[ The issue is, hiding it, hiding it makes it feel shameful, makes it seem like all those lame Lifetime movies her mother used to watch. It was hot, at first, the whole forbidden thing, the whole sneaking around thing but then it became tedious and exhausting when all she wanted to be was normal.

She doesn't say that now because if anyone understands what it's like to be different, he would. ] You already are what I want you to be. [ Her voice is soft and she doesn't look at him then, feeling insecure for not being as confident as he seems to be about... everything. ] My whole life has been a freak show, Z. That's why I try to cling to being normal. Like... this whole heat thing, it isn't normal. It's scary. I don't like the way I feel when it happens.