Within/Without

chapter forty-nine.

Simon

What is shapeshifting?

Shapeshifting is a whole lot of questions without any answers.

Shapeshifting is blinking your eyes open in the morning and wondering who you are today and if it's the same as who you were yesterday or who you'll be tomorrow. Shapeshifting is watching from a distance, always from a distance, knowing you'd be happy for a second, but only for a second. Shapeshifting is waiting. A day. A month. A year. Shapeshifting is wondering if there will ever be anyone crazy enough to spend time with you, to stay with you, let alone love you.

Shapeshifting is fun, sometimes. Sometimes it's the exhilaration of running from wailing sirens and turning the corner and instantly being someone else. It's the sharp exhale of breath from your mouth after kissing a stranger who you know would never talk to you if you were anyone else. It's the quiet smile after learning a secret. Maybe someone else's. Maybe your own.

Then, shapeshifting is pain. It's the helpless look in your parents' eyes as they try to figure out just what's possessed their son. Simon, is that you? I don't know. Is it? It's shaking against the floor, on the tiles of a bathroom, or between the brick walls of an alleyway because it's the only hiding spot you could find. It is teeth clenching, bones shivering, muscles spasming. It's clawing for a body, any one at all, even if it's not the one you're used to.

Shapeshifting is not feeling like yourself when you're in your own skin.

Shapeshifting is wondering, against all laws of nature, why you're even here.

Shapeshifting is fear.

And, as I lay here, drifting in and out of consciousness, voices rolling in and out of focus around me, it becomes something else.

In a way, it was the beginning. It was certainly the middle.

Now? Shapeshifting is the end.