“Hey, Sarah, wait!” Emily yelled after me as I dashed out of the building. Her pants were still untied, and I didn’t think she had any underwear on.

  I turned around outside, putting my phone away after finishing my message to Luna. “What?” I managed, looking away.

  “What’s wrong? I thought that went pretty well, did I do something wrong?” she panted, pulling up her pants.

  “No, I’m fine,” I lied. “I just have to hurry to meet Luna right now – we agreed to hang out.”

  “Oh,” she let out, staring at the ground. “Well I’m gd you’re okay – and hey, good work!”

  I winced a smile. “Yeah, you too,” I said, pointing behind me, “I should get going, so…”

  “Oh, yeah, sure – have fun!” She responded, watching me walk away before finally going back inside.

  I sighed, checking my phone to see when Luna would be meeting me, before continuing down the street, ignoring the curious looks from people walking down the sidewalk wondering why there was a fox-girl.

  I feel…

  I stopped on the sidewalk, staring at my reflection in the sedan parked on the side of the street. It seemed like it should be obvious how I felt – Emily had just done… whatever all of that was, and I figured out that I have serious feelings for her and I…

  But I was also interested in Melody – in a different way, right? I liked Melody and Emily, but the way I felt, the physical sensations in my chest when I thought of them, were different…

  Which was a good thing, right? It would be awkward if I had romantic feelings for both of them, but it’s okay if my attraction to one of them is just physical.

  The problem was I didn’t know which of the two wasn’t romantic. By process of elimination it should be Melody, but I’d gone on dates with her – I still wanted to go on dates with her. She was cute and easy to be around, and I wanted to learn more about her, have her show me her art, tell me the secrets of how to match Luna in card games…

  And that didn’t sound like meaningless lust. But it wasn’t Emily either, given how it’d felt to hear her tell me she loved me, even when I knew it was acting. Even thinking about the memory stirred the butterfly tornado hiding somewhere in my gut. So then…

  What the fuck am I supposed to do? Do I just not know how to handle being friends with someone I find attractive?

  That’s not even including whatever my feelings for Luna are, which…

  I let out a sigh, turning back to the sidewalk and continuing my stroll. It felt like I needed to do something about my romantic situation – at least before something exploded – and since I had the strongest feelings for Luna…

  Maybe I can talk to her about it soon?

  I slowed and checked my phone’s calendar. My birthday was coming up and I wasn’t about to ask Luna out around my mom or sister, so maybe after that?

  The sound of a motorcycle roaring past broke me out of my spiral, reminding me that I was on a timer. I checked the time again and began speed-walking to the cafe I was supposed to meet Luna at, vowing to worry about my feelings ter.

  —

  I settled into the seat across from Luna, putting my unsweetened bck tea next to the pink whipped cream topped monstrosity in front of her.

  She pursed her lips, waiting half a second after I sat to begin speaking. “So… how did it go?” She shook her head. “I mean – how was work?”

  “Uh…” I started, my mouth hanging open slightly as I stared past her, wondering how I was supposed to expin even a normal shoot, let alone whatever had happened between Emily and I. “It was fine,” I hedged. “Emily said the final product will be pretty good so…”

  “I’ll keep an eye out…” She nodded a few times absentmindedly before jolting and refocusing on me. “That was a weird thing to say, wasn’t it? Sorry, I won’t look you up, I’m just…”

  “Yea…” I let out, staring intently into my tea. “So you’re…” I started, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask if she was a fan of Emily’s. “How’re you doing?”

  “Good, good…” she nodded, “Gd to not be at work.”

  “That’s nice,” I responded, taking a sip of my drink.

  Starters for a real conversation fshed through my head:

  I might have a crush on two different women I failed to date before (and you).

  I’m terrified of what would happen if I suddenly stopped liking being Sarah.

  I have no idea what I’m doing or who I am.

  But all of them remained unsaid; even as I opened my mouth to speak, the words just wouldn’t form. The cafe bustled around us, the periodic roar of a blender and the constant chatter more than enough to make up for our ck of sound. I resisted the urge to gnce around and see if anyone was staring at me.

  Luna tried again. “So, what’s the pn for your birthday?”

  My posture rexed slightly at the easy topic. “I figured we could drive over tomorrow evening and spend the weekend – if that’s okay with you?”

  She nodded, “That sounds good to me. Do you have someone in mind to take care of Snuffles?”

  “I could ask Mel and Emily, I’m pretty sure they live somewhat close to us.”

  “What about Madeline, is she coming too?”

  “Probably. I haven’t heard from her, but I’m sure she’s already talking with Mom about making pns.” I pulled out my phone. “I’ll send a text to Mom about our pns so she knows when to expect us.”

  “Okay.”

  And then the awkward silence came back. This time, however, I didn’t want to let it stick, and I had a decent idea for what to talk about.

  “Hey, Luna? What do you think about Sarah? I feel like we haven’t talked about this much.”

  She pursed her lips. “What do you mean? Like what do I think about you?”

  “No, I meant more the whole…” I gestured vaguely, “Situation,” I settled on.

  “Hmm… As far as the gender stuff, I’m not too surprised – there’ve been a few things you’ve said before that gave me reason to think you might be a little less cis than you thought, but nothing concrete, at least not until very recently.”

  I frowned, but held back my words, not really having anything productive to say.

  She continued, “About the…” she tilted her head back and forth, “About the shapeshifting, I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around that – unless your mom tells us you’re secretly an alien or something.”

  I nodded.

  “And about the…” she gnced up and down what little of my body she could see behind the table, “foxyness of your body, it’s…” She pinched her brow, scrunching her eyes. “It’s cool and all, but also I kind of don’t get it? But that might just be me.”

  I frowned, ears folding in on themselves. “What don’t you get?”

  She winced, “Well, is it… like a Thing? Am I being disrespectful to your identity right now?”

  I slowly shook my head, “No, I don’t think so. It’s more like… because I’m a shapeshifter, I can mess with things that other people never could. If I didn’t have this ability, if I had to go about this,” I said, gestring at my body, “the normal way, then I would probably keep the girl part but drop the fox part. But if it’s easy for me, then I might as well have some fun.” I shrugged.

  “Okay,” she said, nodding. “I guess I’m surprised that you’re not more self-conscious about it–” She abruptly waved her hands in front of her, “Not that you should be,” she hastily corrected.

  I raised my eyebrows slightly, but remained silent.

  “I just feel like from what I know about you, you’d be worried about what people are thinking when they see you in public, or you'd be thinking about if doing your job makes people…” she trailed off, wincing.

  “If doing my job makes people view me as a sex object?” I suggested, eyebrows fully raised. When she didn’t deny it, I answered, “I do worry about those things, but… I don’t know, I’ve always felt like Sarah wasn’t real so it didn’t matter what people thought of her, but now…”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  “No, it’s fine,” I sighed, “We probably should’ve had this conversation way sooner.” I paused, thinking back to the question. “I think I do worry about how people see me a lot, and that feeling sucks, but at the same time, I get to be a real fox-girl, and that’s… fun? Special? It also helps soothe my anxiety when I get to brush my hand through my tail or when someone’s petting me so…”

  She giggled, “That sounds nice…”

  I took a long sip of my now-cold tea. “So, if we’re asking awkward questions, if you were in my position, what would you do? Like, say you got my powers tomorrow – what would you change?” We hadn’t talked much about her feelings about being trans and her body, at least not since college.

  “Gosh,” she chuckled, leaning back, “Now that’s a hard question… I mean obviously, if that had happened to me a decade ago, I would’ve done pretty much exactly what you’re doing – make myself a new body, mess around with cat ears or whatever, get up to mischief – but now?” She trailed off, thoughtful.

  I smiled at her assessment that I was ‘getting up to mischief’ rather than making a complete mess of my life – sounded much better her way.

  “I honestly don’t think I could say for sure unless it actually happened. I still feel dysphoric sometimes, and I can’t imagine I’d go through that without changing something, but I don’t know what I’d change. The same things I hate about my body are the things I think are attractive on Emily’s, and it feels like I’d be betraying my principles if I took away the transness of my body after all this work. Like, if I think trans women are attractive – which I absolutely do – why am I so reluctant to be seen as one? But on the other hand, I have a hard enough time fitting in with ‘normal’ people when they think I’m cis, and it only gets harder if they clock me. I don’t know – if I could shapeshift, I’d probably spend more time thinking about what it means than actually doing it.”

  “For the record, I think you’re just as attractive as Emily, and I agree with you about how attractive she is…” I blushed, happy that I said it, but wishing I didn’t have to. “And I definitely get what you mean about principles – I mean, I gave myself a body that’s out of a misogynist weeb’s fantasy, what does that say about how I see women? And that’s not even mentioning my ‘transness’.”

  She frowned, leaning forward. “Your body is what you found comfortable – not what other people think is attractive. Even if there might be some overp between the two, I don’t think there's some deep truth hidden in the fact that you want to be attractive.”

  I stared at the table, drawing circles with the tip of my finger while my thoughts spun and spun. A new silence settled over us, one thick with contemption – even if interrupted by constant background noise.

  Is it really okay for me to be conventionally attractive? Have I somehow earned it with the dysphoria I felt before?

  Is it okay to look like this – like a pornstar – around my mom and my sister? Am I really going to grow old like this? Get married in a wedding dress with accommodations for a tail?

  Am I even going to grow old if I don’t consciously change my shapeshifting? What even am I?!

  I stood abruptly, still staring at the table. My hand reached down to grab my cup, and my legs pulled each other forwards to bring me back outside where I could hear a different cacophony: the ever-present roar of cars, the quick patter of people speed-walking the sidewalk, the dull throb of my heart from inside my head.

  Am I even human?