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“I do not know what is happening. My body feels so strange, Ben, and I want it to stop.”

“Ok, hey. We’re gonna figure this out. I promise. Tell me what it feels like.”

“Like there are…snakes inside me…but they are crawling up my throat– choking me. Sometimes they feel heavier, and sometimes they turn into bubbles, and sometimes I cannot breathe because they–”

“Annie girl,” Ben interjects, putting his fingers over my mouth. “I think you’re feeling…feelings. Emotions.”

I lean back to glare at him. “Please do not tease me, Ben. This could be serious! What if she is trying to take over again?”

“I think what you’re feeling is sadness and guilt,mi amor. You’re upset…”

“But…I cannot feel. I am not built that way,” I mutter, trying to push the idea of it away. I do not see how this could be true, and I do not want to hope that I might experience something like what Ben and Theo have. Those human emotions that make them so vulnerable and yet so alive at the same time.

“I think you’ve changed. I think, against all odds, you changed yourself.”

“Oryouchanged me. That night we danced, you said I should know what it means to trust someone. You trusted me with your life, even though you knew what I was. Perhaps that…did something to me.”

“Well, I’ll take a little credit, if you insist,” Ben laughs, leaning down to brush his lips against mine. I close my eyes and focus on the feeling his kiss produces inside me.

Something lighter comes into my stomach, like the tiny flutters I felt when I watched films during my first days here. My head feels almost dizzy, or off-kilter, and there is a bubbling sensation in my chest and throat. I want to laugh, even though nothing is funny, and the corners of my mouth turn up involuntarily as Ben slips his hand around the back of my neck and deepens our kiss.

When our lips part, I cannot help myself. “May I tell you that I love you?” I dare not open my eyes as I wait for him to respond.

“Oh, Annie,” he whispers, and I feel his lips pull into a smile against mine. “You don’t need anyone’s permission to feel things, and you definitely don’t need anyone’s permission to talk about them, especially with me. I want all of you. Good, bad, everything in between. Come Hell or high water, you’re mine, alright?” I finally look up at him. Theo’s eyes are blue, but Ben’s are brown, and warm, like the hot chocolate we get in the park. Brown and soft, like the earth where the forget-me-nots grow. Brown and brilliant, like the shining autumn leaves falling from the trees outside.

“I love you,” I say softly, and the feeling inside me becomes so overwhelming, I have to bury my face in my hands again. He slowly lifts my chin, his dimples on full display.

“I know,” he replies. I am taken aback for a moment before I realize he is quotingStar Wars. He kisses me again, pulling me against him, and I wrap my arms around his neck, closing my wings tighter around both of us. “I love you too. If that makes me stupid, then so be it. I’ll be so stupidly in love with you, they’ll write it on my headstone:Here lies Ben, who loved Annie so much, it rotted his brain.” He tucks a piece of hair into the curve of one of my horns, then presses his face into my neck, making me giggle.

“That would require you to have had a brain in the first place,” I tease. Ben looks delighted and reaches down to tickle my ribs. I squeal and jerk backwards, but my wings twitch, and I knock several magnets off the refrigerator.

“Shit,” I mutter,and turn around to pick them up, forcing him to duck in order to avoid being hit again.

“Easy there, Bat Girl,” he laughs. “Why don’t I work in here, and you go sit on the couch and work on those? I don’t think this apartment is quite big enough for them.”

“That might be best,” I agree, and leave him in the kitchen to cook.

“Can you actually…fly?” he asks as I resume my position on the couch. “Or are they purely decorative?”

“With this body, I am not sure. I can fly in my shadow form, so I suppose…if I made my human bones hollow, like a bird’s…perhaps I might be able to.”

“Gruesome,” Ben replies.

“Who’s flying where?” Theo asks, emerging from the hallway, rubbing his wet hair with a towel.

“Annie says she might actually be able to fly with those things,” Ben explains.

Theo laughs as he sits at the counter. “You could make a killing doing food delivery.”

I smile, hoping that perhaps things might return to relatively normal–if I can make these damned wings disappear, that is. Closing my eyes to concentrate, I only get a moment of peace before I hear a strange noise coming from outside the windows. The curtains are drawn, and Theo and Ben do not seem at all concerned. However, it only grows louder, so I stand up and peek outside. It is raining, and I cannot help but give a loud gasp.

“What’s wrong?” Theo and Ben say at the same time.

“Rain!” I cry, ripping the curtain aside so they can see.

Theo raises an eyebrow. “Yeah…it rains sometimes…”

“Ithasbeen a while,” Ben remarks, but then goes back to chopping vegetables.