The feverish heat gathering underneath my graduation gown already sent a tightening clench of frustration to my chest, even with the chilled blast provided by the school's air conditioning. My paws often found the rim of the cap circling my head, trying to adjust it so that it didn't cling so firmly to my forehead and the dense, tousled bangs that fell over it. The ceremony had already ended about ten minutes earlier, traces of memories still flashing through my mind of sitting in a dimly illuminated room among maybe a hundred high school graduates for nearly an hour as I waited for it to end.

Honestly, I had never anticipated that I would ever make it this far in my education. Up until the day finally came around, it had been nothing but an idea speculated through different views that I toyed with in contemplation of the future while it slipped my mind to occur that someday it would have been happening to me. If anything, it had only seemed like less of a possibility when the workload of the final couple years of school knocked me down so hard and snatched my ability to keep up with it to the point where I was forced to repeat my final year. Ten more months of struggling under the weight of several classes and all of the work required from each one as well as pushing myself to prove that I wasn't worth another failure. And now, somehow, fifteen years old amongst eighteen year old graduates, I was here.

Once the ceremony had been declared complete and the former students were dismissed to leave the gathering with their families, trying to get out of the room was most definitely less than ideal. The air clouding the room itself was stuffy and flushed, and upbeat music pounding from speakers lined against the walls nearly drowned out the buzz of eager conversations throughout the room as I had scanned the many faces for those of my mother, father, and twin sister. The significant lack of space between the graduates and the struggle to reach the exit had squeezed me in a rigid grip as if it had suddenly become incredibly hard to breathe and since I wasn't successful in locating my family, I was left to assume that they had escaped the busy room when they had the chance.

What must have been ten entire minutes from the start of my attempt to leave the room found me straying through the hallway in search, a sweep of cool air from the air conditioning washing over me while the throb of bothersome heat remained trapped underneath my gown, but the area was mostly deserted by now. My parents had managed to track me down shortly after I had freed myself from the heavily populated room of the ceremony and didn't waste a second before offering their praise for my achievement.

"Oh, congratulations, sweetheart!" Mom exclaimed after we had run into each other in the abandoned hallway, instantly grabbing hold of me to pull me into a snug embrace. She had a gentle complexion and a fragile voice but a firm grip, and the faint scent of flowers that clung to her only added to her subtly graceful appearance. Dad was standing behind her to wait for his turn to greet me, providing a proud, beaming smile when I caught his eye.

"You did it. It was a lot of hard work, but you pushed through," Mom went on, clutching me close to her as her voice shook with teary emotion. "I knew you could do it and I am so, so proud of you. This is quite a big day for you, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I murmured in agreement, because it was the only answer. It was a big day; the end of a painful struggle and the first step into a new beginning. I definitely wasn't glorifying my achievement on its own quite how my parents were as my thoughts instead drifted along the acknowledgement that it was finally over and I would never be going back again, but in that sense, I supposed that it was still a very big day.

Mom released me at last, leaving space for Dad to hug me as well, and he locked his arms around me just as tightly as Mom had.

"Well, it's the end of a long journey," he told me, giving me a firm pat on my back as he spoke. His own voice varied significantly from Mom's in the sense that it was a lot stronger and more steady and he didn't seem like he even needed to think before he spoke. I wondered what that must have been like. "But as they say, it's in the closing of one door that allows for a different one to open. I can tell that this is going to be the start of a brilliant future just beyond the next doorway."

Dad hugged me for a few seconds longer before he withdrew again, his dark eyes darting to meet Mom's as he stepped back to allow me space. A beaming smile still locked over Mom's face at the events of the morning, but a weak sniffle escaped her as she carefully swiped at her damp eyes with one paw and gently set the other on my sleeved arm.

"Let's go find your sister, okay, Digby?" Mom suggested shakily. "She should be in the assembly room right now. We'll head out once she's with us."

Traveling through the hallways of the school that had been permanently imprinted in my mind easily unraveled the memories that had occurred here. Soft sunlight pooled over the floors and the walls as if to fill the emptiness left by what once was, yet another patient reminder that my time here was in the past, and the atmosphere was warm and forgiving like a breath of hope. I had never known a goodbye to be so peaceful—When I considered the idea, I thought of tears and pain and a longing of the past, but now I reached for a future away from where I had come from. It was the kind of goodbye that brought a smile to your face to accept what you were leaving behind.

I retraced my steps to the main assembly room with my parents by my side, Dad with the proud smile that was still plastered over his face and Mom with her tearful sniffles here and there, and followed along the path that my memory laid out for me. Mom wasn't the only animal crying over the idea of graduation, though, as I soon came to notice in the few tearstained and sadness-distorted faces of other graduates we passed when the realization that it was over struck. I wouldn't be crying today. If anything, what would have been to push me to tears was the relief that I wasn't going back.

Evidently, a large group of graduates had found the main assembly room before I had entered with my parents. Clumps of friend groups gathered along the edge of the tables that reached across the back wall, snatching what was provided for snacks and beverages before it could run out and filling the space with a purr of conversation. I had always gone under the radar in terms of popularity, somehow consistently skipped over when friendships began to weave together, and because of that I couldn't truthfully say that I had any friends to rely on in school. But it hadn't been something that had really bothered me, given the age gap between me and my classmates that stood in the way of a genuine connection, and besides, my closest friends were made outside of school.

My twin sister, Isabelle, easily stood out in the crowd as the only student not graduating or wearing a dark graduation gown. She had attended the school during the time that I had, but she had already gone through the graduation process two years ago when we were just thirteen. The vibrant pink short-sleeved dress she wore led me to quickly locate her in the room as she stood at the far right of the table, one arm wound tightly around a blue spiral notebook and a thick textbook to be able to hold a small paper plate in her other paw. She appeared to have taken a break from choosing her snacks to strike up a conversation with the teacher that had taught my latest math class, likely after recognizing her as she had attended her class as well before she had graduated.

I could declare with full confidence that Isabelle was my best friend. After all, we had spent our entire lives together; we'd celebrated at our best and helped the other through our worst and over the years grew almost inseparable from it. She had a furry face that I had heard compared by our mother to a ray of sunshine: A pale yellow in color, a joyful shimmer in her black eyes, and an unbroken bright smile. Her voice, high-pitched in a youthful sense and bouncy in her frequent happiness, stood distinctly in my memory as the most familiar to register in my ears and the sound of a jingling bell followed her wherever she went from the high ponytail in which she pulled up her blonde hair.

Isabelle's work drive was like none other than I had ever heard of before and was often commended by our parents. After graduating two years ago at thirteen, she had launched herself right into the academic life of a university student, but once she was accepted by all of her top five colleges she had applied for due to her exceptional grades beforehand, she attended each and every one of them. She graduated from four of those over the two years I had spent trying to finish my own education and now was currently attending three to make seven, but the workload that it brought for her forced her to carry homework and a textbook every time she left the house. And when it came to me, I still had yet to even find a college I was remotely interested in.

The conversation that Isabelle was carrying out with my teacher seemed to end a few moments after I had caught sight of them. Isabelle must have heard me and our parents approaching as she tossed a glance over her shoulder, finally discovering that we were there, and an enthusiastic smile flooded her face as she swept over to join us.

"Hey," Isabelle greeted us, shifting her arm around her books to strengthen her hold on them before she looked at me. The paper plate she had brought back from the snack table held four differently frosted sugar cookies, which didn't exactly surprise me. Isabelle quite enjoyed eating sugary treats. "You made it. How do you feel?"

"I'm just glad that it's over," I admitted.

"It wasn't that bad, was it? I think it's satisfying to see all of your hard work pay off," Isabelle told me, jolting out her snack plate towards me. "Can you hold this for a second?"

I carefully took the plate from her, holding it in my paw as she rearranged her grip on the books again to be able to support it with both arms instead.

"You weren't the one who failed your final year and had to do everything all over again as soon as you thought you were done," I reminded her.

"Well, it gives you an excuse to prove what you're capable of. Thanks for holding my plate." Once Isabelle had regained a firm hold on the books, she reached out and plucked a cookie from the plate before taking a bite.

"Oh, try not to fill up on snacks, honey," Mom warned her, drawing our focus away from the conversation. "Remember, we're having lunch with Lyle and Lottie right after this."

Apart from Isabelle, Lottie was my closest friend without question, not to mention that I had known her almost as long. I had been told stories of how we'd known each other since we were in preschool when our families met, but of course this was much too far back in my memory for me to recall for myself. She used to live on a neighboring island rather than my own when we were much younger, limiting visits to about twice or three times a year from the distance. She didn't move to live closer until she was seven, making me almost five at the time. I had heard a few times that she hadn't gotten along well with her parents when she was living at home, so now she stayed with her uncle, Lyle, on the other side of my home island and came to visit every couple months. My parents had made arrangements with her uncle to meet for a picnic in a park almost equal distance from each of our homes in celebration of my graduation, so I would be soon to see them today.

The temperature had cooled from the peak of the morning's heat when we cleared out of the school at last. Clouds slowly rolled over the sky, streaking across the endless blue like a painting, and a breeze that was warm yet not as intense crept across the area. Being out of the school and into the world again, I finally allowed myself to remove my graduation cap and gown, leaving me in the much more comfortable and less layered outfit of plain black pants and a tie-dyed t-shirt as I carried my belongings in my arms to make the hike to the park.

The walk seemed to stretch into an entire half hour, if not longer. The majority of it was just following a single long-reaching sidewalk out of the school grounds and slowly moved away from buildings into grassy hills as our destination grew closer. We entered the park through a wooden archway, ventured into fields lined by trees to find our meeting place, and discovered upon arrival that we were the last to show up.

Even as we were still shuffling over the grass to reach our destination, I first caught sight of Lottie just as we were emerging from the mass of trees and into the vast plot of grass: a pink otter in a cross-legged seat on the ground several yards in the distance with light brunette hair pulled up into a neatly done bun at the top of her head and a spring-like white dress sporting a pink floral design. Her uncle, a blue otter who was always dressed like he was prepared to go to a professional event and wore thick black glasses that shrewd, intelligent-looking eyes peered behind, was standing nearby. At first, his focus lingered on Lottie as he either carried out a conversation with her or aimlessly watched over her, but he raised his head to glance at me and my family as soon as he heard us approaching. Mom raised her arm to wave to Lottie and Lyle as we strolled across the grass to join them.

"Good morning!" she called out cheerfully as I adjusted my grasp on my cap and my crumpled gown to be able to reach up and brush my bangs out of the way of my eyes. The tension building in my chest from the stale heat had since loosened with the cooler temperatures and I was calm again. Lottie climbed to her feet from her seat on the grass as her uncle walked to greet us, eyes squinted from the harshness of the sun's rays as they fell warmly over the land.

"Good morning. It's great to see you," Lyle told us, a soft yet rough voice that I could also recognize well from deep into my memory, before he turned his attention to me. Lottie was already rushing to follow closely, face lit up by a thrilled smile as her gaze darted between me and Isabelle.

"Digby, congratulations," Lyle said to me. I let a smile cross my face at being addressed. "Graduation is a big deal and should be celebrated as such. I hope you know how strong you are to be able to pull through and get yourself to this point, especially at your age. Lottie and I are both very happy for you."

"Thank you," I replied, but my attention was quickly brought away from the conversation as Isabelle moved past me to reach Lottie. Lyle seemed to sense that our conversation had ended and walked to leave on his way to set up the meal just in time for me to see Lottie grab hold of Isabelle to pull her into a firm, friendly hug in greeting.

"I'm so glad that you could come and meet us today," Lottie said, tightly holding Isabelle for a few more moments before she pulled herself back. "I really miss you both when I can't see you very often."

"I wish you didn't live so far away. It would be easier to visit a lot more if we were closer to each other," Isabelle agreed.

I stood nearby in a patient silence to wait for my opportunity to speak with Lottie as a faint recollection flicked through the back of my mind to see them talking amongst each other. As puppies several years ago, Isabelle had opened up to me herself about a little crush she had on Lottie that had developed during our infrequent visits. The feelings had since faded, as she told me some years afterward, but sometimes I was still reminded of that brief period of time whenever we all met together.

Eager to greet both of us, Lottie hardly spent another moment with Isabelle as she faced me instead and another beaming smile flooded her face again, but her gaze was straying distractedly and wouldn't meet mine. She was probably anxious to finally sit down and eat, since the day was indeed creeping towards the afternoon. I could understand that.

"Hi, Digby," Lottie greeted me, her gaze dropping to her paws as she casually and absentmindedly fidgeted with them.

"Hello," I began, but the abrupt sound of an opening bin from behind her snatched her attention as she cast a glance over her shoulder again. Mom, Dad, and Lyle were all huddled around a wide transparent plastic bin a ways away which likely contained the meal, my parents gathered close by to watch as Lyle carefully removed the red lid and tossed it out onto the grass next to it. Mom quickly appeared to notice that Lottie and I were observing the scene and raised her head to smile at us.

"Why don't you three take a seat on the grass and settle in?" Mom suggested brightly as Lyle crouched beside the bin to reach inside. "We're just going to get everything set up and ready to go and then we can start eating. We'll make sure that you're well fed, don't you worry about that."

Eating outside was something different, that was for sure. Every once in a while, the space was visited by a sweep of warm breezes, rustling the sunlit grass in its path and forcing me to repeatedly nudge my bangs out of my eyes as I tried to enjoy my meal. When we had first arranged to meet for lunch in the form of a picnic, Lyle had offered to prepare the meal not just for his family but for mine as well to avoid complications from graduation and, as I soon became aware, he had even taken the time to bring with him a variety of snack options as well as the sandwiches he had made for the main meal. Along with the sandwich I was given right at the start, I filled my plate with a helping of trail mix and a pawful of small square treats that tasted of caramel.

Isabelle had finished eating first, abandoning the plate with her half-finished sandwich on the lid of the bin for safekeeping to claim a seat by herself to focus. Her thick textbook lay open on the grass in front of her as she occasionally flipped through it, jotting down notes in her spiral notebook. The structure of the meal began to loosen from there as it gradually came to an end, leaving us to disperse to do whatever we chose until it would be time to go home. My parents and Lottie's uncle had found seats near the bin and were finishing their meal at an unhurried pace as they shared their own conversations. Lottie was done with her meal shortly after Isabelle had left the group to complete her homework and now sat alone on a blanket with a pink checkered decoration that she had retrieved from the bin and laid it over the grass, so I sat to join her.

For the first stretch of minutes, there was nothing to be said. I sat quietly next to Lottie on the blanket and studied my surroundings, peacefully taking in all of the sights that the park had to offer as the meal settled comfortably in my stomach. Leaves in far trees fluttered on their branches and the grass around us swayed under the passing breeze. The gentle rumble of conversation between Lyle and my parents was distinct against the tranquil quietness, but I knew better than to eavesdrop.

I caught the sound of Isabelle swiftly turning the page of her textbook as my focus strayed across my near surroundings. Mom had allowed me to leave my cap and gown near the bin when we first arrived, so it sat in a crumpled heap against the side. I set my weight on my paws on the blanket behind me, tearing my gaze away to instead casually examine the deep blueness of the almost clear sky, and it was in the movement beside me as Lottie shifted into a cross-legged seat like me that reminded me that she was there. She had kept so quiet and I had been so absorbed in my thoughts that I had nearly forgotten that she was with me at all.

I glanced over to find her already watching me, but she dropped her gaze from mine as soon as I looked at her to begin examining the design of the blanket between us. She didn't always have very much to say, but even then, I had been friends with her long enough to know her as well as I knew Isabelle. She was the kind of animal who didn't hesitate to stand up for what she believed in but was still shy enough to stumble over her words, loved deeply and swore to it by means of physical affection, and always did her makeup in the very same way each and every day. She refused an extra decorated makeup look and had always done her eyelashes thick and striking but nothing more, appearing as a prominent feature of her face as they sat over the void of her dark eyes. Lottie was pretty, but more in a natural way.

Just as I was about to look away again, convinced that Lottie had nothing to say after all, she spoke up at last but was still observing the pattern of the blanket.

"What was it like?" she asked, absentmindedly tracing the stripes on the blanket as she spoke. "Graduating, I mean. I've never been to a public school, so I never had an official graduation."

Something else that I knew about Lottie was that she had always been homeschooled, with the exception of the preschool where we had first met. Her parents had never bothered to try to find a school for her because she was often too anxious by the idea of attending such large classes with so many animals, as I had heard from Lyle once or twice, but then they hadn't tried to educate her at home at all. When Lottie began her stay in Lyle's house not a week after her seventh birthday, it had been Lyle himself to teach her everything she needed to know.

It was impolite to complain, but since it was just Lottie I was talking to, I didn't have a problem with telling her the truth.

"The ceremony was really long and kind of boring," I described. Another sweep of warm air fiddled with Lottie's thin bangs falling over her forehead, as it did mine as well. "I don't quite see why they can't just tell us we're done, wish us well, and let us go rather than making us sit and wait for a small plastic folder that I'm probably going to end up losing somehow."

"I'm sure there was a lot of information to run through," Lottie told me, glancing up from the blanket and meeting my gaze again. "As well as some goodbyes and recollections of the years of school that have passed. I heard that some schools give out awards to specific students during the ceremony."

I was about to go on to complain about the bothersome heat that had built up in the room after everyone had been sitting in there for so long and how frustrating the entire procedure had become because of it, but I held my tongue at the last second. Maybe I should have been a bit more grateful. The reason that I was here celebrating with my family and Lottie's family was because of something I was carelessly tossing away and calling frustrating and boring.

"Oh," I acknowledged instead. "Well, overall, I think it was fine."

A slight smile slipped onto Lottie's face as she dropped her gaze to the blanket again.

"I was actually a little bit afraid that you and Isabelle would arrive here first and that I was going to be late and couldn't meet you on time," she admitted. "My uncle and I had to go right home and change clothes before we could come here."

"Why would you need to change clothes?" I asked.

Lottie's eyes leaped back up to look at me after examining the blanket, watching me quietly for a moment as if she had to figure out what to say before she appeared to realize the source of my confusion.

"Oh, um," she began, a light and sheepish giggle escaping her as she hastily brushed her bangs out of her face at the play of another faint breeze. "Uniforms are required while working at Happy Home. We had to go home and change out of our uniforms."

I had been so caught up in the idea that I was finally out of school that it had slipped my mind that Lottie was already working at seventeen. In fact, she had been working since she was almost fifteen. From everything I had heard, Lottie and Lyle were the only two workers devotedly supporting an interior design company known as the Happy Home Designer and Academy, known formally as the HHDA and informally as Happy Home. There wasn't much else that I could confidently claim that I knew about it, but from the way she spoke of it, I could tell that working at the HHDA at her uncle's side made Lottie happy.

With a thump, Isabelle had shut her textbook again. I looked at her to find her pawing through her spiral notebook as if searching for something, withdrawing a single sheet of paper that had been tucked inside as it fluttered in the breeze and setting it down on the textbook in front of her as a writing surface, all with complete concentration. Another shift in movement sent my focus over to the adults to discover that they had all climbed to their feet again and appeared to be helping each other pack up the contents of the plastic bin. Was it getting closer to the time we were meant to leave?

"My cousins flew in to visit a few weeks ago," Lottie said after a moment. Her patient gaze lingered on me, not even distracted by the commotion around us. "I hadn't seen them in person since I was about ten or eleven, so it was exciting to spend some time with them."

I had never met Lottie's cousins directly, a lack of familiar faces creating a vague image in my mind as my imagination blindly put together an idea as to what they looked and sounded like, but over the years Lottie had shared so much about them that it almost felt like I knew them personally. They were the two daughters, four years apart in age, of Lottie's uncle but had since moved out of his house to pursue work before Lottie herself had even moved in. Despite hardly being present in her life, Lottie's cousins were very consistent about writing to her, as I could tell in the letters from them that Lottie had once shown me years ago. It was clear that they all enjoyed keeping in touch from so far away and never seemed to run short of things to talk about, going back and forth about their work, Lottie's life, and even the HHDA.

They had to do all of the announcement recordings in a single afternoon. Dad was very tired that day, the words resurfaced in my memory.

"Are they doing well?" I inquired.

Lottie gave a brief nod, hastily brushing away wisps of hair from her face that had managed to escape from their hold due to the breeze.

"Yes, I believe so," she replied, but she appeared to have found something of interest in the pattern of the blanket again. "They've changed a lot, though. They're still friendly towards me, of course, but they're much less verbally affectionate than they used to be. But I suppose if you don't see someone for many years, they're bound to change to some extent."

I tried to picture Lottie spending time with her cousins. It was easy for me to imagine her bright, happy smile at the long-awaited reunion, but everything around that was nothing but a gray area. It was a significantly difficult task to picture something that I had never seen for myself.

"I guess that's true," I agreed with no input of my own to provide.

"It's not always a bad thing, I think. Sometimes things need a change or a break in routine to be able to make something better," Lottie went on, suddenly becoming aware of the scene happening around us and quickly glancing around her at the sound of Isabelle gathering her belongings and getting to her feet. "Oh, I think we're getting ready to leave."

It seemed that we were. Isabelle was already on her feet and waiting, arms wrapped tightly around her books, and my parents stood nearby to watch Lyle as he latched the lid onto the bin again. Lottie and I pushed ourselves up to stand to join them and I dismissed myself from the conversation to retrieve my cap and gown. I bent down to collect my belongings from the ground beside the bin while Lottie lifted the blanket to begin to fold it neatly and as my mother and father went to speak with Isabelle, Lyle remained at the bin to address me.

"It's quite a big change for you, isn't it?" Lyle asked, straightening up from the bin to stand at his full height and face me. He was notably taller than me, several inches for certain. "Being out of school entirely."

Lyle understood my situation more clearly than Mom and Dad did, it seemed. From the way he spoke of it, while he still viewed it as an achievement as well, he saw it less as this and more of just a general change in my daily life. I didn't feel anything too strongly or too emotional about it, and he could see that.

"I haven't even fully processed it yet," I confessed.

"Well, that's understandable," Lyle replied, glancing briefly at my parents sharing a conversation with my sister before he returned his focus to me. "Have you made any plans for the future yet? Finding a college to go to, or maybe searching for a job first?"

"I haven't considered it yet," I told him. Until today, my main focus had simply been to graduate, to finally make it out of school. The idea of my future was a completely empty slate to me right now, an infinite spectrum of possibilities.

Lyle nodded slightly in acknowledgment, ready to answer but his focus on the conversation was cut short as Lottie appeared at my side, quietly holding out the blanket she had folded to him so as to not disturb our discussion.

"Thank you," he said, carefully taking the blanket from her and reaching down to remove the lid from the bin again. I watched him silently, patiently waiting for his response as he tossed the blanket into the bin and latched on the lid a second time before he stood up again.

"The world is yours, Digby," Lyle told me, his dark and perceptive eyes examining me from behind his thick glasses. "You can make anything you want of it if you work hard enough. There will come a time in your life where you'll need to make some crucial decisions about which path you'll want your future to take, but that time might be coming sooner than you think. That's why you always need to be prepared to control your path in life before it controls you. You don't have to know right away how you want the rest of your life to look for you, but it's a very good time to start thinking about it."

Before I had the chance to answer, Lyle had sent an abrupt glance back at my parents as his focus was broken once again. Mom and Dad were still standing several feet away with Isabelle but appeared to have already finished their own conversation and were instead politely motioning for me to join them, likely being prepared to leave. I glanced up at Lyle again, a silent question whether or not I could yet abandon the conversation, and he gave a short nod to let me go.

I exchanged my brief goodbyes with Lyle, offered a final hug to Lottie, and departed from the park with my family with the endless possibilities that the future could hold still spinning tirelessly through my head.