Chapter Text
Megan is very good at being normal.
She has to be.
Normal means smiling at the right moments, laughing when Dani elbows her too hard, pretending her knees don’t ache after rehearsals. Normal means bruises explained away as clumsiness. Normal means sleeping lightly and waking lighter.
Normal means never letting anyone notice that she showers longer on certain weeks. That she tapes her fingers at night sometimes, even when they aren’t injured. That she keeps her bedroom window blacked out like a vampire joke that stopped being funny years ago.
Normal means planning.
She memorizes lunar calendars like other people memorize tour dates. She schedules exhaustion ahead of time. She knows exactly how much caffeine she can drink before her hands shake too much, how little she can eat without anyone commenting.
When Lara asks, once, gently, “Do you ever actually rest?” Megan laughs and says, “What do you think sleep is?”
When Sophia notices the scars — thin, silvery lines along Megan’s ribs — Megan shrugs.
“Growth spurts,” she says. “I was a weird kid.”
It’s easier if they think she’s fragile.
It’s easier if they don’t know she’s dangerous.
The wolf doesn’t come every month anymore. Not like it used to. That’s the lie she tells herself most often. It helps her sleep.
But even when it doesn’t surface, it moves.
It presses against her from the inside, like a second heartbeat. A shadow that follows her through mirrors. A presence that sharpens her teeth when she’s angry and makes her skin crawl when the night gets too bright.
Megan has learned to live with it.