As it turns out, I had, in fact, come out to Emma's mom.

"You really scared us there for a while," Emma's mom's maternal instincts were top-notch, she was basically my second mom at this point. She even insisted that I call her Molly instead of Ms. Shaw.

Molly handed me a glass of water, "You doing okay? Emma said you fainted"

I took a sip of the water, "Actually yeah. I feel great." I set the now half-empty glass on the end table next to me.

"Hmm," She looked at me, curiously, "Emma said you got gifted the other night. Right?"

I scoffed, "Yeah, you couldn't tell by the hair?" I grabbed a handful of my hair to prove my point.

But it was blonde again. Was my hair just going to keep changing color or what?

"I- nevermind, guess not." I let go of my hair, "Yeah, I did, we were testing out my gift and I guess we went a little overboard"

Molly raised an eyebrow at me, "A little?"

I nodded feebly.

"Izzy, you passed out! I'd hardly call that a little overboard. If you weren't constantly giggling and talking to yourself I would have called an ambulance. I probably should have anyway, but Emma insisted that you should stay here."

I silently thanked Emma for avoiding that for me.

"So..." I broke the silence that had fallen over us, "how did I... come out?"

I know that Emma knew better than to out me to her mom, the only other person who knows is me. And considering the giggly mess that I was earlier, it made a lot of sense.

"Well, Emma brought you into the house and told me that you had been gifted, at which point you became semi-alert and very angry about the fact that you didn't get a 'magical girl transformation' too. and then you collapsed back into Emma's arms"

Upon hearing that, a couple memories flooded back to me. And I cringed, hard. I was wasted. Or as wasted as you could be on magical rock juice.

"Where is Emma anyway?" I wondered.

Almost in response to my question, Emma walked into the room. I waved awkwardly at her.

Emma's eyes went wide once she realized I was up and she rushed over to ask me all sorts of questions about what had happened.

Eventually, I was able to explain everything from my perspective.

Emma and Molly both agreed that I shouldn't use my gift anymore. But something felt different now, I felt more... connected. Regardless of what they thought, I was going to figure this out, which meant more experimenting, with or without their help. Sadly, it was too late for more testing today. I had been out for several hours and Emma had already decided that it was time for her to take me home.

We got in her car and she began to drive.

"I'm not done," I told her.

"With what?" She kept her eyes on the road in front of her.

"My gift. Something is different now. I can feel it."

"But what if that isn't a good thing? You passed out this time, what if it gets worse?" She glanced over at me, struggling to stay focused on driving.

"What if it gets better? Nobody said that anyone has a 100 percent handle on their gift right away. It's gonna take some practice, but I want to figure it out."

"And what are you going to do once you do figure it out? Become a hero and get yourself killed?" Her voice was loud and shaky. I'm pretty sure I could see a bit of a shimmer in the corner of her eyes.

"No! Of course not! I just want to know what I'm able to do. Just in case."

She didn't respond. We sat in silence for the rest of the ride.

Emma pulled up in front of my house. I stepped out of the car and grabbed the bag of clothes. I began to close the door but Emma spoke up before it closed all the way.

"I'll help"

Did I hear that right?

"I'll help you figure it out."

Apparently so.

"Why? I thought you didn't want me to use my gift?"

"I don't," She paused, "but you're going to anyway. Might as well be there to keep you safe."

"Thanks Emma" I smiled and closed the door. Emma drove off and disappeared around a corner.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Aaron!"

Yikes.

"How was Emma's?" Mom was sitting on the couch watching something on the tv.

I shrugged, "good, we just hung out."

"What's that?" She pointed to the bag in my hands.

"oh- uh," I glanced down at the bag, "Nothing... just some," my mind scrambled to find an excuse, "School stuff, we've got a project that we're working on together."

Mom dropped the topic, seemingly satisfied with my lie.

Back in my room, I hid the clothes that Emma had bought for me. I would have tried them on, but the weekends are too risky for girlmode. Everybody is home and anyone could knock on my door at any time. Obviously, my door would be locked, but I'd still have to get changed first and I feel like it's a little suspicious when it takes me that long to open the door.

I reluctantly decided that I needed a shower. I had been outside throwing rocks around all day, and I figured that I had started to build up a couple layers of dirt.

I stepped into the shower with the lights off and my eyes closed. It sounds pretty risky, but after doing this for nearly a year I had become a pro at navigating the shower in the dark.

After my shower, I dried and dressed myself as quickly as possible. Every second spent uncovered was another weight added to my currently monstrous mental workload.

The rest of the day whizzed by. I spent most of it in my room pondering several things. The audacity of the whoever that was to give me the exact opposite of what I wanted, who cares about goddamn abilities, I looked exactly the same as I had before, the only difference was that now my hair might turn red for some reason. While I didn't care as much about the actual gifts, I did find myself thinking about how they might work. Today was a good starting point, but I could feel that it was much deeper than that. And what even is my gift? Yeah, I can stop and occasionally throw things, but what is it. I think my real ability is more about the pink energy that I could see around the things that I used my gift on.

I had asked Emma about the glow but she couldn't see anything. And the "brightness" of the glow wasn't actually bright, It didn't produce any light. It was almost like it only existed in my head. Maybe It was something that I could sense and my brain processed it by making it glow. But if so, what was it? And why are my gifts so finicky at times, I could barely control them beyond stopping stuff, what happened after seemed up to chance. And why can I only use them on things that are already moving?

Maybe that's the key. Why would it be only things that are moving that I can use my powers on? Is that what my gift was about; speed?

I pulled out my phone to try and figure stuff out, but I got distracted by a certain news headline.

"Shapeshifter thief still at large"

Wouldn't that be such a great power? I could look however I wanted at any time.

Dysphoria?

Gone.

But instead, I got stuck in the same body that I've always hated.

I scrolled down and read more. "The thief was last seen in north Solace"

Solace? That's where we live. What if-

No, that's a dumb idea. A stupid, horrible, reckless idea. An idea that only a true dumbass would have, let alone actually try to pull off.

I might be a dumbass.