2

But that wasn’t going to happen. After thirty-two years, I’d learned there were no spells, no magical happily-ever-afters that would make me transform into a wolf. I’d largely made my peace with it, even though it made my heart ache. But at the same time… I’d thought I’d finally landed a guy who would look past that and see the me behind the disability, so finding out I was wrong was reopening wounds that I had long since worked through.

Somehow, I made it all the way back home without any tears blurring my vision. I always got a bit weepy every time I was frustrated, something my brothers liked to exploit back when they were teenagers. But once I was inside, the anger I’d used as a shield crumbled away, leaving me disappointed and very much…

Alone.

That wasn’t a feeling I wanted to sit in, especially since I’d thought I was going to be doing something a lot more fun and athletic, so I beelined straight to my desktop and booted up one of my favorite games, a sort of sandbox experience that was known for both mining and crafting, but I mostly used it to create elaborate gardens and overwrought zoos for digital creatures that didn’t exist.

It didn’t take long to get onto the server I’d been part of for about five years, and sure enough, I saw a familiar username at the top of the online members list. TweetyGurl96. AKA my best friend.

The fact that my best friend was someone I met in a game about putting different blocks down and that we’d never met in person wasn’t lost on me, but it was really amazing how well people could get to know each other after talking online for years. For example, I knew she was a harpy. Neither of us had come right out of the gate with the news that we were magical. We’d both dropped hints here and there without thinking, tiny details that only someone of the magical world would catch. After a year of us chatting, I’d messaged her and asked outright.

It was a risk, for sure, especially if I was wrong. Thankfully, I wasn’t, and we’d gotten closer than ever. Another year later, she finally told me the reason she spent so much time online was because she was a harpy with no wings, and because of that, she had no flock, no one of her own kind she was close to, which was why she lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment on the other side of the city.

Talk about twinsies, except mine was a two-bedroom, in the hopes that the extra space would allow me to grow into it.

What are you doing here? her message popped up in the chat.

Although I liked many people on the server, I wasn’t about to blast my personal business to everyone. Not to mention, I was pretty sure we were the only non-humans on it, so I didn’t need to be blabbing about the foibles of trying to date other wolves.

Call? I typed.

TweetyGurl96: Righteo!

Less than a single beat later, the familiar doo-doo-doot from our least favorite but most used app for communication went off. I answered so fast that it took several seconds for it to actually connect.

“Please tell me he was beset by a sudden stomach bug, and you’re not here because he turned out to be a bigoted jerkwad,” she said right out of the gate, her voice full of chagrin—the negative kind, of course.

“Wolves don’t get stomach bugs,” I answered with a sigh. Talking to her instantly took the edge off the pain still trying to nettle its way through my every limb. Sometimes it really sucked to feel things as intensely as I did in a world that seemed to demand that everyone be as chill and unbothered as possible.

Couldn’t be me.

“You’re kidding me! This was what, your third date? Normally, they expose themselves way before then.”

I laughed. “Thank witches for the instant blur and block feature anytime someone tries that literally.” In the early days of scry-o-tech, many people were inundated with pics of dicks of all shapes, sizes, and species. It seemed that being a scuzzball was not exclusive to humans.

“Hah! Right? But that’s not what I meant.”

“I know, I know, I just couldn’t resist.” I heaved a sigh. “But yeah, Jason had me fooled. I’m always up front about being a latent shifter, so if someone’s gonna be a dick, that usually reveals them right off the bat,” I said with a sigh. “Of course, you’d probably wonder why they swipe on me if they think I’m not a real wolf, but it turns out that most of them just swipe on every woman without even looking until they hit their scrying limit.”

“So stupid. This app is supposed to be for connection, and so many of these douches are turning it into a hookup thing.”

It was so validating to bitch with someone who got it. For so much of my life, I was largely alone in what I was experiencing, so finding Tweety had been a real godsend. I really hoped we could hang out in public one day, but my digital friend was incredibly busy and quite nervous about navigating human society. I wouldn’t mind popping over to her place—I had her address in case of emergency, but she hadn’t given me permission yet. I figured, judging from things she said about herself, she was kind of messy. And while I didn’t care, I understood she might be embarrassed showing me that side of her.

“I think I might give up on dating for a while. Maybe once I age out of breedable territory, I won’t get so many knotheads worrying about me passing on my defective genes to any offspring.”

“I mean, that’s not the worst idea,” Tweety said with a sigh that crackled through my headphones. “But I dunno, you’re such a romantic. It feels kind of wrong that you have to go without just because wolves can’t wrap their furry heads around your… uh, situation.”

My situation. What a funny way to say my genetic or magical mutation that caused me to miss out on one of those basic parts of being a wolf shifter. Whomp-whomp.

“Yeah, but you know what? I’ve fought too hard to carve out my own little slice of peace to waste time on them. I’d rather spend time with people who value me for who I am.”

“I admire your spirit, Puppygurl4lyfe,” Tweety said.

As usual, I blushed. I’d chosen my gamertag when I was just fourteen and looking forward to getting my inner wolf after being told that I was a late bloomer. I supposed I could just change the tag, but Tweety was the only one who ever called me that.

“You know you can just call me Naomi.”

“Of course I do, Puppygurl4lyfe.”

That got a slight chuckle out of me. I was extremely grateful for Tweety’s levity. It was a bright point I needed to stop me from slipping into a self-hating spiral. I’d spent far too much of my twenties loathing myself for something I couldn’t help, and I did not want to regress into those old habits.

Sure, I didn’t have an inner wolf, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t a person worth getting to know. Worth spending time around.

A person worth falling in love with.