The full moon is coming up again but I'm not really ready to go to the warehouse. Shiro says it can wait.

I'm home again tonight.

I've gotten a text from Lance, it's a picture of him with his arm resting on some invisible mass, captioned with "me and bae."

I snort and text him back.

He's still not blushing.

I'm probably getting LESS homework done being here and having to keep up with all these texts.

My phone buzzes again.

hunk says not 2 tell u about the time he tried 2 fuck the neighbors dog

I don't think I wanted to hear that, I say.

A new text, from Hunk.

Just so you know it was a full moon and Lance was also trying to seduce the dog

no 1 fucked the dog but I have a huge scar on my ass now

If my parents ask me what's so funny I'll have to make up a lie.

this place is 10x dumber wihtout u, Lance texts.

Kind of feels like my LIFE is ten times dumber when I'm not there. I've never really missed anyone before. It's hard to miss something you don't know isn't there.

I wonder if my parents feel like they're missing anything.

"You look awfully pensive," my mom says.

"I'm… just having an existential crisis."

That's not strictly a lie.

"Well," she says, "We'll be here when you get back."

Please let's just leave it there.

"So, what's it about?" she asks.

Dammit.

I could lie. I could say anything I want. But honestly, what I want is to talk for REAL. It hurts to keep secrets from people you love, they must at least understand THAT.

It's dangerous but…

"What was I like when I was really little?"

My parents exchange a look. I think they don't think that I see.

There's silence and a tightness in the air. They don't want to talk about this.

But the gauntlet is down. My mom smiles but it doesn't look like a happy smile at all.

"You were the sweetest baby anyone had ever met."

"You babbled at every stranger," says my dad. He looks wistful, he looks fond, but he doesn't look happy. "You would have wandered off with anyone who talked to you."

"But you never went anywhere without Pinky. Pinky was special."

"Pinky?" I ask.

They look so sad.

"Your favorite stuffed parrot, the one from our trip to Lake Willington."

I… might sort of remember a stuffed parrot. It wasn't pink. It was ratty and gross and I threw it away.

"I really liked birds, huh?"

"You loved birds. You could say "ornithology" before you could spell your name."

That name was never mine. Maybe Matt's old clothes fit me for a while, but his name never did. I wonder if HE ever felt weird in that name, that's a thing that happens to every kid sometimes, right? Maybe he really did prefer being called Pidge.

"What was my favorite bird?"

"I don't know if you had a favorite, you loved all of them."

Man. He sounds like such a sweetheart. The fair folk must have fallen in love. I wonder if he got a chance to fly when they took him away. I wonder if he meant as much to them as he meant to these people that I live with. I wonder if he knows that I'm here.

I'm really sorry about Pinky.

"My friend Dylan… what kind of stuff did we do together?"

"You sure threw a lot of rocks into the pond, when you weren't pretending to be wizards."

Huh. Maybe hanging out with Dylan wouldn't have been so bad after all. Too bad he hates me now.

"Did Dylan like birds, too?"

My mom laughs the most pained laugh I've ever heard.

"Katie, no one liked birds as much as you did."

"But I still remember," my dad says, "when you came back from Dylan's church talking about the bird-people in the windows."

They let their son go to church? Maybe only with Christians who were more like Lance. Maybe Matt though the fairs were bird-people too.

"Why are you asking this all of a sudden?" my mom says to me.

She looks a little nervous and so does my dad. I've never told them the things I've heard them say. It hurts to keep secrets from someone you love.

"I just think I've changed a lot."

They have a look in their eyes. It hurts me so much.

"Well, that happens. People change."

But maybe I changed for the worse. I know they're thinking that too.

I wish it wasn't this way. For them. And for Matt.

Matt.

A ghost whose presence I've breathed my whole life.

Because Matt was never just a name, Matt was flesh and blood and opinions and love and he might be dead or he might not but he was REAL, he was real and he left craters in these people I love and maybe he's all alone and maybe there's nothing in the world that he loves anymore.

I feel a hand on my back. It's a woman who lost her son.

"Katie? What's wrong?"

I can't stop myself from crying. And the only words I can get out are, "Who the fuck names a parrot Pinky?"