Morning After

Sunrise. Laura hesitated at the doorway, her hand hovering an inch from the knob. The corridor behind her was empty—just blue carpet, shadow, and the hush that follows a night spent trying too hard. It would have been easy to go back, seek Andy out, spend the last few hours before the so-called ‘transformation ceremony’ with him.

But Laura had never been the kind of person who ran away from dares. She let her palm rest on the wood, traced the old-fashioned hotel numbers with a finger, and steeled herself.

Room 143 waited on the other side. Her room. Or, more accurately, the room she would share with two women who each wanted to marry Andy, neither of whom was prepared to make it easy.

She opened the door to the low, golden light of three wall sconces and the faint thrum of the AC. The space was neat, almost aggressively so—bed made, every hotel amenity still precisely aligned. The only mess was the tangle of white sheets and pillows on the oversized bed, as if someone had staged a photo shoot for “exhausted lovers” and then abandoned set.

Claire was perched at the window, knees tucked to her chest, sketching with a mechanical pencil in an elegant leather notebook. Her ears—cat ears, Laura reminded herself, just say it, you’re living in a cartoon—were flicked in perfect symmetry toward the sound of the door. Claire’s tail curled and uncurled, slow as a clock pendulum.

On the far side, Erin was sprawled in the reading chair, legs crossed, head tilted back and eyes closed. Her skin was the same shade as winter mint, smooth and cool, a color Laura had never seen on a living human. The only thing she wore was a pair of battered Adidas, the soles grimed with salt and sand. It was hard not to stare. Erin’s breasts were at war with gravity—huge, pillowy, and so plainly, outrageously out of scale with the rest of her that it felt like a prank. It took Laura a full five seconds to register: this was just normal now. Erin had been normal once, and now she was this.

“Hey, Roomie,” Erin said, not opening her eyes. Her voice was perfectly even, the kind that could have belonged to a stoned lifeguard or a midwestern funeral director. “You want the window side, or the wall?”

Laura shrugged, set her duffel on the luggage rack, and surveyed the space. “Doesn’t matter.” She tried to keep her tone light, casual, but even she could hear the tremor in her own voice.

Claire marked a page, then set the notebook on the sill. She stood and padded toward the bed, walking so softly that Laura felt the silence more than the movement. Claire wore pale cotton pajamas, long-sleeved and modest, but the fabric stretched tight over her tail and left a slit for it near the base. Her cat ears moved independently of her head, sometimes even opposite one another, and Laura found herself watching them, hypnotized.

Erin swung upright, propped her elbows on her knees. She glanced at Laura, then at the mirror above the desk, then back at Laura again. “You look like you just got drafted for a prison bunk,” she said, deadpan.

Laura snorted, but she couldn’t quite relax. “It’s been a long time since I had to share a bed.”

Erin smiled, flashing teeth that were too perfect to be accidental. “If it helps, I don’t snore. Claire sometimes purrs in her sleep, but it’s silent, and she only does it she’s dreaming about… What is it, Andy? Or cheese?”

Claire rolled her eyes, then made a spiral gesture with her finger and pointed at Erin.

“Right, it’s both,” Erin said, grinning. “Cheese and Andy. Sometimes together, sometimes not.”

Laura laughed, despite herself, and dropped onto the edge of the bed. The mattress gave in a deep, luxurious way, threatening to swallow her whole. She perched there, not sure if she was supposed to undress, make conversation, or just collapse and hope for sleep.

Erin solved the problem by kicking off her shoes and crawling under the covers, turning her back to the room. “Don’t mind me,” she called. “I need to get some sleep and photosynthesize before Andy gets up, otherwise I start craving raw hamburger. Chlorophyll is a bitch.”

Claire moved with choreographed efficiency. She set her glasses on the nightstand, and slid beneath the blanket with a neat, practiced motion. Her tail disappeared beneath the sheets, and she snuggled under the blanket leaving only her head and her ears visible, angled alertly toward Laura.

Laura looked down at her own clothes. An oversized sundress Andy had somehow found for her in his closet. She wondered if there’d be clothes for her in the wardrobe, and approached it with dread. She sighed with relief when she found that Arabella had indeed provided her with several changes of clothes. She hesitated, then stripped to her underwear, put on an oversized t-shirt, and slid between the cold sheets with all the grace of a teenager at summer camp.

The three of them lay there in silence, the only sound the quiet hum of air moving through the vent and the occasional soft thump as Claire’s tail hit the footboard.

It was Claire who broke the tension—she picked up her notebook, scribbled for a moment, and then passed it to Laura.

It read: If it’s weird, you can tell us.

Laura blinked, then laughed. “I mean, it’s definitely weird,” she said. “But not, like, the worst kind of weird.” She hesitated, then: “Can I ask something?”

Erin’s muffled voice came from beneath her arm. “If it’s about the boobs, the answer is yes, they’re real, and no, they don’t go away when I get cold.”

Claire’s ears flattened and she made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort.

“No, not that,” Laura said, blushing. “Just… does it ever get less strange? The transformations, the… everything?”

For a moment, neither answered. Then Erin sat up, hugging the pillow to her chest, and looked at Laura with something like genuine sympathy. She looked at Laura for a long moment. Her gaze was level and direct, but not unkind. “It does not get less weird,” she said at last, “but it gets less scary.”

Laura waited, letting the silence fill up. Erin’s face, in the half-light, had the stillness of a sculpture. When she finally spoke, her voice was softer than Laura expected. “I didn’t even care about being naked, at first,” she said. “I mean, sure, it’s awkward. But Andy’s seen me naked a million times, and I figured, whatever, it’s just a body. But when my skin changed—” She looked down at her arm, holding it up as if seeing it for the first time. “When it started turning green, I freaked. Like, proper panic. I thought I’d turn into a plant, lose myself, end up some kind of experiment on a nature show.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t quite a joke. “Andy talked me through it. He made it funny. He started joking about watering me in the mornings, or about how I’d tell my parents what had happened.” Erin flexed her fingers, then let them fall to her side. “It’s still weird. I still feel like I’m pretending to be a person, not actually being one. But if Andy doesn’t mind, and if the rest of the women feel the same way, then I can live with it. And the naked part, I guess.”

She looked over at Claire, who had resumed scribbling in her notebook. “Claire’s got it tough too,” Erin said. “She can’t even talk anymore, but you wouldn’t know it. She’s better at saying things than most people with working mouths.”

Claire smirked, wrote for a few seconds, then tore the page out and passed it to Laura. The handwriting was precise, beautiful, almost calligraphic.

It said: The weird part is, I’m happier now than before. Being autistic means I miss stuff, or don’t understand why people do what they do. But my first transformation—Silent Muse—made it so I can feel what Andy feels, all the time. It’s like subtitles for emotions. For once, I know what’s happening.

She flipped the notebook over and wrote again, passing it back. Second transformation gave me ears and a tail, which helps everyone else read me, too. If I’m annoyed, you know. If I’m happy, you know. No more guessing games. It’s easier this way. Less pressure to act normal.

She paused, then underlined her next words. If you told me before this started that I’d be happy to lose my voice, I would’ve called you insane.

Laura nodded, then realized she didn’t know what to say.

Erin pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “It’s not just that. I think Arabella is doing it on purpose. She gives you exactly the thing you’re most afraid of, and then it’s up to you to make it work. Either you do, or you break.”

Claire nodded emphatically, then drew a quick, perfectly rendered emoji—a cat with its eyes rolled to the sky, tongue out. Beneath it she wrote: No breaking allowed. Not if Andy is here.

Erin smiled, but the smile was sad. “Yeah. Not if he’s here.” She looked at Laura, and her expression was suddenly ****. “I think the worst one, for me, was the first. I wasn’t allowed to get horny, or orgasm, unless Andy was in the room and watching. I thought it was a punishment. And I struggled with it for a while. I hated Andy at the time, you know. Resented him for making me leave him, years ago. But it turns out, it was the only way I would’ve gotten over myself and tried to talk to him again. If Arabella hadn’t **** it, I don’t know if I’d have gotten here on my own. I don’t think I would have changed fast enough.”

She bit her lip, then, almost shyly: “I think he knows that. I think he forgave me for how I left, and he’s changed so much, I forgave him for hurting me. So maybe I can forgive myself for being a little weird, or a little green, or even a little too much sometimes.”

Laura listened, letting the words wash over her. She felt, acutely, how different her own fears were from theirs. She’d spent her life wanting only one thing—a place to belong, a person to be hers, a single constant to anchor herself against the world. These women had gotten what they needed only by letting go of what they thought they were.

She looked at Claire, at the easy way she sat in silence, no compulsion to fill the air or prove a point. At Erin, who wore her body and her difference like a dare, unapologetic and almost aggressive in her refusal to be pitied. Laura wondered if she could ever be that kind of person—someone who could lose everything and not only survive, but find a way to make it work.

She lay back, staring up at the ceiling. “I guess I’ll find out tomorrow,” she said.

Claire, notebook in hand, reached out and squeezed Laura’s shoulder, gentle but firm. Erin gave a short, approving grunt. The silence that followed was a comfort, not a void.

After a while, Claire’s tail flicked, and she scribbled one more note. She passed it over, and Laura read it by the glow of the bedside lamp.

It said: You’ll be okay.

Laura smiled, tears pricking at her eyes. “Thanks,” she whispered, not sure who she was thanking, or even if it mattered.

They lay there in the dark, three women stitched together by the weird logic of magic and trauma, each one pretending not to be afraid. Laura drifted off listening to the soft tick of Claire’s tail, the slow and even breath of Erin, and the memory of Andy’s hand on hers from earlier that night.

Laura didn’t sleep. Not really. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Andy’s face—sometimes from a memory, sometimes from earlier that night, sometimes so blurred by longing it might as well have been someone else’s dream. She listened, instead, to the rhythm of the other women’s breathing. Claire’s was soft and almost childlike; Erin’s was slower, but somehow more assertive. Laura lay in the middle, watching the red digits of the hotel clock crawl through each minute, thinking about the impossible.

Eventually she got up, tiptoeing to the window. The sky was already lavender, promising a dawn she wasn’t ready for. Laura pressed her forehead to the glass and tried to remember what it felt like to be just one person’s everything.

She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there before Claire suddenly appeared at her side. She hadn’t heard her move. The catgirl offered the notebook like an olive branch.

Laura took it, reading the careful scrawl.

You’re allowed to be angry. Or sad. Or both. It doesn’t make you selfish.

Laura smiled, though she didn’t feel it. “I’ve never had to share him before. I’ve never even had him as a boyfriend, before. I don’t know how.”

She handed the notebook back. Claire skimmed it, then shrugged, writing: No one does, at first.

Laura snorted. “Is it ever not awkward?”

This time Claire drew a whole cartoon—herself, with a giant sweat bead and wild tail, being squeezed between two copies of Andy. It is. If you find the right people. Like this group.

Erin rolled over in bed, still half-asleep, and grunted. “You two writing a book over there?” Her voice was a growl, but she sounded more amused than annoyed.

Claire padded back to bed, then patted the space next to her. Laura returned, climbing in, but didn’t lie down. She sat, hugging her knees, like a kid on the first day of school.

Laura hesitated only a fraction of a breath before laying herself open. “I’m jealous,” she said, the admission tumbling out before she could snatch it back, raw and unpolished. “I was jealous before. I’m still jealous now. I keep telling myself I shouldn’t be, but it’s there. And I hate that it makes me feel like a child. Like I can’t just accept the reality, like I’m immature or something.” She pressed her knees tighter to her chest, gaze fixed on the pale ridge of Claire’s tail beneath the comforter, unable to look up.

Erin propped herself on one elbow, green skin ghostly in the bedside shadows. For a second, Laura braced for a lecture, or worse, a laugh. But Erin just watched her, head cocked, the same way Andy sometimes did when he was trying to solve a problem he cared about. “Yeah,” she said, voice soothing as a balm. “Andy’s worth being jealous over. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?”

Laura risked a glance up, searching for sarcasm, but found only exhausted solidarity. There was no challenge, no game—just the comfort of someone who had already stumbled through this territory and learned that fighting it alone only made it worse.

“I know Sam said not to make him choose,” Laura admitted, her voice a drifting thing. “But it’s not easy. Even when I see how happy he is, how much he tries to make space for everyone, I still want…” She trailed off, the confession suspended, unspeakable.

Erin supplied the word without judgment. “You want him to be yours. Completely.”

Laura nodded, miserable.

Erin yawned, the gesture oddly disarming, then rolled onto her back and fixed her eyes on the stippled ceiling. “When I first got here, and after we… reconciled, I thought I was going to fight my way back to being the one and only. I wanted to rip every other girl apart, metaphorically speaking, but also, you know, maybe not. I was so mad at Arabella for giving me the chance to get back with him, only to find out he’d never be just mine again.” She paused, then smiled with a crooked self-awareness. “But then I realized—” She stopped again, the words stacking up and then crumbling. “I realized that the thing Andy wanted most was for all of us to get along. Not because he was greedy, or because he wanted a harem like some kind of horny sultan. It’s just… he needs people. He needs us. All of us.”

Claire, silent, watched the conversation from the foot of the bed where she perched cross-legged, tail flicking. She scribbled a note, tore the page, and passed it to Laura, who read in Claire’s perfect script: He spent most of his life alone, even when surrounded by friends. He never got over losing you. Now, he wants to make sure he never loses anyone again.

Laura read it twice, fingers smoothing the edge of the paper. A memory surfaced—Andy at the edge of a middle school party, glass of Coke in hand, smiling at her from across a sea of strangers. She remembered thinking, even then, that he was the loneliest person in every crowded room.

“It’s not fair,” she said finally, voice tremulous. “I want to be happy for him, but I also want to punch something.”

Erin grinned, the sadness in her eyes gone sharp and bright. “I hit the heavy bag every morning, and it helps. We can do that later, if you want. Or pillows, if you’re more of a thrower than a hitter.”

Laura snorted—embarrassed, but lighter.

Erin’s face grew serious, voice dropping close to a whisper. “You don’t have to get it right, right away. I sure didn’t. You know how many times I argued with Claire before we figured out how to not kill each other?”

Claire, helpfully, raised two fingers, then four, then started ticking up numbers until Erin reached over and pressed her hands flat with a playful, “All right, all right. You made your point.”

Laura managed a smile, surprised at how much she wanted to believe them. “But how do you even know where you stand? Doesn’t it get… I don’t know, confusing? Or lonely, sometimes?”

Erin shrugged, nonchalant. “It’s always confusing. But it gets less lonely when you let go of the idea that love is a competition. You can love one person and still have space for others. Or you can love lots of people and only really want one. Either way, you can’t win by keeping score. I mean, that’s why we’re here, right? We’re all in the same weird boat.”

She looked at Claire and then back to Laura, auburn hair falling across her forehead. “You know, I actually hated this group at first. I thought everyone was fake, or out to get me. But I was wrong. They just… wanted what I wanted, and were scared of losing it.”

Claire wrote: We both want marriage. And kids. And to not be alone. Everything else is a rounding error.

Laura stared at the page. “Marriage?”

Erin nodded, face suddenly, violently dark green. "Yeah. I want to marry him. I know it's weird, with all this, but… I do. And so does Claire. And so do you, probably. Don't pretend you haven't thought about it."

Laura's throat tightened. She'd sketched "Mrs. Laura Cooper" in the margins of her math notebook when she was twelve, had imagined their wedding under the willow tree by the river, had picked the soundtrack. But that was before. Before drowning. Before resurrection. Before all these women. "I used to plan our wedding," she whispered. "But now he's already proposed to you, and Claire proposed to him, and I—" Her voice cracked. "What if there's nothing left for me?"

Erin's face softened. She reached across the sheets, her green fingers finding Laura's. "Hey. Look at me." When Laura did, Erin's eyes were fierce with conviction. “There’s nothing ‘left’ because it’s not about pieces. It’s about being here, now.” She squeezed Laura’s hand. “And that means you get to stay. At least long enough to figure out what you want.”

Claire nodded vigorously beside them, quickly scribbling: He never stopped missing you. He doesn’t want to lose anyone again.

They fell into a tired, companionable silence, but it was a warmer one, not the brittle hush of earlier. Claire's tail swept over Laura's ankle, a gesture of comfort more than a tic. Erin rolled closer, the blankets a muddle of limbs and static. Laura sat there, breathing in the shared air, wondering how long it would take for her to believe that she could stay—that she could belong, even with all the cracks.

“I’ll try.” She said, voice shaking a little.

For a while, the three of them just existed, cocooned in the hush of the suite. Erin drifted off first, her breathing deepening, the bio-luminescent line of her jaw faintly glowing in the darkness. Claire continued to write in her pad, sketching elaborate, silly cartoons of bunnies and catgirls arm-wrestling, each with Andy in the background, holding up a little flag that said GO TEAM. Laura watched her, fascinated by how fast Claire’s hands moved, the way her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth in fierce concentration. It was shockingly intimate, this small act of creation; Laura felt like a child again, and it oddly reminded her of how much she used to wish for a sister.

Eventually, Claire stopped and handed her the pad. The illustration, colored in with a pencil nub, showed the three of them sleeping together, but with their dreams floating above their heads like thought bubbles. Erin dreamed of an emerald wedding dress. Claire dreamed of a library, every book with “A&C” stamped on the spine. Laura’s dream was blank, the bubble empty, as if waiting to be filled.

Above the cartoon, Claire had written: Don’t worry. It’s okay to not know what you want yet.

Laura blinked back tears she hadn’t realized were waiting. “You’re a good person,” she whispered.

Claire shrugged, then, after a pause, reached out and squeezed Laura’s hand, fingers warm and steady. The touch lingered until Laura relaxed and squeezed back.

The first rays of dawn barely broke the horizon when Laura stirred again, still sandwiched between her new roommates. Claire had rolled away in the night, but her tail had crept back, twining around Laura’s calf like a security cord. Erin snored lightly, one arm thrown over her eyes, the other curled around her pillow like a lover. For a moment, Laura almost believed this was normal. Then she remembered the conversation, and the feeling that had settled in her bones: she would never belong to Andy alone again.

She lay still for a few minutes, watching dust motes float in the light and letting her mind pick over the previous night. The urge to run, to hide, was back, but now it was mingled with something else—a curiosity, maybe, or just the afterglow of surviving something hard. She thought about what Erin had told her: that nobody in this place expected her to figure it out overnight. That just trying was enough.

She waited until she heard movement. Erin was first to break the silence, voice hoarse with sleep. “Still awake?” she asked, not bothering to move her arm from her face.

“Yeah,” Laura said.

Erin yawned, then said, “You okay?”

Laura shrugged. “I don’t know. I keep thinking about what you said last night, about finding common ground with Claire.”

Erin stretched, her chest rising impressively. “Want to know what it was?”

“Yeah.”

Erin looked at Claire, who had now flipped onto her stomach and was peering at Laura through a fall of hair and the shimmer of her glasses. Claire propped herself up, grabbed her notebook, and started scribbling.

She passed the page to Laura, who read: We both wanted to marry Andy. And we both wanted kids with him. That was the starting point—not a plan, just the thing we couldn’t pretend wasn’t there. Not either/or, but both/and. We couldn’t have him alone, but we didn’t want to lose him either.

Erin nodded. “Sounds simple, right? But it wasn’t. We fought. We disagreed on everything. But in the end, it turned out we wanted the same thing: to not lose him. To not be alone. So we decided to stop trying to win, and just… coexist. Most days.”

Laura let the words settle in. “That’s it? Just like that?”

Claire grinned, took the notebook, and drew a tiny volcano with Sometimes it explodes underneath.

“Doesn’t it bother you, though? Sharing?” Laura asked.

Erin let the question hang in the air, as if it needed time to find the corners of the room and fill them. Claire simply waited, head cocked and tail still, her face a study in serene expectation.

“It did,” Erin said at last. She uncrossed her legs, sitting up with a green flash of skin. “The first few days after Andy and I reconciled, I hated the idea. I figured, okay, I’ll let Andy work out his issues with everyone else, and eventually I’ll just, I don’t know, win. Like it’s a tournament. One champion standing.” She snorted. “But then I realized that was bullshit. There is no winning. Even if I was the only one left, it wouldn’t be enough, because he’d never forgive himself for letting the others go. And then he’d be broken, and I’d be alone, anyway. So, yeah, I had to get over it.”

Claire, without looking away, scribbled in her notebook, then slid the page to Laura. It read, in big, blocky print: LOVE ISN’T PIE.

Laura frowned, confused, and Claire pointed to the line, then mimed slicing a circle and eating a piece. Then she pointed at Laura, then at herself, then at Erin, and drew three arrows radiating out from a little doodle of Andy.

Laura laughed despite herself. “Love isn’t pie. Okay. But what is it, then?”

Claire scribbled furiously, then wrote: It’s a house. More people means more rooms. Sometimes it’s crowded. Sometimes you trip over each other. But the house doesn’t disappear just because someone new walks in.

Erin nodded, the corners of her mouth quirking up. “It took me a long time to see it that way. But she’s right. Andy can love all of us, and it doesn’t mean he loves anyone less.” She glanced at Claire, then at Laura. “He loves differently. Not more, not less. Just… differently with each of us.”

Laura looked at the page again, then folded it shut and set it on the nightstand. She felt the truth of what they were saying, but it still tasted foreign—like a new spice you can’t quite decide if you like. “What do you both get out of it?” she asked, voice soft. “What’s the point, if you always feel like you’re not enough?”

Claire wrote: We are enough. Just in different ways. Andy needs what we give, but we need what each other gives, too. It’s a net gain. Not a loss.

Laura let the words wash over her, but the certainty in Erin and Claire’s voices felt like a kind of defiance—a bulwark against her own uncertainty. She pressed the pillow closer to her chest and looked at the ceiling, waiting for the urge to vanish or cry or argue to pass. It didn’t, exactly, but it dulled into something less sharp.

“So what’s my part?” she said, meaning it as a joke but failing to land the punchline. “If you’ve got comfort, and you’ve got passion, what’s left for me?”

Claire snorted, made a face, and scribbled rapidly in her notebook before passing it across the tangled sheets. It said: You know him better than anyone. He still says your name when he’s asleep. You are the missing part of his soul. There’s a bond there that none of us can fake or replace.

Erin nodded, face thoughtful. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “That part’s real. And I won’t pretend it doesn’t scare the hell out of me.” She scrubbed a hand through her hair, then looked back at Laura. “You don’t just remind him of the past. You’re the reason he tries so hard now. When he lost you, he never stopped hoping he’d see you again. Even when he was with me, I could tell.” Her mouth twisted, not quite a smile. “I hated that, for a while. Tried to tell myself it didn’t matter.” She exhaled. “Didn’t work.”

She met Laura’s eyes, steady and unflinching. “He never got over you. That’s the truth.”

Laura tried to laugh, but it came out shaky and off-balance. “It’s a lot of pressure.”

Erin snorted softly. “Yeah. It is.” She shifted closer, not touching, but unmistakably present. “That’s the part nobody puts on the inspirational posters. Being irreplaceable doesn’t feel like winning. It feels like everything could tip if you move wrong.” She shrugged. “Believe me, I’ve spent enough time being afraid of that.”

She leaned back, her breasts quivering with the movement, the curve of her mint-green skin almost beautiful in the blue early light. “But here’s the thing.” Her voice was firmer now, not reassuring—decided. “You being that important doesn’t mean the rest of us disappear. And it doesn’t mean you have to hold everything together.” A pause. “I know it can feel like that. I’ve watched you flinch every time someone gets close to him.”

Claire nodded, tail flicking once in agreement.

Erin continued, more bluntly now: “Yeah, maybe—maybe—if the world was crueler, or simpler, he would’ve chosen you and burned everything else down. But that’s not the world we’re in.” She looked between Laura and Claire. “And it’s not the man he is.”

She softened, just a fraction. “So no. You don’t have to compete. And you don’t have to carry us. You just have to stay.” A crooked half-smile. “Trust me, if this falls apart, it won’t be because you mattered too much.”

Claire scribbled one last line and nudged the notebook toward Laura: Being important isn’t the same as being responsible.

Laura rolled onto her side, facing the others, and propped her head on her fist. She felt strangely tentative doing it, as if even turning toward them was a choice she might regret later. “Do you really want to get married?” she asked, voice almost childlike.

Erin laughed—a rich, low sound that vibrated the mattress. “Yeah. Never thought I would, but there you go.” She looked at Claire. “Catgirl’s got her vows written already. She’s got them indexed in three languages.”

Claire smirked, but blushed furiously, her tail flicking in embarrassment. She scribbled again and handed the notebook to Laura: Not a joke. I have them in English, Latin, and Middle English. If I’m going to do it, I want it to last.

Laura’s throat tightened, but she found herself smiling in spite of the ache. The smile surprised her; she hadn’t expected anything in this room to feel that light. “What about kids?”

Erin’s expression shifted; it was complicated. “I want them,” she said. “But… I’m not sure I can, anymore.” She glanced at Claire, then at Laura, and for a moment the bravado slipped. “It’s hard, not knowing. But Andy said he’d make it work, no matter what.” She grinned again, this time a little ****.

Claire wrote: Or we can always make our own family. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

The conversation ebbed, the truth of it hanging in the air. Laura felt exposed—like the world had seen her raw, unfinished self and hadn’t run away. That alone felt like more than she’d expected. She looked at Erin, then at Claire, and was struck by a cautious relief: she didn’t feel pushed out.

“Can I ask one more thing?” she said.

Erin closed her eyes, stretching, but her voice was gentle. “Shoot.”

Laura hesitated, then: “Were you scared, when you came back to him? When you knew you had to share?”

Erin didn’t answer right away. When she opened her eyes, they were clear, unguarded. “I was terrified,” she admitted. “But I decided, after everything, that I’d rather have a piece of him than none at all. And, you know, I used to think I wanted him to myself, but now…” She gestured at the bed, at the tangle of limbs and tails and awkward, honest conversation. “Now I think this is better. It’s messier, but it’s real.”

Laura nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Part of her resisted the idea; another part, quieter, admitted she understood it more than she wanted to.

Claire wrote, her handwriting slower now, more deliberate: There’s no manual for this. But if you want, I can help you write one.

Laura giggled, despite herself—just a little, just enough to break the spell. “You’re such a nerd,” she said.

Claire shrugged, pleased.

For a while, none of them spoke. The sun pushed a thin blade of gold through the curtains, and the room began to glow. Erin drifted back to sleep, her breathing deep and even. Claire watched Laura, her eyes unblinking, tail still. Laura felt the weight of that gaze, waiting for it to turn uncomfortable. It didn’t—at least not yet—and that unsettled her almost as much as it reassured her.

Eventually, she lay back and closed her eyes. The sheets were warm, and so were the bodies on either side. She wasn’t sure what the future would bring, or if she’d ever feel truly at home in this new reality. But for the moment, she wasn’t being pushed away—and that felt like something she could hold onto.

Just before sleep claimed her, she felt a hand—small, delicate, probably Claire’s—find her own and squeeze, once, gentle as a promise. Not a promise. Just contact.

She squeezed back, tentatively, and let herself rest.

Laura woke with the distinct, confusing sense that she had grown a new limb overnight. Her right arm was pinned, immobile and alarmingly warm. She opened her eyes, and found Claire’s face three inches away, mouth parted, the morning sun catching on the fine blond hairs at her jaw. Claire’s hand was draped over Laura’s bare arm, the long, careful fingers tangled in the fabric of Laura’s sleep shirt.

Laura shifted. Claire did not stir, but her tail, emerging from beneath the blanket, curled tighter around Laura’s calf. Not possessive—just automatic. Still, the certainty of it made Laura pause. For a moment, Laura watched the rhythmic flick of the tip, mesmerized. There was a gentleness to it, a steady confidence that made Laura’s chest ache. She was about to extract herself when she realized her head was resting squarely on Claire’s shoulder, as if she’d climbed into a nest built for her alone.

Heat rose to Laura’s cheeks. She tried to slide away without waking the catgirl, but Claire’s grip was stronger than it looked. Laura had to gently peel the hand away, feeling each finger resist, then let go, one at a time. It struck her—not unkindly, but sharply—that Claire hadn’t meant to trap her. She’d just assumed Laura wouldn’t want to leave. She sat up, clutching the sheet, unsure what to do with the sudden cold at her side.

Erin’s voice, throaty and amused, cut through the hush. “Morning, lovebirds,” she said, not bothering to open her eyes. “Should I get you two breakfast in bed, or would that be too much?”

The word lovebirds landed lightly—but Laura still felt it land.

Claire snorted, rolled over, and reached for her glasses, settling them back on her nose as if nothing unusual had happened. She smoothed her hair with brisk, efficient strokes, then scribbled something in her notebook and held it up: You drool in your sleep. A lot.

Erin opened one eye and grinned. “So I’ve been told.”

Laura couldn’t help it—she laughed, the sound raw and unexpected. For the first time since arriving, the tightness in her chest loosened, just a fraction. She wasn’t sure whether the laughter came from comfort—or relief at being mistaken for someone more at ease than she felt.

Claire’s tail flicked again, this time in a lazy, pleased spiral. She padded to the bathroom, closing the door with a barely audible click. Erin stretched, her breasts shifting with the movement, then pulled the covers down and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She moved through the suite with the effortless confidence of someone who’d been born in this body, not transformed into it.

Laura tried not to stare, but it was like looking at a new color—impossible to ignore, even when you knew you should. She wondered if she would ever feel that comfortable, if her body would ever feel like hers again.

Erin glanced over her shoulder, caught the look, and smiled with a mix of pride and something softer. “It gets easier,” she said. “The weirdness. The bodies. All of it.”

Laura nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She believed Erin meant it. She wasn’t sure it would mean the same thing for her.

Claire emerged, hair damp and tidy, the scent of citrus soap trailing her like a flag. She handed Laura a toothbrush still in its wrapper, and Laura was suddenly, absurdly grateful. The gratitude surprised her too—how quickly she’d begun to accept small kindnesses as proof she was welcome.

Claire and Laura dressed in a polite, silent shuffle—Claire in a thin white blouse and jeans, Laura in a sundress Arabella had provided for her. The skirt floated around her knees, light as spun sugar. She caught herself smiling at her own reflection, then stopped, embarrassed. As if liking how she looked might mean agreeing to something she hadn’t said yes to yet.

“Ready?” Erin asked, already halfway to the door.

“Yeah,” Laura said, voice steadier than she felt.

They walked the corridor in a row—Erin in front, Claire in the middle, Laura trailing. She noticed the order without knowing why it bothered her. The hotel felt different in daylight. The windows along the hallway overlooked the inner courtyard, where banana trees and hibiscus bloomed against the blue sky. The world was so alive it felt fake, like a set built for someone else’s story.

The breakfast room was a riot of sound. Dawn stood at the coffee machine, commanding it like a general—barking orders at the carafe, slamming mugs down, and darting back and forth with the precise, frantic energy of someone who believed caffeine could solve any problem.

Emily was sprawled on a loveseat, hair a gold-pink wave over her bare shoulders, pretending to nap but keeping one eye open in case anyone tried to touch her. Marissa, seated beside her, flicked Emily’s ear with a fingernail; Emily squeaked, then buried her face in the pillow, grumbling.

Riley occupied the window seat, Chloe curled beside her like a cat. Riley’s arm was around Chloe’s shoulders, her fingers tracing idle patterns along the edge of Chloe’s collarbone. Across the room, Myra sat perfectly upright, her tail coiled in her lap, hands folded and calm.

Erin snagged a pastry from the buffet, then guided Laura to a seat beside her. Claire sat on Laura’s other side, the three of them forming a small, awkward triangle. Laura felt every gaze in the room, imagined everyone’s thoughts, but when she glanced up, the other women were already back to their own conversations.

Dawn plopped a mug of coffee in front of Laura with a flourish. “Try this. It’ll change your life.”

Laura sipped, and nearly choked. “What is this?”

Dawn grinned. “It’s my secret recipe. Four kinds of milk and two sugars. Trust me, after a few days here, you’ll crave it.”

Claire sniffed, then wrote: She’s right. You get used to it. It’s like Stockholm syndrome, but for caffeine.

Norah snorted, scarf flashing as she laughed. “Or maybe just Stockholm. She’s definitely holding us hostage.”

Dawn shot her a look, then turned back to the machine, ears perking as she listened for the hiss of steam.

The table settled into a rhythm. Erin demolished three pastries in rapid succession, licking crumbs from her fingers with the absentminded grace of a starved model. Claire nibbled at a piece of fruit, occasionally glancing at Laura as if to check that she hadn’t evaporated. Laura tried to eat, but her stomach fluttered with nerves.

Across the table, Riley caught Laura’s gaze and didn’t look away.

It wasn’t an accident. It never was, with them.

Laura rose without quite deciding to, chair legs whispering against the floor as she crossed the room. Riley gently disentangled herself from Chloe—who was pouring milk into her tea with both hands, brow furrowed in concentration—and met Laura halfway, as if she’d been expecting her.

“I’m sorry I haven’t—” Riley started, then stopped, breath hitching. She scrubbed a hand over her face. “I should be with you more. After everything we talked about yesterday. Some best friend, huh?”

"You don't have to keep apologizing," Laura said, noticing how Riley's fingers twisted together, the same nervous habit she'd had since they were children. "I meant what I said. There's nothing to forgive."

Riley let out a shaky laugh that didn’t quite hold. “I know. I just… knowing something and feeling it are different.” Her fingers twisted together, the same nervous habit she’d had since they were ten and scared of saying the wrong thing. “I still see you falling sometimes. In my dreams. It doesn’t matter how many times I wake up and remember you’re here—it still feels like I missed something.”

Laura’s chest tightened, but she didn’t look away. “I missed things too,” she said. “Whole years. I don’t want us to pretend that didn’t happen. I just don’t want it to be the only thing between us.”

Riley swallowed, nodded. “Yeah. Me neither.”

The silence stretched—not awkward, just careful. Laura became aware of how close they were standing, how familiar Riley still felt in her space. That familiarity hurt, but it also steadied her.

“I’d like to spend time with you,” Laura said at last, quieter now. “Just… to remember how to be us again. However that looks.”

Riley’s face changed in slow increments—relief first, then guilt, then something bright and almost fragile. She reached for Laura’s hand, squeezed it once, then let go, as if afraid of claiming too much.

“I’d like that too,” she said. “A lot.” Her voice dropped. “I was scared to ask. I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to choose who you were allowed to care about.”

Laura huffed a soft, surprised breath. “Seems like we’re all doing a lot of that.”

“Yeah,” Riley said, a crooked smile tugging at her mouth. “Guess we’re bad at not carrying things alone.”

They drifted back toward the table, not quite side by side, but close enough that Laura could feel Riley’s presence like a warm line along her arm.

Emily stretched, arms lifted high, hair spilling down her back as she yawned. She scooted closer to Marissa, who was reading the morning paper, and without looking up, Marissa broke off a croissant and pressed it into Emily’s hand, then gave her knee an absent, affectionate pat.

Laura watched the exchange—the ease of it, the unspoken choreography—and then the rest of the room: Erin arguing cheerfully with someone about whether jam counted as a vegetable, Claire quietly aligning her plate with mathematical precision, Chloe humming to herself as she stirred her tea.

And something shifted.

None of it was about Andy. Not really. It was about people finding ways to exist beside each other, to make room without erasing themselves. The waiting, the weirdness, the compromises—they weren’t pauses in the story. They were the story.

Maybe she didn’t have to catch up all at once.

She finished her coffee, set the mug down, and felt, for the first time, the possibility of a day that didn’t revolve around longing.

Dawn sat beside her, plate piled with eggs and toast. “You okay?” she asked, voice low.

Laura hesitated, then nodded. “I think so.”

Dawn’s smile was gentle. “Good. We need more normal people around here.”

Laura almost laughed. “I don’t think I qualify.”

Dawn shrugged. “No one does. That’s the point.” She bit into her toast, then added, “You’ll get used to it. We all did.”

A sharp chime cut through the room. The air changed—every woman stopped, mid-bite or mid-laugh, and turned toward the hallway. A soft, familiar voice echoed from the wall speaker:

“Good morning, ladies. Today’s transformation ceremony will take place on the beach. Please assemble there by eleven. Dress appropriately for sand and saltwater.”

Arabella’s message lingered, the words stretching out like a hand from behind the mirror.

The room erupted in motion. Women gathered sandals, shawls, whatever armor they had against the world. The mood was lighter than last night, but the anticipation was sharper, more electric. Claire tucked her notebook into a canvas bag, and together they made their way out into the corridor.

The walk to the terrace was different than before. Now, the three of them moved together—not a parade, not a pack, but something closer to a braid, each woman weaving in and out of the others’ space. Sometimes Erin would sling an arm around Laura’s shoulder, and sometimes Claire would steady Laura with a hand at her back, guiding her gently around a corner or down a step. Laura tried to resist the help, but it was hard to say no to the easy, unthinking intimacy.

They reached the beach, stretching out before them, the tide low and the sand packed tight as concrete. Other women were already gathered: Riley and Chloe, standing shoulder to shoulder; Norah and Liesa, deep in conversation; Marissa, talking softly to Myra while Myra’s tail traced patterns in the sand.

Andy stood near the waterline, hands in his pockets, watching the waves. He didn’t look up until the three women reached him. When he did, he smiled—real and unguarded, the kind of smile that made Laura remember every good thing that ever happened to her. For a second, she wanted to run to him, to fold herself into his arms and forget everything else.

Instead, she stayed where she was, They stood in a line, not quite touching, and waited for whatever would happen next.

From a distance, Laura thought, they probably looked like a single unit—a seamless team, ready for the next stage.

But she knew, deep inside, that the real work was just beginning.

Andy watched from the threshold as the women assembled—one after another, in pairs and clusters, their paths converging on the boardwalk above the sand. He saw Erin first, her green skin luminous against the white of her running shoes. She moved with easy authority, but even Andy caught the micro-hesitation when she looped an arm through Laura’s. Laura let herself be pulled forward, but the motion wasn’t relaxed; it was careful, measured, like someone trying on new shoes for the first time and not sure if they would blister.

Claire trailed beside them, her notebook tucked under one arm, tail swishing in slow arcs as she fell into step. She seemed to float, the light catching in her pale hair and giving her a faint, unreal aura. Andy smiled at the sight, then sobered, noticing the stiffness in Laura’s walk, the way she kept her left hand in a fist, hidden in the folds of her skirt.

He waited as the group gathered, each arrival marked by a private ritual: Chloe clinging to Riley’s arm and blushing whenever Riley said her name; Dawn carrying mugs of coffee and distributing them with the solemnity of a Eucharist; Liesa leaning into Norah, the two of them exchanging quick, teasing whispers in a language Andy couldn’t quite catch. Myra and Marissa stayed apart, as if keeping watch over the crowd, Marissa’s eyes scanning each woman, Myra’s head tilting gently to catch the emotional undercurrent.

Andy let them assemble, not wanting to break the moment. Instead, he watched the old stories and rivalries reconfigure themselves into a new formation—somewhere between family and a sports team and the cast of a doomed reality show. The roles were changing, the lines blurry, but something like loyalty was taking shape beneath the surface.

Arabella’s instructions were clear: “Dress appropriately for sand and saltwater.” But Andy saw at once that the instructions had become a form of resistance. Most of the women wore what they liked, even if it was impractical or borderline indecent. Riley wore the same battered jeans and a faded t-shirt that said RESIST in block capitals; Chloe wore a thin dress that was almost transparent in the sunlight; Norah’s shoes were impossible stilettos, and Liesa walked with the exaggerated roll of a model on a runway, even though the sand would undo her with every step. Marissa wore a severe black swimsuit under a crisp men’s shirt, and Myra, pale as parchment, had wrapped herself in a sarong that looked hand-painted. Dawn, always practical, wore a floral sundress with flip-flops and carried a towel under her arm.

Andy glanced at Laura as she moved past. From a distance, she might have seemed at ease, blending in with the others. But Andy knew every movement, every expression of her, since they had been babies, and saw the uncertainty—the way she touched her own shoulder, as if checking she hadn’t become invisible, the way she scanned every face before looking at him. He wanted to reach for her, to anchor her in place, but he knew that would only make things worse. She had to find her own gravity.

At the main doors, Arabella was waiting, immaculate as ever in a long, dark dress that shimmered blue in the sun. She greeted each woman with a nod, sometimes a hand at the elbow or a murmured word. When she saw Andy, her smile was different—smaller, more private, almost as if she was in on a joke that hadn’t been told yet.

“Ready?” she asked, voice pitched for his ears alone.

Andy nodded, but he looked past her to the ocean, where the tide was already beginning to creep in, salt and foam and possibility. “I think they are,” he said. “I hope I am.”

Arabella’s smile widened a fraction. “Good. That’s all anyone can ask.” Then, to the whole group: “Shall we?”