had received the all-clear to allow myself forward in life. I never looked back.

Sometimes, it nearly shot a shiver down my spine to consider just how much I had changed as an animal since the very first day of my employment at the HHDA. I was years younger and wow, had I been inconsiderate and only thought of myself. Apparently, it had only taken genuine change to see just how better off I was than with all of that mess. Nowadays, when I contemplated the words I spoke and the actions I took, I struggled to put myself back in those shoes as if they had never been my own in the first place. It was a surreal sensation, for sure, but I loved myself much better now.

I wasn't the only animal involved in my life that had surrendered to massive changes. The act of reading in between the lines, learning the story that I had never once suspected had been there the entire time, even deepened my observation of that. Back from the very beginning, Lottie and I had been nothing but somewhat-affectionate childhood friends. Not one lick of love had come between us quite yet, but it was only after it had that I'd realized that I must have always been drawn to her in some way. I might not have known many animals outside of my family and yet, somehow, she was still different—More unique and pleasantly unusual, somehow. Even Lyle had been considerably different back then. Bitter in his lengthy grief and thoroughly missing his last love, we'd hardly known each other well enough to share a genuine smile together.

~

"Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Happy Home Designer and Academy for the thirty-first consecutive initiation event," Lyle greeted the audience, outstretching his arms in a welcoming way and gazing out into the sea of listening faces as if offering a hug. "My name is Lyle. I operate the general overview of the procedure of interior design and real estate here at the HHDA. Wow, it's been quite a journey to get here, hasn't it? One for the history books, that's for sure. I'm looking out into all of your faces and I can see devotion like no other. Some of you might be coming here for the first time, but some more have been here since the very beginning. If that's the case, I thank you deeply for sticking with us for so long."

~

The wintertime snow had melted away just as quickly as the danger Isabelle had been captured in back in March. Springtime had already been on its way before she had even begun to make her way back home. This might have left the grass drenched with the dampness in its disintegration, but the situation didn't last longer than a week. By the middle of the month, the greenery of springtime was already blooming. Once, I questioned if this was somehow Isabelle's doing, her own subtle way of letting me know that she was okay now. I then proceeded to cough out a laugh at the thought that my own sister could control the weather.

The temperatures eased. The trees had begun to bud again. The sun climbed above the horizon in the morning earlier and earlier and sunk later and later in the evening. My walk to work in the morning was less frequently accompanied by the vivid enrichment of the skies in sunrise and more frequently the fragile blue sky of morning. March dissipated, and April was soon to follow. On Sunday, the fourteenth of May, the three designers of Happy Home attended the initiation event for the year of 2017, but it came and went like any other. Life endured as usual.

The inception of the month of June soon delivered Lyle's birthday. He insisted that he didn't need or want any kind of celebration, as it was just a reminder of how old he was becoming, but I agreed with Lottie as she countered that it at least needed to be recognized for how special it was. It only arrived once a year, after all, and Lyle rarely tolerated anyone fussing over him as it was. He finally complied, but made us promise that it would be a small acknowledgement and warned that if we tried to sing to him, he would give us both a smack. He wasn't serious, of course—Lyle could never have laid his paw on another, especially one of us, in such a manner. But still, we were satisfied. I joined them both for dinner and together, we toasted to his sixty-three years of life. Obviously, he didn't hate it too much.

It had been such a small moment—Well, small in time, large in significance—That I hadn't expected the way it rolled through my mind for several of the remaining days of the month of June. Maybe it had been the phrasing of it, something about how we acknowledged not just the new year but every year that had come before it. Yes, that must have been it. Something about it set my own thoughts in motion, looking back behind me in everything that had brought me to this point. Now that I considered it, maybe it was something to recognize. Every little moment that strung together the years I had spent here from the beginning carried me directly to where I was now, and I had relied on the habit of reserving gratitude for that for quite some time. It really had been a lifetime of memory, piling up higher and higher and higher still.

I truly had known nothing of the world on that very first day. Slamming headfirst into an identity crisis and stumbling across the tale of a criminal who plagued Lottie's worst nightmares was enough for a rude awakening. Thank goodness he no longer played such a prominent part in our life. Still, no matter how unfortunate, that right there had been the starting point for years of a new adventure. From that point on, I'd set off on a journey of discovering myself through mental health struggles that I couldn't quite surface from, a journey that I was finally coming to an end with. I exchanged goodbyes with my sister as she left me behind with a boat ticket and a steady dream, challenged my reputation by flirting with a teasing client three years younger than me, clashed with Isabelle in connection issues, found my first crush in a golden retriever dog named Goldie, tried out my first date, battled with the fact that Isabelle had fallen into the claws of a criminal, grappled with the sudden deterioration of the HHDA's popularity, was struck with a year-long work suspension, and three years later, here I was. Every single day had beckoned the same old question tearing through my mind: Who I truly was, who I was destined to become.

~

"Good morning, one and all!" I declared warmly. My voice boomed across the room from the speakers at the edges. "I'm Digby and I'd say, truly what a good morning this is! Yes, indeed. My, my, what an audience we've got today! You're all beautiful, each and every one of you, and I'm endlessly grateful that you decided to join us on this wonderful journey. I really do mean that. None of us could be here today without you."

~

I'd noticed a couple of times the growing density in the Open Advisory gathering area as well as the lessons I instructed before it was mentioned right to my face. I did question it to myself once or twice, wondering if I genuinely was witnessing the slow example of upward motion, though I had no way to test it for myself. That was when the topic actually started surfacing in meetings or professional discussions and such. Just like that, each and every one of my suspicions were confirmed—And elevated.

During one of the summer meetings, it was Lyle to announce that the HHDA had begun to make history again. When those had been the exact words he had used, I knew that it was a genuine matter. Not only was the general community growing with each passing day, fully and completely recovered from the downfall that had struck years ago, but the public's opinion was skyrocketing as well. Pleasant remarks became something more common and comments about the company's future in a positive regard climbed as well. But this wasn't the end of it.

On Thursday, July twentieth of the year 2017, the Happy Home Designer and Academy finalized the five-star rating it had upheld years ago. Not only had we clearly bounced back, but we were absolutely thriving. Animals were suggesting our time to their friends and family, school trips had begun to flow in again, future designers in the making registered for more and more intensive lessons, and hundreds more visitors came around in a single day alone. This genuinely was history in the making, and I had been here to witness all—Well, almost all—Of it. But of course, a happy home only flourished under the family that strove to make it so. I could hardly wait for the future awaiting us just around the corner.

And that future didn't delay. By the time July was rolling around to an end, I discovered that I had dug myself into a particularly different position: Not of some designer that just happened to be in this building during the day, not of someone whose name crossed someone's name only when it was relevant, but someone who was requested directly for certain projects. For years up until this point, I had grown accustomed to witnessing Lyle's or Lottie's name in requests for lessons or even tasks outside of the building, real-life and real-time examples. This was always fine, great even. Both of them worked immensely hard at this job and their work was being recognized by the public. The very first moment that I realized it was my name instead had been enough to shoot chills down my spine. I mulled this over and tossed it back and forth through my mind for the remainder of the month, wondering what had changed for this fortune to suddenly come through.

It was only just after the month of August took flight that the answer struck me. The reason that the public relied so heavily on Lyle's and Lottie's design skills was because of the distinct styles they held, because the particular approach or instinct was needed or yearned for. If my name was coming out in requests, that meant my own style and approach had come into the light at long last. At long last, my work was reaching heights further than my own building. Truly, I was making it in this life.

It was around this time that I had begun to recall my high school graduation more and more frequently. The details of the day itself had wilted in my memory, but I knew who I had been and the worry that had overrun my mind since the day where I had first heard that I would have been repeating my last school year. The idea of what kind of future I was heading into fixed into my head with a bone-deep dread that I wasn't going to get anywhere with my life from that point on. For someone who hadn't really thought all that much back then, I sure did spend a lot of thought on that one topic, praying to every star in the universe that my future self wasn't about to chuck away my entire potential.

Clearly, I hadn't suspected in the slightest where I would have been now, six years later from that very day that I left school for the first time. Then again, I hadn't suspected to be this far in life at twenty-one alone. With the number of animals that inquired for me by name, praised my work, and clustered to see or speak with me, I wouldn't have been surprised if the entire world somehow knew who I was. It was like I had gone from a nobody to something like stardom in a matter of years. Someone who had evidently completed some research on the routines and runnings of the company even asked me when one of my designs would have been installed for display in Open Advisory—Which was the initial reminder that I had qualified to begin applying for it.

It wasn't like the kind of toxic popularity I had gathered in my first year, thank goodness for that. What was most commonly proved to me was that it wasn't as much my smiles and charm that were demanded, but my mind. A couple times a month, I was drawn into some kind of interview or stumbled upon a writer jotting down notes about my techniques. It was the kind of attention that Lyle and Lottie had grown acquainted with long before I had.

A question that resurfaced again and again and again was how I managed it, how I got this far. I was a Shih Tzu dog that came from a small town and an unfamiliar family, so how did I do it? How had I reached a level of fame where my name made so many rounds through the outside world while I had barely entered my twenties? Those questions had spun through my own mind more times that I could count. The truth was, I hadn't the faintest clue how this could have happened, but the level of fame that Lottie and Lyle had achieved before me likely helped me out a great deal.

I gave the same answer each time. In full truth, it never mattered where one was coming from. The kind of animal you were, how old you were, or how much money you had to put into your dreams never amounted to the future one was capable of reaching. What mattered the most was both inspiration and the motivation to put that inspiration into movement. And after all, I might have had the very best inspiration in the entire world.

~

"Hello, everyone! I just want to welcome you again to the Happy Home Designer and Academy on this very fine day," Lottie declared to the listening crowd. The intense lights peering down on her from above illuminated and enhanced the features of her smiling face in a notably angelic fashion. "My name is Lottie and I am so glad that you decided to visit us today. Your presence truly does mean the world to us. I hope you all relish your time here as much as I have."

~

Lottie and I were the closest we'd ever been, even before the fall of 2016. Not even a flick of doubt touched my mind that we had finally returned to our status of best friendship. We laughed together, we shared genuine smiles, I sunk back into the habit of casual embraces, she sunk back into the habit of expressing verbal affection and appreciation. We knew well how the other felt best understood and it appeared that it was as much of a priority to her as it was to me.

The slow-shuffling month of August carried a shining stretch of days between us. As the stale summer heat eased up, I took up the action of accompanying her in the evenings to walk her home. Depending on how late we left the building, occasionally we were joined by Lyle. We ventured through the golden light of the late evening, shuffling along the path, and chatted lightheartedly about our day in the soft, enchanting atmosphere. Not a single walk back passed by where our paws hadn't latched together at some point. Sometimes love wasn't directly felt at every given moment, a pounding heart or a churning stomach, but rather known instead. And I knew that I loved her more and more every day.

September arrived. I'd noticed that the initiation of her little acts of touch, a hug or a head on my shoulder and the like, or the comparison from the timidness bringing her to a hesitation years ago had become a drastic change. Whenever I wasn't working, the idea of her swamped any other thought clinging to my mind. The flutter that shivered in my chest when she looked at me, the way her eyes shimmered when she spoke of something she found passion in, or even something as simple and stunning as her smile soothed me like a lullaby on sleepless nights. I had become addicted to the rare moments where our eyes met for just a second longer than usual and the question it carried of whether everything was just about to change, seeking it out with every day. She had put me under a complete and utter trance, but I willingly surrendered. I was perhaps the happiest I had ever been, but nothing could have compared to the shudder of thrill that wrenched my stomach on the morning of Lottie's twenty-fourth birthday as we stood together at the counter of the break room and she requested to make plans for a date.

~

"To think about the future, I believe we must also acknowledge the past," Lottie went on. "It's not that the past defines the future. Not at all. Hope and action define the future. But it's the past that makes it meaningful. If you start with nothing and you're looking ahead at each and every potential of the new future, then sure, it's meaningful, but not as much as it could be. I'm sure that you're all aware of the troubles and mishaps that the HHDA has been through since it first opened in late 1985. Just like anyone working hard enough, here we've made mistakes, figured out what we could do better, made even more mistakes, and learned from it. That right there is what defines how meaningful the possibilities can become. Now, let's think about the future. After these years, we know how to be the best we can be, and you can have faith in the fact that we're not going to let you down. We're moving forward every day and we plan to make these next years our best ones yet."

~

As exciting as it was to hear the request, the date was the first of several. On the day of Lottie's birthday, we began simple, returning to that same noodle restaurant for dinner as when she had first taken me out for my eighteenth birthday. After that, together we compiled a list a mile long of concepts for future dates. As autumn drifted away into wintertime, I brought her to all of the places that Mom and Dad had taken me during PRP and showed her everything that had delivered me back up to full mental capacity. I brought her to the roller skating rink that I had visited at the beginning and was lucky enough not to slip and collapse the second time around. I showed her around all of the shops where I had once laughed and played around with my parents trying on interesting clothing and hats. I invited her to the EDM concert I had attended in April, though I warned her beforehand to bring headphones to assist with her noise-sensitivity. We strolled through each of the parks I had visited years ago. Lottie even had some places around her home that she hoped to take me to. As the months rolled around from September, October, November, all the way up until December, we most definitely had our paws full with plans.

The first snowfall swept in on the day of December eleventh. Nine days later on the twentieth, I reached my newest year of twenty-two. Lottie and Lyle worked together with Mom and Dad to all throw me a surprise party after my shift at the HHDA had ended for the day. Toy Day came around shortly afterwards, embellished with the festive decorations and the massive trees situated in the building for the occasion. 2017 gave way to the brand new year of 2018. The warmer future and every day with my family away from home carried me smoothly across the newest months, into the adjusting seasons, and right up to the day of Sunday, the thirteenth of May, the day of the 2018 yearly Happy Home Initiation.

~

"Before we go, I'd just like to thank you for joining us," Lyle concluded.

The three of us had gathered together at the front of the stage at the steady completion of the event, with Lyle on my left and Lottie on my right. Behind the piercing lights that shot down at me from above, I stared back at the hundreds of pairs of intently listening eyes peering at me from the audience. A beaming smile etched almost achingly into the crevices of my face, but not one that I plastered on myself. No, this was real. In fact, I struggled to even tear it from my face.

"Unfortunately, with the current time, this is where we have to say goodbye," Lyle told the audience. "I'm sure you all are itching to get back to your daily lives and we wish you all the best of luck and fortune on your journey onward. If you'd like to contact any one of us, we'll all be here in this building on most days for as long as the doors are open or you can give us a call and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. With that said, I'm looking forward to another great year of progress. Please be careful on your way out and have a wonderful rest of your day. Even if this is where you decide to move on, just remember one thing for certain. At the HHDA, we stand for your best and brightest future, and we stand together."

In sensing the end of the event by Lyle's typical concluding phrase, the applause crackled to life even seconds before he had finished speaking. I heard it every year and yet my smile broadened at the sound, gazing out into the muddled sea of animals, but a shift in movement snapped the smile right from my face. Behind the blazing lights, animals had begun to climb to their feet, but they weren't in the process of leaving. Instead, as they all rose to their feet, they stood at where they had been seated amidst the thunderous applause. A standing ovation. In all of my five years attending this event, I'd become accustomed to the clapping alone, but never had I witnessed for myself a standing ovation.

We couldn't have just walked away. What did we do next? I snuck a glance over at Lyle beside me, searching for any movement or gesture signaling what to do, but he had yet to move as well. His eyes, like mine a moment ago, locked onto the crowd and though it was a breath of a hint, a subtle shimmer before it was swallowed up by the dark colors, I discovered the same shock that had taken its blow to me. It wasn't just the first time I had ever witnessed it. It was the HHDA's first entirely.

The same thought seemed to slither through our minds at the same time. Our paws linked, one of mine gripped in Lottie's and the other in Lyle's. Our eyes reached out for the animals that stood before us, stood from their seats in active and roaring applause, and the official Happy Home family bowed deeply for hundreds to see.