My resolve
That night, lying in my tiny apartment, I stared up at the ceiling until the early hours, my mind racing.
I couldn’t get Dumbo’s eyes out of my head—the fear, the pain, the complete resignation I’d seen there. But underneath all that hurt, I could’ve sworn I caught a glimpse of something else. Hope, maybe? Or just a soul that was tired of being alone.
Something deep inside me stirred, a determination I’d never felt before.
“I’m going to change this,” I whispered to the darkness. “I don’t know how, but I’m going to help him trust again.”
It was probably naive. Hell, it was definitely naive. But sometimes naive is exactly what the world needs.
The next morning, I showed up thirty minutes early and set up a small folding chair about fifteen feet from Dumbo’s enclosure. He was already awake, watching me suspiciously from his corner.
“Good morning, Dumbo,” I said softly, settling into my chair. “I’m Emily. I’m new around here, but I hope we can be friends.”
He didn’t move, but his ears twitched slightly. That was something.
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” I told him. “No pressure. We’ll go at your pace.”
And that’s how our journey began—one quiet conversation at a time.
