She strode into the plain building with its large, transparent windows on three sides, but not the fourth, and its sliding glass doors that didn’t open fast enough because Zoe had run right into them once and bumped her head. The day was hot and still, the wind seemed to whip lazily amongst the trees, sending an array of leaves on the ground. One settled on Zoe’s skin, it was just a soft touch before it settled on the ground.

She waved to Louie, once inside, who was the building’s security guard, but looked more like a Chuck because when Zoe imagined people named Louie, she imagined a red-faced, round man with eyes that stuck out and small, red lips. He would wear a white shirt with a noticeable mustard stain on the left side that he would continually try to rub off with pudgy fingers. She never would have thought that a Louie could be a frail old man who propped his feet up on his metal desk and liked soap operas and whodunit novels.

Zoe stepped into the elevator through gleaming doors, she prodded all the floor buttons with her index finger, pushing the fifth floor—her floor—last. She did this because she liked to see all the different people getting in to the elevator on the different floors: business men on their fancy phones with seemingly important calls, pregnant women holding their round bellies, muttering nonsense about nine months of agony was sure a lot of work for just one miracle, and people who rubbed their cheeks, complaining in barely understandable English that the numbing shot they give you at dentist offices hardly ever works. Zoe liked to guess what they were thinking and if they could tell why she was in this building like she could tell why they were.

There was a hollow ding as the elevator doors slid open on the fifth floor. Zoe pushed past a numb-cheeked girl standing with her mother as she exited. Zoe turned down the hall. She circled around the whole floor and ended up back where she started. She opened the first door and stepped inside.

She said hi to Betty. Betty said hi back. Betty was the receptionist of one particular room on the fifth floor. She dyed her hair blonde and had a perm. She wore her make-up thick and heavy. She wore her clothes too tight. She had allergies.

Betty motioned for her to go on to the back. Zoe did. She went into one of the empty rooms. She made herself comfortable in the leather lounge chair. Zoe looked over at the magazine rack, but knew they were all outdated. The room felt cramped and she was su7ddenly glad that this room was on one of the three sides of the building with the slow sliding doors that had a window. She ran her fingers slowly in the cracks of the wearing leather, the rough and smooth feeling that she couldn’t quite grasp.

That’s when he came. She heard his simple, brown, but expensive loafers on the woven blue carpet down the hall. She heard his hand grabbed the doorknob and twist it down until it clicked, how he pushed it open, not trying to make it soundless. She heard his low chuckle and even heard the fabric of the chair sigh as he sat down. He spoke.

“Hey, buttercup. How’s you?”

Zoe felt a smile curl at her lips, even if she really didn’t want to, it came suddenly, as if this were her favorite person to see in the whole wide world and she hadn’t seen him in a long time.

“Hey, Al.”

Al Digg. She had always thought his name was funny. It sounded like ‘I’ll dig’ when you said it really fast. Zoe thought it would have been made hilarious if his middle name was Will, but it wasn’t, she had asked, it was Mitchell.

Al put his thin-rimmed reading glasses on the bridge of his slender nose. Once Zoe had suggested new ones when she was thirteen, but he hadn’t taken well to it. She noticed another silvery wisp of hair among his brown strands, she never thought of Al as getting older, just her.

He pulled out a large, faded, purple folder. She was surprised the poor construction paper had survived three years of countless notes about her days with Al. Zoe stared out the window, thoughtful. Had it really been this long that they had registered her as strange?

“How is Teddy, buttercup?”

Zoe shrugged, “I think he’s mad at me…or maybe just disappointed.”

A bird flew by the window, its wings flapped up and down, beating at the slow wind. It must take extra work, she thought, when there is no wind for a bird. Zoe thought of the bird getting tired.

“Do you think this means goodbye to Teddy?” There was a hint of hope in his voice. Psychologists weren’t supposed to hope.

She shook her head, leading it move side to side, in no rush at all, “No. He’ll forgive me. It’s not my fault.” She watched the bird circle around the tree and fly back towards the window.

Al looked down and scribbled something onto a fresh sheet of paper, another weight for the purple folder. His glasses slid down his nose, he didn’t bother to push them back up. He knew it would distract Zoe. “What happened?” he asked.

Zoe sat up. She thought lounge chairs were stupid. They made her relax, she couldn’t think like that. “I told mom that Teddy was gone. And that he wasn’t coming back. And I hadn’t ruined everything. And that Lauren could come back home. I lied, but now he thinks I’m ashamed of him.”

The papers rustled in Al’s lap. She wished he would say something. He didn’t. The bird circled around the tree again.

“I told him I was sorry.” Her voice was thin, as if she were a five year old who had just painted on the walls and now was being scolded.

Al still didn’t say anything. She wanted to knock the papers out of his hands, to throw them on the floor and rip them to pieces.

He chose his words carefully, Zoe didn’t like when people were careful around her.

“Maybe…Teddy knows that it’s best if he goes.” He looked at her with his light eyes.

Zoe shook her head in the same slow way, “He doesn’t. You’re just saying that so he’ll leave. Aren’t you supposed to encourage me to keep being ‘crazy’? I bet you’re making loads of money off of me, aren’t you?” her voice grew higher, her fists clenched. “Teddy won’t go away. He won’t.”

Al sighed. Zoe stood up. She looked at him straight in the eye, “He’s real,” She didn’t care if no one believed her. She didn’t. “I have to go.”

She was already out the door before Al could protest. She didn’t say bye to Betty and she didn’t press all the buttons in the elevator. She pressed her back up against its carpeted walls. Her arms were crossed over her check. Her charm bracelet pinched at her skin and her t-shirt collar was tightening around her neck. What if Teddy actually went away? What would she do? She would lose it, definitely. These thoughts swam through her head, around and around, just like the bird at the window. The elevator dinged at the fourth floor. The sound was painful in her head. It started inside her mind and sent shivers down her, her bones vibrating. Zoe’s face grew pale and the doors to the elevator slid open slowly. Slow enough to run right into.