Within/Without

chapter fifty-three.

Simon

Even before they tell me, somehow I know.

It's less of a sensation, more...intuition. A hunch, sort of. A thought pressing at the back of my head, throbbing through each one of my nerves. Something is different. Something is different. Something is different.

I touch my ribs, my shoulder. Healed, miraculously. My heart pounds inside my rib cage. Around me is my family—Noah directly to my left, Abbie leaning over him get a better look at me, Mom on my right side with her hand on my cheek and Rose framing the doorway. I don't see Val, or Dad. Where are they? Are they okay?

I blink water from my eyes, exhaling shakily. My lungs feel strange and foreign in my chest. Something is different. "Where's...where's...?"

"Dad went to go get Val," Mom tells me, gently. She smooths hair out of my face, which I realize belatedly is black, not the bright red I've had my whole life. Something is different. "She was talking to Great Granny Etta, but I'm sure she'll be up any second now."

"Great Granny...God, it feels like my head is splitting. What happened? Why do I feel weird?"

There's a clink of glass as Rose hands off a cup of water to Abbie, who then offers it to me. "Here," she says, as Noah sweeps a hand behind my neck, craning my head forward. "We'll—we'll explain everything, Simon. Okay?"

A cold relief sweeps across the entirety of my achy body as soon as the water meets my lips; my headache falls away into a dull throb, and every muscle is revived, stronger. I haven't been able to do much more than stagger for the past three days or so, but suddenly I feel like I could run a mile.

I was...I was so sure this was going to be the end of me.

So why wasn't it?

Noah, Abbie, and my mother all share a strange look I don't know the meaning for. That's when I realize that Dad and Val aren't the only ones not here. Larry is nowhere to be seen, either.

Abbie brushes Noah's shoulder. He squints his eyes closed, almost grimacing, then lets out a long sigh. "I'm sorry, Simon," he begins. "Val and Larry and I didn't want to tell you, because we knew you'd never agree. But it was the only way to save you."

A jolt, like a spark of electricity, shoots from my head to my toes. "What did you do?" I demand, sitting up. Mom fusses at me to be more careful, but I ignore her. "Where's Larry, Noah? What did you do?"

Noah looks at me, his eyes inexplicably sad. "Look. The same thing that happened to you? The constant spazzing, the loss of control? It happened to Larry, too. It's like...like shapeshifting too much just degrades your body over time. The only reason he lived through it was because the agency he worked for saved him using an antidote they paid millions of dollars in research for. He was too valuable of an asset, after all. They couldn't let him die."

The spark of electricity is a roaring current now. "He didn't..."

Noah nods. "In exchange for that same antidote, he went back to work for them. He told me..." He pauses, his eyes flitting away towards the window for a moment. "He told me to tell you goodbye, Simon."

I open my mouth to speak, but only a sputter comes out. No. There had to have been another way. I still remember the emptied, dejected look in Larry's eyes as he told Val and I why he returned. One by one, he said that day, I lost everything.

Everything.

And he went back? For me?

It just doesn't make sense.

"One more thing," Abbie adds. She hands her phone to me, the front-facing camera pulled up. "Every shapeshifter's different, too, so in theory every shapeshifter would respond different to the antidote. Larry lost the ability to maintain a different face for a long period of time. You..."

I blink.

I blink again.

The face staring back at me is one I have never seen before. It is not Simon St. John's. It is not Kenzo's. It is not Jun's, or Oliver's, or Eli's, or anyone's. It's entirely new. The hair is ink black, curling over equally dark eyebrows. Formerly pale skin is now a golden light brown. The nose, broader. The mouth, fuller. The brown eyes, a token of the St. John family, honestly, are replaced by eyes so emerald they could glow.

I turn this way, that way. Just to make sure I'm looking at myself, and not a picture.

"Oh," I say. I search for a face I'm used to. For Simon's, for the one I was born with—for any at all. But I can't. I wait for the bones to rearrange themselves, for my body to restructure itself. Nothing happens. I am still. "Oh."

Mom's eyes are damp. She touches my cheek again. "You're done," she says. "You're free. You can't—I don't think you can shapeshift at all anymore, baby."

"But this isn't me," I say. All the words I want to say bubble up in my throat and nearly stick there; it's hard to breathe. "This isn't—I don't know who this is."

"It's you, Simon," says a voice that makes my heart spasm. I look up; Val is standing at the mouth of my bedroom, tears shimmering like jewels in her eyes, her hands clutched to her chest. Despite the tears, despite the faint tremor in her shoulders, I can't shake the fact that she looks...happy. "It's always just been you."

"Valerie..." I start, and my family parts like the Red Sea, letting her through as she approaches the bedside. "I'm s—"

She eases a knee down onto the bed, running a finger along my chin. A soft sob escapes her, but she stifles it with her other hand, shaking her head. "You have nothing to be sorry for," she assures. "Not a thing."

"But—" The questions are all clamming up inside of me. What does this mean for us, now? You don't know me anymore, do you? How can you love someone you don't know?

Val leans over me. The questions die, one by one, as she presses her lips to my temple, my nose, my eyelashes. She kisses my cheeks, which freckles no longer adorn, and each one of my ears. Finally, breathing shakily, she kisses my lips, slowly and gently. "You're you," she whispers to me, wiping tears from my face. I'm not sure whether they're hers or mine. "You're you, no matter what you look like. And I love you, no matter what you look like. I want you to know that this—this changes nothing."

I look at her, stunned. With new hands and new fingers and new nerves, I trace her face, over her brown and white skin and her dark eyebrows and the little patch of white in the eyelashes of her right eye. She closes her eyes and laughs, turning, kissing my palm. The body she knew, the body she learned with her own, is gone.

In a way, we're both starting over.

"Thank you," she exhales, resting her head on my chest. Over her head, I catch Noah's eye, and he's smiling. "Thank you for not leaving me, Simon St. John."

"Thank you," Abbie agrees, and both Val and I laugh as she joins the hug, burrowing her face into my side.

Noah shrugs and joins in, too, and then Mom, and Dad, and Rose, and soon we are all one massive huddle, Val and I at its center. I feel the pulses of my family all beating against me, syncing with each other, and I close my eyes. In one respect, I am so, so scared. I've spent so long being a shapeshifter, I don't know how to be normal. I've spent so long looking over my shoulder, hoping no one saw me, that I don't know how to look forward anymore. For that reason, I am terrified.

But with my family's arms around me, giggles rising as Abbie complains melodramatically that she's being crushed, the fear subsides for a second, and I can breathe again.

It feels like the first time I've breathed in years.

"So," Noah says once the huddle has disbanded, patting my hair. "I guess we're gonna have to find a new name for you."

"Huh?" I sputter. "Why?"

He smiles, shrugging. "I don't think Ginger Snap would be too accurate anymore."