Afterglow

The first few days after her transformation were always wonderful. Morgan felt at peace with herself, with the world, with her place in it. She would often wonder if this is what other people felt like all the time. She could imagine a life for herself like this. All the things she could do, the people she could meet.

Then as everything settled back to normal, the grey days started to find their ways back in. The world around her was still the same but it looked like someone turned down the beautifier filter all around her. Things still seemed hopeful but it took effort now to hold onto hope. She was roused from her thoughts by Luna settling in her lap and purring. Things stopped spiraling out of her control if only for a moment. She was fine. She would be fine. She had Luna. And she had.. she checked her team’s group chat. On days like this she wasn’t sure if she really belonged with them, if she really had a place to call hers by their side or if they just tolerated her presence.

She asked a while ago if anyone was around for hanging out. She could have used the support or just the presence of another human being for a few hours. No one really replied to her, then Neil posted a random, unrelated meme and they have been laughing over it for the past fifteen minutes. She tried her best not to feel like they were ignoring her on purpose, but it was hard to when she was feeling so low already.

She closed the groupchat with a sigh. She was probably just overthinking things again. Maybe they were all just busy. It didn’t have to mean anything. It would have just helped if they actually replied, even if it was a no. She knew they weren’t really close with Neil but they still spent all that time together, it had to mean something, right? People were confusing to her like that. The magic helped with the overthinking but not with better understanding what others wanted from her. It always seemed to be something different than what she could easily give.

She opened her social media instead, scrolling through it dejected. Her attention snagged on the upcoming notification that someone requested to talk to her privately. At least someone seemed to want her attention. Scrolling through the profile she could see a brunette girl, her age, with a cute dimpled grin. Most of her photos were of nature or cats and a book was never missing from her hands. She seemed like the type of person Morgan could actually have fun talking to. Someone that could be her friend. Maybe something more with time. Putting her hopes on other people was a dangerous thing but she let herself daydream for a moment. Morgan didn’t even notice that she already stopped thinking about her problems when she clicked to accept Vanessa’s request.