The house hadn't been this quiet in years.

Of course, I had anticipated the silence when I dragged myself out of bed at seven o'clock to get ready for work, since I was always the first one up in the morning nowadays. But there was a sort of dead emptiness that lingered here today. As I dressed myself in my regular suit uniform in the dim atmosphere of the early morning, my mind tirelessly tried to convince me that Isabelle was simply still sleeping, that she was in the other room and was just being extra quiet. No, she wasn't sleeping. She was gone.

I enjoyed a breakfast of an orange in solitude and was out of the house at seven thirty. The snow outside had almost completely melted in the slow closing of March, leaving small and damp white patches on the grass, and a soft warmth clung to the still air as winter shrunk away. As I took the hike to the HHDA under a thick and cloudy sky, a faint moisture sat in the air. Rain was on its way.

It already felt like an entirely different life from yesterday. With Isabelle's abrupt disappearance, it became clear all too quickly just how alone I really was. Without her, I was a lone soul disconnected and drifting away from everything I knew. It was a significant and jolting change that I had stumbled into. A new beginning, an opportunity for new habits to be born. Maybe, in some twisted way, this could have been a blessing in disguise.

I entered the building shaken and fragile like I'd emerged from a terrible battle. First, I made a stop to the break room to prepare myself a cup of coffee, then I carried it to my office to begin my day. It was just after eight ten that I seated myself at my desk and set myself to the task of mapping out a routine for the next couple of weeks before my first report would have been due, unenthusiastically sipping at my coffee that seemed a bit more bland than usual.

The workplace felt almost as empty and dead as the house had somehow, or maybe that was just how I felt. I couldn't quite tell. In the solitude of my office that lasted ten minutes at most, I had taken up a pen from my desk to copy down a list of the next two weeks and a daily goal for how much I hoped to achieve in my writing. I was only about eleven pages through as of right now, but if I managed almost a page per day, I was sure to be fine.

I had just raised my coffee mug in a long sip when a gentle knock alerted me to someone's presence outside of my door. I gulped down the drink, feeling the warmth swarm my chest, and lowered the mug to find Lottie waiting on the other side of the door, looking in at me through the glass. She carried no papers with her and didn't even have her regular polite smile in greeting, instead wearing a touch of an uneasy expression that sunk onto her pink face. I set the coffee mug down on the surface of my desk, reaching up to run my paws tiredly over my face. I couldn't handle another assignment right now.

I heard the door unlatch and swing open. I removed my paws from my face to see Lottie step into the room, carefully shutting the door behind her again before she turned to face me.

"Good morning," Lottie said. Something in her voice was significantly more anxious and soft than before. "May I talk to you for a minute?"

"Is this about more work?" I asked her. A heaviness had settled in my voice as I knew what she was about to tell me before she even said it. But the answer I received was not the one I had anticipated.

"No, Digby," Lottie told me with slight hesitation as if the question had thrown her off guard, but then she quieted.

She tore her gaze from mine to walk for the chair at the wall that was, at this point, used for nothing other than our meetings like this. She grasped hold of the back of the chair, relocating it at the other side of my desk. The solid darkness in her eyes shimmered with worry as she lowered herself into a seat to speak with me.

"I heard about what happened with Isabelle," Lottie said after a moment. It was like her eyes were searching mine, searching for something I did not know. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay. I know that you have a lot you're dealing with right now and I want to support you in any way I can. Why did she suddenly decide to leave like that?"

For whatever unknown reason, it was strangely easy to talk about, almost like any other generic topic of conversation. Maybe the fact of the matter hadn't quite sunk in yet.

"She's looking for work," I told Lottie, the words sparking my last few discussions with Isabelle to resurface in my mind again. "She said that she wanted to share the burden that working can hold. I don't know how long she had been planning to abandon me. One minute, everything was fine, and the next, she's just gone."

Lottie didn't answer right away. She was silently studying her paws, fidgeting them together on her lap. I could sense the seconds ticking by as she didn't speak.

"Digby, I know that you've been going through so much," Lottie mumbled after a moment. "But I only know what I'm able to see, so I'm terrified of what I don't see. While the situation with Isabelle is beyond both of our control, I know it didn't start there. I gave you many different things to focus on at once right from the beginning and I think it's bringing you down too much to try and handle everything at the same time. The problem is that I invited you to work here during an especially busy time here, with the developments of Happy Homeroom and all, and I gave you an amount of work that I could finish without considering that I have had years to get used to it while you have hardly had a month."

Lottie only continued to study her paws for a long break in her statement, and then she raised her head to meet my gaze again.

"If it will help you, I'm giving you permission to take home any work you'd like to get done outside of your work hours, as long as you always bring it back here whenever you do," Lottie offered.

I nearly lost my breath as a relief so dizzying that I nearly passed out on the desk thrust itself upon me. This would change everything. I didn't have to worry about getting my work done on a set timeframe during the day anymore. Sure, it would have been canceling out some of the time that I had formerly used to wind down from the day, but in a matter of moments, the risk of falling behind had just vanished. This was where everything would start to get better.

"Thank you, Lottie," I told her. "I think that's exactly what I needed."

Lottie forced a nod in response, but she didn't appear to be entirely at ease. For a few seconds, she did nothing more than watch me, allowing the silence to grow between us. Then, she reached across the desk to take hold of my paws that rested there, grasping them gently in her own. I broke away from our still gaze to look at her paws in mine, but she stopped me.

"Look at me," Lottie said softly, and I did. A glint of light beaming down from the ceiling reflected in her eyes. "You're going to be okay. I'm here for you. My uncle and I just want to help you get through this and you have our full support."

I doubted that. I might have believed Lottie in a heartbeat when she said that she was there for me, but I wasn't exactly on the best terms with Lyle right now. Even just any casual interaction we exchanged was tense recently after the massive fight we got into a few days ago. And besides, if he really was there for me, then he would be here with me in my time of need.

"It didn't sound much like he supported me when he told me to get it together," I grumbled.

"I'm sorry he said that to you. I'll admit that was a bit harsh. I think he thought that you were trying to say you were going to suddenly walk out and leave everything behind. He's, um..." Lottie's voice trailed off as she seemed like she had found something more interesting on the surface of the desk than our conversation, slipping one paw out of mine to distractedly swipe at her bangs to get them out of her face. "He's a little bit sensitive to things like that."

Lottie closed her paws around mine again, holding them where they sat for a few moments before she offered a gentle, reassuring squeeze and withdrew again as she rose to her feet.

"Stay strong, Digby," Lottie said and turned to leave.

For the first time in a while, I felt like I could really breathe again. I could finally see a way out of my struggle and had plans to work to get to that point. All of a sudden, everything had begun to seem manageable again and I could once again picture myself excelling. While this might have marked the end of one aspect of my suffering, not everything had been miraculously solved in a single moment.

I started seeing Isabelle in the many faces that came and went through the building. Each time I caught a cheerful bounce in someone's voice, her face instantly flooded my thoughts. Even so much as the little things like someone with their hair put up or just a little jingle that didn't need to be from a bell jolted me back to the final memories I shared with her. Every reminder that she was gone from my life sent me reeling and I just couldn't quite mentally accept it. I didn't have the faintest clue how I could possibly get used to something like this.

Even though Isabelle had never been at work with me in the first place, I couldn't help but feel as though something I had heavily relied on as a crutch for my success had been ripped from me. It was like I was being punished by the universe for something I had no idea I'd done wrong. I felt like I had been in a deep sleep up to this point and just now flung open my eyes to discover I didn't know what was happening or what I was supposed to do. I had abruptly awakened only to find that I was lost.

By routine, the first thought to cross my mind while thrusting my way out of the doors into the outside world at the end of the day was seeing Isabelle when I would get home. In fact, this thought somehow sat in my mind for the entire time that I spent walking home under the dense clouds of threatened rain. But I emerged into the house to no sound of rushing footsteps to greet me, no bouncy voice asking if I'd had a good day at work. It was then that I remembered that she was no longer there.

It was warm noodles and steamed vegetables for dinner, something that I had once been exceptionally fond of, but I couldn't enjoy it as much tonight. Not a word was spoken between Mom, Dad, and me as we worked through our meal, but this had become the usual. The truth was a difficult fact to choke down. After a silent dinner, I excused myself to my bedroom for the rest of the night. In the solitude permitted by my own room, I took advantage of Lottie's suggestion. I hadn't had the option to bring home my work computer to continue writing on my progress report, given that it was plugged into the wall, so I instead brought my upcoming assignments for Studies for the week in my briefcase. I set my briefcase on the crimson red blanket of my bed, laid out my assignments to review on my desk at the side of the foot of the bed, and got to work.

A dimness settled in the room from the cloudy skies outside of the window and faint rumbles rattled its casing from approaching thunder. The minutes slowly crept by as I sat at my desk, piecing through the information presented to me and carefully running my eyes along the printed words. It was a moment that I considered quite peaceful, reading the text before me in the simplicity of the atmosphere brought about by the inevitability of rain, but it didn't last as long as I would have liked it to.

It had been years since I had sat myself down at my desk for such an extensive period of time and gradually, it had begun to leave its weight on me. I found myself reaching to rub my back more and more often over time as a stiffness stretched through it and sitting in the same place in my chair eventually grew tiresome. I had been hesitant to leave my desk to work somewhere else, as I had seated myself there in the first place to try and create a productive work area that I could depend on, but once I started taking notice of the soreness in my back, I relocated myself to sit on my bed. I settled into a seat in the middle of my bed with my back resting against the wall to ease the pressure shortly after eight o'clock at night and resumed reading. The claps of thunder snapping through the sky above had become more evident up to this point, but it was only after a few minutes did rain begin to drum its gentle fingers against the surface of the window.

Once the rain arrived, it seemed to take away my focus as my thoughts strayed. My assignments lay untouched, the pages sprawled out on the bed on either side of me as I listened to the rain tapping against the window, imagining that I could feel it dancing onto my back against the wall, and I thought of Isabelle. This was the second night that she would have been on the boat and would likely be reaching land again within the next couple days. Maybe it was raining over the boat as well.

I tried to picture her setting off on her journey on the boat and a small, aching smile found its way to my face at the image I was greeted by. I didn't even need to see her myself to know that she still smiled, even through the new challenges that she was learning to overcome. I had no doubts that she was advancing with determination. This was just the beginning for her and I had never been more proud.

I set my head against the wall behind me, shutting my eyes and immersing myself in the moment before tears could spring out. I hoped that my sister was okay. I hoped that she would continue to be okay, even without her family at her side. I exhausted myself to be happy for her steps into the future, but still I wished for her to come home. For now, I would stay here and wait for the day when I would see her again, knowing full well that I would drop everything and leave to find her if she asked me to.

She might have already gone to bed for the night. It must have been somewhat relaxing to sleep on the boat, with the gentle rocking of the waves crashing against it. Maybe it was about time for me to head to bed as well. I opened my eyes and proceeded to gather my papers again, leaving them in a stack on my desk to bring to work tomorrow morning, and I called it a day.

The newness of Isabelle's absence wore down over the next few days. During that time, I heard nothing from her and received no information of her reaching out. I also wasn't entirely sure when she would be off the boat, so I restrained myself from jumping to conclusions. It slowly began to sink in that she wasn't coming back home and that her departure wasn't a temporary aspect of life and with that acknowledgment, my mental state slowly declined as well.

I was dragged through many conflicts in my mind. It was as if the broken side of me and the charismatic, confident side of me were at constant war, pounding through my head in an argument of who deserved to see the light of day. If I knew anything for sure, it was that I wouldn't get far if I had the hopeless mindset that I had been caught in for several weeks before this point. I allowed my friendly host part of me to take control throughout my work hours, but it was in doing so that I came to a decision.

If I was going to succeed, I had to drop my old self completely. I was going to leave that useless part of me behind and drown it out for my better future. I knew who I wanted to be, so that was who I became. Honestly, I was better off this way. If smothering who I had once been was the only way for me to move on, then what else was I supposed to do? Just suffer in silence? I didn't think so. It wasn't like anyone else was going to notice. It was significantly easier to be a certain way when you knew you had no other choice.

Over the days, I sunk into my new personality and saw it become usual until I'd trained myself to forget how to be anything else. Additionally, that was around the time when I established a more firm grip over managing my work and fell into routine again, so I knew for sure that I'd made the right decision. Maybe it was the fact that my mindset wasn't exactly the most positive or maybe it was just because the newness of the job had since worn off, but it seemed like there had been one too many unsatisfied and angry customers lately. There was nothing to test my patience like someone yelling into my face about something I knew for sure that they were completely in the wrong about. In fact, on the morning of the twentieth, when Lottie stopped by my office just about fifteen minutes before Open Advisory to let me know there was a call waiting for me, I assumed that I was about to have a lengthy and draining conversation as such.

"Hey, Digby," the light, bouncy, and slightly tired voice of my own twin sister greeted me after I tucked the phone under my floppy ear. "It's me."

"Isabelle?" I said. Something instantly snapped within me and relief washed over me like a wave of cool water. So she was finally off the boat. She had made it safely to her destination. "Oh, thank goodness. Are you doing okay? I haven't heard from you in a while."

"I'm doing really well," Isabelle told me cheerfully. "I'm sorry I haven't gotten the chance to call until now."

As she was speaking, I had been trying to complete the calculation in my mind of just how long she had been away by now—I would have believed her if she had told me something as long as a week—But I jolted back to reality at the sudden apology.

"No, that's fine," I assured her, adjusting the phone under my ear to a more comfortable position. "I'm just glad you could call now. How long has it been since you left? Three, four days?"

There was a pause for a moment. Isabelle was making the calculation for herself.

"Four days," she confirmed.

"Wow, that long," I murmured. Countless questions were already leaping to my tongue that I had planned to ask her when the time arrived to speak with her again as I ran my paw over my face and tried to sort them out. Isabelle had just gotten off the boat either today or yesterday and was now somewhere on the island where Lottie no longer lived, but her divorced parents did. Her parents that had never quite treated her fairly. Beyond that, I knew next to nothing about the situation.

"You were on the boat for a few days, weren't you? How did that go?" I asked, dropping my paw from my face again.

Somehow, speaking of the boat that had taken her away from me flicked the lights on in my mind to a set of different recollections—This was not the first trip that Isabelle had ever taken by boat, since we took several boat trips with our parents during our puppyhood, but one of the memories that stood most distinctly in my mind was Isabelle stuck in bed the entire time due to an upset stomach from the swaying. If she hadn't outgrown that, she might have just been through a nightmare, having to go through that alone.

"It was a bit hard to manage at first," Isabelle confessed. "I felt really sick for the majority of the trip, but I recovered quickly. I just arrived yesterday morning."

"Really? Where are you staying now? I'm guessing it's not with either of Lottie's parents," I remarked. A sort of writhing displeasure gripped me to speak of them that caused me to clench my teeth and feel as though I were almost spitting out the words. Isabelle didn't know what I knew.

"No, I doubt they would take me," Isabelle mumbled. There was a sort of rustling on the other line as she shifted in her position to speak on the phone. "I've been staying at a public campsite. It's been very nice here."

It didn't exactly strike me as the best option. Something about a public campsite didn't come across as especially safe to me. There was no telling what kind of animals would stop by at a public campsite with the exclusivity of the availability to stay. Considering that, the fact that she was there by herself didn't sit right with me. Our family had always steered clear of public campsites and sprung for hotels instead while traveling for that very reason.

"No problems so far?" I asked her. I could only hope that if problems did arise, she would let me know so that I could find her as quickly as I could.

"Nothing too major," Isabelle said. She was shifting around again. "I'm struggling to make friends here, but I know that comes with time. I'm going to start searching for a job soon."

"What sort of things are you looking for?" I inquired. At the very least, this was something I could at least offer advice, having the inside experience of a professional job. The lights above me flickered subtly before shining over the white hallway again.

"I'm not quite sure yet. I'm taking it slow," Isabelle told me.

She must not have had very much more to announce on the topic of finding a job as the other line quieted, allowing silence to stretch between us. The sound was faint, but I managed to catch a swift, rhythmic clicking in the background, like someone nearby was typing into a computer. Was someone with her?

"What about you?" Isabelle inquired. "How has your work at Happy Home been?"

"Oh, don't get me started." The retort slipped out without much of a thought as an abrupt cough of a laugh escaped me before it sunk in what I had just said. Oh. I hadn't yet told Isabelle about what the work had put me through and I wasn't eager to let her know any time soon.

"I mean, it's going well," I corrected myself, leaving no room for a reaction. "It's just a lot. Other than that, there isn't much else that you don't already know."

"Is today a particularly busy day for you?" Isabelle inquired.

I must have been more absorbed in the conversation than I had thought, because it was this question that yanked me back to the situation at hand. I was expected at Open Advisory about fifteen minutes from now. If I didn't start making my way there soon, then I was going to be late.

"Now that you mention it, yes," I realized aloud. "That being said, I might need to return to work soon. We're opening the doors for customers in about fifteen minutes and I'm supposed to greet them at the entrance. I can stay for a little while longer if there's something more you'd like to say, though."

"No, no, go ahead," Isabelle urged. "I don't want to take up too much of your time. I'll call you again soon and tell you anything you need to know."

And just like that, I saw how we could make this work. The future ahead of us spelled out our continued separation, but we didn't have to let things change after all. As long as we spoke often and resisted the urge to provoke tension, as it was much easier to do so when we weren't together in person to face the consequences, then everything would be okay between us. This was going to be fine.

"All right, thank you. I'll try to be near the phone when you do. I'll talk to you later," I offered my goodbyes and set the phone down again.

The days crawled by without a second call from Isabelle, but she was busy seeking out work, so I didn't pry. Because there was no contact, there was hardly anything to note about the next few days that followed. Work was as it always was and life had settled into this dull, monotonous, unbroken routine like I was living the same day over and over and over again, just this undisturbed pattern of reality. I supposed, in the most basic terms, that everything was fine. It wasn't what it had been before.

I kept an eye out for improvements upon my connection with Lyle once the weight of the workload began to ease up. I had assumed that even just the fact that I had better control over my responsibilities would have been enough for his patience in me to resurface, but it didn't seem any less tense. So, I only spoke to him when I needed to, offering polite greetings when we crossed paths in the halls while he had nothing more than a mumble to give to me. It was a bit rude, but it was manageable.

At last, I finally completed writing my first progress report on the twenty-third of March, six days before its deadline, with a finalized length of seventeen pages. I made a point of submitting it early just to show that I was on top of things and had nothing more to do for the rest of the evening except review my lessons. At six o'clock that evening, I set off for home, thriving in the energy that I had accomplished something, that steady rhythm of confidence that surged through your entire body where every step was made with determination like you knew exactly what you were doing. I was making my way into my future, there were no doubts about that.

But what was my future, exactly? That was the question that struck me the following morning of the twenty-fourth while exchanging my regular interactions in Open Advisory, clinging to my thoughts as the hours rolled by. What was the point to all of this? What kind of future was I working towards writing essays and teaching animals how to design interiors? It seemed like I was stuck in the same place and wasn't making any sort of progress towards my dreams whatsoever. It was following this acknowledgment that the worry resurfaced in my mind that I was running out of time to chase those dreams.

I needed advice. Well, general reassurances would do as well. My first idea was to seek help from Lottie, but I had a creeping suspicion that I already knew what her response would have been if I asked her. Most likely, she was going to tell me that my future would be whatever I made of it and could achieve anything I wished for with a bit of hard work because her head was up in the clouds like that. There was nothing wrong with that, it just wasn't what I needed.

It was then that the idea had come to me to speak with Lyle. His advice was consistently relevant to the situation at hand, not something generic like Lottie would have suggested, and was genuinely offered to benefit me. The only concern was whether or not our connection stood strongly enough for him to be willing to give it to me. However, asking to meet with him would be an opportunity to spring to in order to try to mend the damage we had created. It was settled.

So I knocked on Lyle's office door to request a meeting ten minutes before the end of the workday of the evening of March twenty-fourth.

. . .

A tranquil quietness danced through the space and the soft light of the golden hour crept across the office floors as I entered through the doorway. Lyle was seated at his computer when I emerged into the room, calmly typing on the keyboard in devoted focus of his work when I stopped by. My eyes skimmed the familiar room as I advanced forward to stand in front of Lyle's desk where he sat, jumping between the books on the shelves and the plaques on the back wall. Many things had changed since I was last here learning about Redd.

Lyle's eyes darted to peer up at me from behind his dark glasses as I came to a stop on the other side of his desk. I caught the sound of a soft sigh escaping him at the sight of me.

"What, Digby?" he asked me, returning his focus to the computer screen again and resuming his typing. It sounded like we still weren't yet on the best of terms.

"If it's all right with you, I'd just like to meet and discuss a few things before the day ends," I announced. The typing went on for a few seconds longer before he appeared to finish what he had been working on.

"Sure," Lyle mumbled, pushing himself up from his chair at the desk. He didn't seem all too eager to be speaking with me, but hopefully I could manage to ease that tension with the confirmation that I wasn't going to stand in his way anymore. Technically, I hadn't been to begin with, but it would likely help to say it.

"Well, first, I'd like to start off with my wholehearted promise," I went on, jetting out my voice in the confidence that carried me so easily as Lyle stepped around to the side of the desk to properly engage in the discussion. "Our last few discussions haven't exactly been the best, I'm sure you can agree, but I'd like to let you know that it's not what the situation looks like anymore. I've been doing incredibly well recently and I'm dedicated to the work that I complete here at the HHDA. I will not be letting you down again."

Suspicion circled Lyle's eyes at the vastly different news as they squinted to study my appearance.

"Good," he said, but he hesitated like he hadn't expected such an announcement or didn't believe me entirely. Even with the hesitation, his tone had relaxed again, sinking back into the patience I knew better than the hostility. It was going to be okay between us.

"Beyond that, I've actually been thinking about a few things that I'd like to get your thoughts on, if we can take a few minutes to run through those right now," I told him.

"Go ahead," Lyle replied, politely motioning for me to continue before dropping his paw back to his side. "I'm here to listen."

"I've been thinking about my future quite a bit recently," I admitted. "I've had a few worries in particular associated with the idea. I think that my main concern would be that I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it. It's difficult for me to predict anything that's not directly relevant to the present moment since the present is, quite literally, all that I can see. It's starting to feel a little bit late in my life to decide where I want my future to be headed, if I'm being honest."

Lyle set his paw on the untidy surface of the desk beside him, shifting into a casual stance as the conversation went on. He didn't answer right away, his gaze straying along the floor as he stole several seconds of silence to try and come up with the best response to this. I could almost see his thoughts whirring to find the words through his intelligent eyes that didn't meet mine.

"Digby, do you remember what I was talking about in my introduction speech during initiation?" Lyle said at last, lifting his gaze from the floor to meet mine. "Don't worry, I'm not asking to make you feel guilty or anything like that. I'm just curious to know."

I did remember, but only fragments. I could recall him talking about Happy Home's history and how the idea of the future was similar to that of nightfall, but particular sentences had since been wiped from my mind. I didn't fully understand how that applied to my current dilemma, but since I remembered, I gave a firm nod.

"Good. It's important to think about," Lyle told me. "Just because things seem a little dark or uncertain right now doesn't mean they won't clear up."

Lyle removed himself from his stance at the side of the desk again. I watched him as he stepped around to the front of the desk to address me directly, leaning his weight on the side of the desk and resting his paws over the edge. He allowed himself a few seconds' pause after settling before he spoke again.

"Do you know how old I was when I first opened this building?" Lyle asked me.

It was likely much earlier on in his life that he had begun work at the HHDA, since it ran almost too smoothly for it to have been developed more recently.

"Probably still very young yet," I predicted aloud. "Twenty-three? Twenty-four?"

"I was thirty-one, Digby," Lyle announced. "If I made that change to my life after so long and it still got me here, think about the potential that you have right now. If you haven't decided what you want to make of your life right this minute, that's okay. Nobody expects you to. You've already told me what you hope to achieve while you're working here, so just stick to that plan and it'll take you where you want to go. But it won't always be easy, I can tell you that. You can count on the stars to light your way home, but then you must also be wary of the darkness behind every star."

The conversation still spun through my mind as I shuffled my way across the grass and melting snow to make the journey home that night. If Lyle had been in his thirties before he took the step in his life towards his better future, then with me being not even seventeen and a half, surely I had nothing to worry about just yet. I had a universe of possibilities before me and I just had to be ready for it. I entered the house that evening prepared to begin a new phase of my life.

Happy Homeroom was opening tomorrow.