Maybe I’m just a collection of other people’s mannerisms stitched together with guilt and good intentions.
But then I’ll catch my reflection in a dark window—just a flash, just a glimpse—and I’ll see the silver in my fur, the tiredness behind my eyes, the way my tail droops when I think no one is looking. And I’ll think: that’s real. That exhaustion is real. That loneliness is real. That’s mine. sapphire foxx from her perspective
My first real job wasn’t for money. It was for love, which is the most expensive currency there is. Maybe I’m just a collection of other people’s
Let me tell you about the fun.
I was nineteen. Fresh out of a foster system that never quite knew what to do with a girl who could change her fingerprints on a whim. I’d been hiding my ability for years—flattening my ears under hats, keeping my tail tucked into oversized sweaters, lying about the weird blue birthmark that “faded” whenever I got nervous. But then I met Elias. Sweet, oblivious Elias, who saw me in a coffee shop and smiled like I was normal. That exhaustion is real
So I did. I found an old photograph, studied the way she held her teacup, the little wheeze in her laugh, the specific way she said “Eli, my love.” I shifted. It took everything I had—the bones reshaping, the voice dropping into that warm gravel, the skin wrinkling around my eyes. And when I walked into his apartment, wearing his grandmother’s face like a second layer of skin, he wept.
I can’t always tell anymore.