Page 72 of Violet Moon
“Almost?”Sera asked.“You mean you didn’t fully transform?”
Jo shook their head.
“That’s fantastic.I mean, not everything else, but look what you did.You managed to control your wolf.”
“Not really.”Jo shook their head.“Wil had to help me.”
“But you still did it.Only you can keep yourself grounded enough not to change.”
Jo shrugged their shoulders, staring at their feet as they kicked their toe into the dirt.
“And you managed to do it when you felt terrible,” Sera continued.“You really have grown so much.”
Jo looked at her.“Really?”
Sera smiled, finally able to get a good look at Jo’s face.“Absolutely.You’ve come so far in such a short time.I’m — I’m really proud of you.”
Jo pitched forward, wrapping their arms around Sera’s middle and squeezing her tight.They tucked their head over Sera’s shoulder.“Thank you.”
“For what?”
Jo waited a long moment before they spoke.“For being my family.”
Sera returned the hug.She had avoided Jo for so long not knowing this was something she needed.They stood there for a while in silence until Jo sniffled and pulled away.Jo smiled but it was nothing like their normal expression.
“I’ve got an idea,” Sera started.“But you tell me if you’d rather sit down and talk, or if you’d like a distraction.”
“Distraction,” Jo replied.“I know, I know, can’t bottle things up, but I am not in a place to go through all that now anyway.”
“Then we go for a run,” she suggested.
Jo quirked up an eyebrow in question.
“As wolves,” Sera added.
Jo shook their head.“I still can’t control it.”
“You can.I know you can.And I’ll be right there if anything happens.”
“I don’t know.”Worry crept into Jo’s features.
“We don’t have to.We can do something else, but I know it helps me, getting out of this skin for a little while.”
Jo waited a beat, fiddling with the hem of their torn shirt.“That would be nice.Being a human is the literal worst sometimes.”
Sera puffed out a quiet laugh.“Yes, it is.”
Jo stood up straighter, squaring their shoulders and wiping away the last few remaining tear trails with the back of their hand.“So where are we running to?”
“Anywhere.Or at least far enough away that you feel better, but close enough that we’ll make it back by dinner.”
“And you promise you’ll help if I can’t come back?”
“I don’t think you’ll need it, but I promise I’ll be there.”
Jo let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.“You have no idea how much I needed someone to say that to me.”They sniffled.“Oh my gosh, enough of that.No more crying today.So —” They turned towards Sera, sounding more confident than they looked.“We running or what?”
By the time they made it back to the house, Jo’s smile had returned.They’d managed to shift back on their own.It wasn’t perfect, but Jo was improving.
