7
SUBPAR BLOOD
RAYA
I startlewhen my phone rings a few hours later, buzzing along the counter next to my laptop. Seeing that the caller ID is proudly proclaiming the best mother in the world to be calling, I smile and pick it up.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, honey! I’ve got your dad here too," Mom says, and the forced cheer in her voice immediately puts me on alert.
“Oh okay, what’s up? Is everything okay?” I vacillate between worrying I’m in trouble and worrying something is wrong with someone else in the family.
“Everything’s fine, we just wanted to check in on you.”
So, the first option then. I wrack my brain, wondering what I could have done, or not done, to warrant a tag-team phone call from my parents.
“How have you been doing with your shifting?” Dad asks.
“It’s…” I don’t know what to say, and the silence is dreadful. I can practically hear a timer tick-tick-ticking down the seconds to my doom. “It’s not great.”
“We’re worried about you.” Mom takes the reins again,and I tuck my lips into my teeth to avoid snarking back. I’m an adult, they don’t need to worry about me all the time.
“We’re worried about the full moon, and how it will impact you," Dad clarifies, and this pauses my defensive thoughts. “It’s in the final waxing quarter, and I know your mom and I are already feeling its pull, which means you must be too.”
Even though my family are feline shifters, they still feel the moon’s call. Most people think only wolf shifters respond to the moon, likely due to all the fairytales about werewolves, but in reality, we all do, no matter what our inner animal is. I had forgotten about this; I haven’t had to worry about or keep track of the moon for the first twenty-two years of my life, and even once I started shifting, it has always seemed random.
“Oh," I say.Very eloquent.
“Have you felt it?” Dad presses on, his voice gentle and deep, comforting like a heavy blanket.
“I’m not sure. I mean, it has been kind of getting worse, so… maybe?” I cringe as I say the words, knowing I’m understating it, but also knowing they won’t be happy I’ve kept this much from them.
A tense beat follows and I can clearly picture the look my parents are exchanging.
“We think you should come over and stay with us next week for a couple days around the full moon, just until it starts waning again, then its pull over you should lessen.” My mother cuts straight to the point of the call, and my initial instinct is to deny it, but I also see the value of what they’re saying.
I remember how my siblings had a hard time when they first shifted and felt the moon’s pull, though my brother struggled with it more than my sister. He was only eight, and the first few months when he found his animal he was unable to stop himself from shifting into the cutest little bobkitten onthe days surrounding the full moon. My experience has been entirely different, obviously, but I do wonder if the moon is what is causing my increasingly erratic and uncontrollable shifts lately.
Then I realize I can’t possibly stay with them, even if I wanted to.
“I can’t," I say with a sigh, and I cut Mom off before she can fully form the protest I hear coming. “I won’t be here. I have to travel for work next week, I’ll be in San Diego.”
Silence.
Neither parent speaks for what feels like ages, until finally my dad breaks it.
“Okay, we’ll look into it and see if there’s anything that can help you control it. I’ve heard CBD oil can help calm the strength of the moon’s pull. I’ll give some of my buddies a call, and your mom will ask around, too. It’ll be okay.”
I nod even though they can’t see it, my throat choking up at the love and care my parents have always shown for their freak of a daughter. For most of my life, I was an outcast in the shifter community because I had no animal and couldn’t shift. Despite that, my parents never treated me differently from my siblings and always included me in shifter activities if I wanted to participate.
Once I turned twenty-two and the random shifts started, they barely batted an eye, even though I know they were likely freaking out when not in my presence. No one, to my knowledge, has ever even heard of a shifter who can shift into multiple different animals, or one who didn’t start shifting until they were an adult. Let alone one who partially shifts random body parts. Normally it’s all or nothing, human or animal.
No matter how you look at it, I’m different, but my family never saw that as a bad thing and I love them all the more for it.
Choking out a thank you, I end the call. My mental faculties are officially fried.
I am so done with this day.
