"Tom? Can I come in? I brought something for you."
She was standing outside the door of my shack, her voice just as small and slightly shy as ever. I remained in my place at my desk with my back facing the direction her words had come from, balling my hands into fists and feeling my claws dig deep into my palms. I stared blankly at the wallpaper in front of me without replying for what seemed to be a hundred heartbeats before I heard the rickety front door slowly creak open anyway.
"What do you want." My words were low. Flat.
I heard footsteps shuffle for a moment; then, she set something on the counter. The vague, earthy smell of tomatoes and basil trickled through the air. "I... I made you soup. I thought you might be hungry."
Silence. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, still unable to bear the thought of turning around in my seat to face her. How could I? After everything I'd failed at. She would want to know what had gone wrong. Why my time in the city left me this glum, this loathsome, this miserable. She'd wonder why I'd returned to the village after all these years without so much as a forewarning in a letter. And me? How would I even begin to explain? My insides lurched at the very thought of having to share with her the painful mistakes I'd made these past few years in the city. She'd never look at me as the same raccoon again.
"Tom, I know living in the city must have been a lot different. A lot tougher," she went on carefully. "But... I know whatever it is, you can talk to me about it."
No. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
"Besides, you're here now. You can start over, in this town." The same voice that had once made me feel so safe, so at home, now felt like nails scraping down a chalkboard in my depressed stupor. "I still believe in you."
For only a brief second, the ice surrounding my heart wavered. Maybe I could tell her? This was Sable, after all. She'd never been judgmental of me. She'd always been my biggest supporter, always there to tell me to follow my dreams even when everyone else scoffed at me. I could spin around in my seat, confess everything to her, and apologize for my sins over and over. She'd be understanding and gentle-far more than what I deserved-and then I would finally admit to her how I've truly felt about her all these years, how in love with her I had fallen, how not a single night went by in the city that I wasn't thinking about her before I fell asleep. We'd cry, then relive old memories and laugh, and then I'd ask her to marry me and we'd live happily ever after. Maybe, just maybe...
"You don't have to have money to make your dreams happen anyway, Tom." She sounded a little brighter this time; sickeningly uplifting in contrast to my agony. "Isn't that what you always told me? 'Dreams before money'!"
At this, I felt the ice gripping my heart squeeze once again. I exploded from my seat in a blind rage and whirled around to face her, my breathing getting heavy. "Really, Sable?!" I snapped, my own blue eyes now level with her widened brown ones. "Is that really what you believe to be true, hm? That was cute when we were little kids, but that's not how the real world works. All that talk of dreaming was just a fantasy. Foolishness. It's time to grow up, yes? In this world, those with money always win in the end. Dreams?" I laughed witheringly. "Dreams are nothing in the face of money!"
In the prolonged gap of silence that followed, I slowly realized that she had shrank away from me in response to my yelling, her expression shocked and frightened. In the corners of her eyes, I thought I saw tears beginning to form, but she turned her back on me before I had a chance to even register the overwhelming amount of hurt on her face. She fled my shop without another word, slamming the door behind her. She was gone.
I stood frozen in place. My mind began to reel at what I had just done. I had never raised my voice at Sable like that before in my life. A cold, embarrassed feeling slowly began to gnaw at the pit of my stomach in the place where fiery anger had burned just moments before. I buried my face in my paws and collapsed to the ground and began to weep pathetically.
What kind of sick man was I? Sable had never done anything but believe in me and encourage me. I would never forgive myself for talking that way to her. Never.
Then, the fiery rage returned. With a loud yell, I stood and took my claws to knock over the pile of Bells on my desk. The gold coins flew across the room, scattering all over the wooden floor-some skittered through the cracks in the panels, and some slid underneath the desk. I dug my claws into the wallpaper and tore at the pattern violently over and over until there was nothing but shreds falling to the ground and my claws began to ooze with droplets of blood.
My tears returned, and I sank to the ground again. No amount of unleashing my anger helped me feel any better. All it did was make matters worse. I could only imagine how crazed I looked, destroying everything in the shack. What a joke. No reason no one ever took me seriously.
My gaze trailed across the room to a glinting sheet of tin lying on the floor. Nearby, unopened cans of paint sat dusty underneath the shelves. I wondered how long they'd been left there. I started to remember buying them from an old sloth before I had moved to the city, and I had just never used them. Vaguely, I remembered buying them to paint a sign for the shack. I had intended on opening it up as a shop called "Nook's Cranny" before I finally saved up the money to buy a bus ticket to the city and had left town.
Nook's Cranny. An amusing and somewhat juvenile play on words, admittedly. And here I was, back in this shack again, back at square one. Pathetic.
... But, maybe Sable was right. Maybe I could start over. Maybe I could be a successful businessman, even if I wasn't in the city. I could make a business work here in the village, couldn't I? I mean, I knew better now. I knew now not to trust anyone, and a store here would be small enough for me to manage on my own without me having to hire anyone to help me. All of the money I'd make would belong to me and to me solely.
A glow of determination started to shine through the sparse cracks in my cloud of depression. I reached over and took the can of paint in my arms. I would rise from these ashes I'd created for myself even better than before. I'd still show everyone the success that I could be. They'd all see.
But Sable. Oh, my dear, dear, Sable. I'd never make it up to her what I'd done. But I'd show her, too. She'd see the businessman that I truly had the potential to be. She'd see that I'm still worth believing in, even if I'd unforgivably lashed out at her.
Oh, they'd all see.