I had to really rush to get to Dr. Diast's office. I hoped she wouldn't be mad if I was te. As I arrived there, Laenie was leaving the teacher's area of the school.

  "Hi Zeta!" Laenie said.

  "Hi Laenie," I said. "Did you just get doh your meeting with Dr. Diast?"

  "Oh, are you meeting with Diast too? Oh...hm." Laenie suddenly looked ed.

  "What?" I asked.

  "N-nothing!" Laenie said and ran past me.

  Putting that weirdness aside, I knocked on Dr. Diast’s office door, which ened a crack. My knock pushed it open, and I could see Diast w on her puter. The floor was covered iy energy drinks and Hogrus Snak Pak ers in just about every variety possible.

  “Uh, Dr. Diast?” I asked.

  “Oh, hold o me clear a path for you.” Diast said.

  Diast waved her hand, and the pile of s spread to the sides, leaving a (if a little sticky) path for me to make it to her desk. As soon as I stepped forward, the pile of s went back, avang together again. Diast directed me to the fy chair near her desk. It kinda felt like how I imagined going to a therapist would be like.

  “What’s new, Zates?” Dr. Diast asked.

  “I dunno,” I said. “Everything kind of feels like a lht now.”

  “Yeah, you’ve been keeping busy,” Diast said. “How’d that fight with Laenie go?”

  “You heard about that?” I asked.

  “I got my eyes on you,” Diast said. “Anything you do…I’m watg. Well, not really. Laeold me everything just now. She was very specific about the parts she was scious for. You almost fought Ovie too, huh?”

  “Yeah…” I said. “I’m not in trouble for that, am I?”

  “School protocol for ning-Exa-i fights is a day of in school suspension,” Diast said. “But since yht never really started, I’ll let this one slide.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I know Ovie’s a pain to you, but try to not let her get in your head.” Diast said. “I assume that’s not what’s got you so mopey though.” She had my school at up on her puter. “Your void training’s going good, you’re on track with the Benta, Fang Fair is ing up, but you turned in your cept draft already…”

  I gripped my arms.

  “I don’t really get anything right now,” I said. “And I think it’s throwing off my school focus.”

  “What aren’t you getting?” Diast asked. “I mean that in a like, inquisitive ‘what I help teach you’ rather than a more accusatory ‘what you don’t get it?’ jerk teacher kind of thing.”

  “I barely use any powers," I said. "I don’t think I really have any special i gifts or whatever. I suck at fighting so I’m gonna suck at this void monster fighting thing iemple. I'm scared about all these jump fifteens I still have to watch, too. Also, is it just me, or are there a lot of spots in the school where the floor is super sticky all of a sudden? Like, movie theater sticky. This is what I keep thinking about when I’m supposed to be doing homework or catg up on readings about i fonts…”

  “That’s a lot,” Diast said. “Lemme see if I break it down.”

  Diast put a little whiteboard up that she had been listing things on.

  “Let’s start with the void,” Diast said. “We’re through half of the pod's memory trials now so we’re doing really good there. I am w on fixing whatever the Wildfire Hearts jerks messed up making your temple so the burden isn't so mu you to be there for the rest of those memory trial/jump fifteen deals. Yonna do fine when the real big fights start. I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but this void stuff is pretty reguted. Ohose training wheels e off and you start really disc that pce, you’ll be feeling a lot better about your own skills. I ’t help you with the stiess, that could be a i with sticky powers and I don’t want to think about what those would be." Diast exhaled. "I know that was a lot, too."

  “OK…” I said.

  To be ho, I wasn’t particurly feeling too stressed about the Benta that day. It was all the crush, and the Benta stress and css stress were just scapegoats.

  “I know that look,” Diast said. “What did I ask st time we met?”

  “I should be fog on things I trol,” I said.

  “So what should you focus on then?” Diast asked.

  “My csswork, probably,” I said. “The Benta…”

  “And?”

  “And…nothing else?” I said.

  “Nope.” I lied.

  “How about like your social life, or some hobbies?” Diast said. “You sound like you could maybe use some friend time that isn’t school reted.”

  “R-right.” I said, nodding a bit too eagerly to hide a gulp that practically betrayed my rea to her saying ‘friend time’. It was a stretch to think she’d piece together me reag weird to that to ‘Zeta has a crush on her best friend and roommate and is really scared,’ but crushes didn’t operate in that kind of logic.

  “Take it easy, alright?” Diast said. “If anything else es up, you talk to me.”

  I felt bad about not telling Diast about the big stressor, I could tell she was basically telling me when I was ready to talk about it I could go to her. But I wasn’t even ready to think about it.

  I felt very drai the end of the day, and hoped I wasn’t ing down with a cold. I had a theory that my emotional state during Phase One of a crush made me more susceptible to colds and my warm face had me thinking a cold was .

  I expected to wake up with a stuffy nose and a fever, but I felt fine. I did however ehe nd of the waking with that feeling of something fuzzy tig against my forehead again. Using the reflex typically reserved only for doctors trying to swab my throat when I had a throat iion, my arms shot forward and grabbed ahead. My hands gripped something fuzzy, and stranger yet, something that I could feel. Groggily, I blirying to prehend what I was looking at. I pulled on it, and it hurt. I yelled loud enough that Kalei and Oka woke up screaming too.

  They stared at me with shocked looks on their faces, and it was like my fangs ing in all ain. Except this time, we all stared in varying states of fusion at what I held as I traced it down to my lower back. Instead of fangs ing in, this time I woke up with a tail.