Product Description
Date (relative):
Early September—the last week of sun-heavy afternoons before the chill sets in. The scent of sunbaked birch and scorched rubber clung to the track.
Location:
Silverpine Junior Academy—track lanes flanked by chain-link fences and bleachers hot enough to burn. The locker room hummed with nervous sweat and boys too loud to hear themselves.
Current Body Snapshot:
I was 5’7″ by then—early bloomer, lean but packed dense with twitch muscle. One plum-colored tail behind me, deepening toward black at the tip, restless with nervous energy. A second one pressing beneath the skin, not quite grown but always aching. My track singlet, from the year before, now bit into my lats and rode high under the arms; the tail slit barely lined up anymore. The mirror said I looked strong. I felt… uncontainable.
Memory Flashback
No crowd, no lane numbers—just stride after stride, the rhythm of my paws striking rubber and the blue sparks snapping off my heels. I crossed the finish and didn’t slow down. I didn’t want the moment to end.
Coach Ryker caught up to me near the grass line. He was half-smiling, like I was a wildfire that hadn’t quite learned how to stay in its boundaries.
“Speed’s only half the hunt, Reynard. Football weights start next week. Time to build the rest of the engine.”
He ruffled my hair, but his fingers lingered just a second longer than necessary. My chest lit up, all pride and something else I couldn’t name yet. I didn’t lean into it. But I didn’t pull away either.
In the locker room, the air was thick—detergent, sweat, voices too loud, too sharp. Gavin sat across from me, shirt half-off, collarbones pale, calves dusted with burnt cinder. He hadn’t yet learned to flinch away from me. That made me want to look longer.
Gavin was peeling off the remainder of his shirt, slow and careful, arms moving like he didn’t want to take up space. He said something under his breath with a gaze both distant and avoidant—softly to himself, probably just thinking out loud.
Logan looked over. “What?”
Gavin shook his head. “Nothing.”
Logan reached out and shoved his shoulder toward the locker—not hard, not soft. Just enough to own the moment. “Then don’t mumble like a freak.”
Gavin flinched.
I laughed. Too quick, too loud—just enough to signal I wasn’t with him.
“Relax, Logan. He probably talks to himself ‘cause no one else wants to.”
The guys cracked up. Gavin didn’t.
He looked at me like this was the part he’d stopped hoping would go differently.
Afterward, I sat on the bench and counted grout lines like they were lifelines. Pressed my claws into my palm. Tried to feel anything real. I didn’t feel ashamed—I floated above the part of me that did.
That night, as I slept, the loop started again. Ryker’s voice. The red on Gavin’s neck. My laugh ringing out like it belonged to someone else.
But then I was on the porch. Light humming above me, boards warm beneath my legs. Gavin was there, walking slow through the yard like he wasn’t sure I meant it.
He didn’t speak. Just stepped close, eyes asking something he didn’t have the words for.
I opened my lap. He sat. Tucked in quiet. My arms wrapped around him like shelter, and I held him steady while the air around us finally went still.
Nothing about it felt wrong.
Until I woke up gasping.
I woke with my hands curled around nothing and the weight of him still in my lap.
My chest buzzed like I’d swallowed something electric and couldn’t hold it down.
I sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, trying not to move—because if I moved, it would be real. The dream. The way I held him. The fact that I hadn’t.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t breathe right either.
I just stayed there, staring at the floor, trying to think of anything except the way he’d looked at me in the locker room.
Emotional Reflections
That year, everything felt like evidence.
Every medal, every extra rep, every new ridge of muscle meant I was closer to someone I could live with—someone who wouldn’t get caught watching boys on the field or holding his breath when Coach adjusted his stance from behind.
I told myself I was building strength. That I was improving. But I was really carving things out—softness, magic, want.
I started skipping meals to stay tight. Then doubling portions to bulk faster. Then cutting again. It felt like strategy, but it was just control. Something to drown out the noise.
And there was something darker underneath all of it.
I was getting big. Fast. Bigger than the other kids. Too much fur where the humans were still smooth. My voice dropped early. My shoulders stopped fitting in school desks. Adults started looking at me like I should know better—like I was already dangerous just by existing.
I felt proud—sometimes. Like Achilles, sprinting into the wind. But that pride soured fast, the moment someone’s face changed. When the eyes lingered. Or narrowed. Or recoiled.
I wanted to be strong. But not strong in a way that made people nervous. Or small. Or like I belonged to some other category of boy.
I wanted to be admired. But not misread.
I wanted to be seen—but only the right parts of me.
And sometimes… I liked how it felt.
Not just the soreness, but the ritual. Mixing protein. Watching veins rise in the mirror like proof the softness was leaving. Wearing shirts until they didn’t quite fit in the arms.
The tightness made me feel safe. Sometimes it even made me feel wanted. I didn’t know by who.
The worst part wasn’t the lie.
It was how seamless it became.
I’d catch myself watching Gavin—not just because I wanted him, but because he didn’t hide. He moved through the world like nothing about him needed fixing.
And I envied that. Not because I wanted his body. But because I wanted to believe mine didn’t need to be rewritten to be okay.
Big, straight, stoic = safe.
I chased those things so hard, I forgot what the original threat even was.
Physical Sensations
- Post-race breath like lightning—sweet and searing.
- Singlet too tight under the arms, rubbing raw with every sprint—fabric that used to fit, now resisting.
- My second tail a dull ache, always twitching just beneath the skin like a thought I wasn’t ready to say.
- Coach’s hand in my hair—brief, grounding, wrong in a way I didn’t want to look at too closely.
- Gavin’s cheeks, red after Logan shoved him. My laugh, still buzzing in my throat after his eyes stopped meeting mine.
- Breath now shallow against my knees in the dark.
- Trying not to move too much in my own skin.
Self-Talk & Lessons
- Performance earns praise, but never fills me.
- These hands are too strong to hold what I care for.
- I want to shrink, but growing lets me disappear.
Foreshadowing
- Coach Ryker’s lift sheet shows up in my locker—deadlifts, power cleans, bench—each one circled in red like a challenge I haven’t earned yet.
- Football tryouts promise bigger gear, louder roles, and fewer questions. Just mass and motion. A body that doesn’t pause to feel.
- A few days later, Gavin hands me a dog-eared myth anthology without a word—like he’d finally decided I was worth talking to again.
- We don’t say much after that. But the book passes back and forth between us, our handwriting layering into the margins. Quiet arguments. Shared favorites. A conversation we didn’t have to look at each other to keep going.
- The ache in my tail wasn’t pain. Just a reminder that no matter how much I performed, something else in me was still becoming.
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