The problem with having a best friend who was extremely perceptive was that she noticed things.
Jess Okafor noticed everything. This was both her greatest quality and, from Mara's current perspective, her most inconvenient one. She noticed that Mara had stopped wearing the perfume she'd worn for two years because the smell was now too strong. She noticed that Mara had switched seats in every class they shared to be closer to a window. She noticed the voice, which was the most obvious one, and she had not said anything for two weeks, which meant she was waiting — collecting data, building a case, waiting for the right moment to deploy it.
The right moment turned out to be a Thursday afternoon on Jess's porch, Flamin' Hots, exactly as it had been before the world turned inside out.
"Your voice changed," Jess said, directly, the way she said everything.
"I know."
"And you're taller."
"I know."
"And you've been acting weird for almost a month."
"I know." Mara took a chip and looked at it. "I'm trying to figure out how to talk about it."
"You don't have to figure it out perfectly before you talk about it. That's what talking is for." Jess pulled her knees up to her chest. "Is this about the other stuff? The stuff you've always kind of — not talked about?"
Mara looked at her sideways. "What stuff."
"The stuff where you've been uncomfortable in your own skin since I've known you and we've never directly addressed it because you weren't ready and I was waiting for you." Jess said this the way other people say the weather is nice today. "That stuff."
A bird landed on the railing and regarded them with brief professional interest and left.
"Yes," Mara said. "That stuff."
"Okay."
"And also I got bitten by a wolf in the Backs and I think I'm becoming one and my body is changing in some really specific ways that are actually —" She pressed her lips together. "Some of it is scary. And some of it is — Jess, some of it feels like finally."
Jess was very quiet for a moment. "Finally."
"Yeah."
"The voice. The — are you —" Jess turned on the porch step to face her fully. "Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?"
"I don't know what I'm telling you. I don't know what anything is yet. I just know that the wolf is changing me and some of the ways it's changing me I've been waiting for for a long time and I can't tell if that's —" She exhaled. "I can't tell if it's real or if it's just the wolf and there's a difference."
Jess thought about this with the thoroughness she gave to everything. "Is there a difference?" she said finally. "If it was already in you, and the wolf found it and pulled it out — is that less real?"
"I don't know."
"The wolf bit who you are," Jess said. "Not who you aren't." She paused. "Right?"
Mara looked at her. Jess was looking back, steadily, with the expression of someone who has decided in advance to handle whatever comes.
"Right," Mara said.
"Okay." Jess took a chip. "So. Werewolf. And also the other thing." She considered. "Does your mom know?"
"About the werewolf or the other thing?"
"Either."
"No."
"Okay." Jess pointed at her. "The other thing first. When you're ready. The werewolf — I'm going to need several more conversations about that."
"Yeah," Mara agreed. "Same."