and when we find out what's wrong with me, could you tell me how I'm right for you?

"I am going over to my friend's house," Augustus calls, kneeling down in the entryway to pull her shoes onto her feet as she says goodbye.

"Oh," Aurora says from the couch, looking up from her phone like she's surprised. Her new ear piercing glints a little in the light as she moves; Augustus can feel her own piercing very vaguely in her nose. She has been waiting since she got it to see if it'll start hurting, but it hasn't yet. She hadn't even really noticed when the very tall butch at the piercing place had put the needle through there.

("And, hold that breath," she'd said, and so Augustus had, and also did a pretty good job of not jumping when the woman had proceeded to sort of yank on her nose. "Alright, how're you feeling?" she'd asked next. Augustus had blinked, confused, and asked if she had done it already, trying to look down and figure out if she could see it for herself. Aurora had laughed lightly from the little stool where she was waiting her turn, and it was kind of nice to hear.)

"Really?" Aurora asks, her eyebrows furrowed in a Confused face, and Augustus falters a little, trying to figure out what the problem might be.

Aurora doesn't come home from college a lot, but she had decided she was visiting this time very suddenly, and shown up this morning. It had been a fun birthday surprise — they had gone with their dad to get dinner together, which had been nice. At some point, Augustus had mentioned how she has been wanting to get a piercing for a while but hasn't yet, and Aurora had said she'd also been wanting to get her ear pierced a second time, and then offered to drive them both to the tattoo place to get pierced together as a gift.

(Just the driving and the company was the gift part — Augustus had paid for the piercing herself. That was good, though, because now Augustus has her own reward punch card so if she goes back to get three more piercings, she will get the fifth one free. Just having Aurora there with her had been most of what Augustus had needed in the first place, too, so it was not underappreciated. Augustus can never figure out the right way to do things when she is by herself, and so Aurora had taken the lead so that Augustus could watch her and learn what to do. Now that she had gotten help the first time, it will be easier for Augustus to go by herself now, so she can go back and get her ears pierced without having to wait for someone to be willing to help her anymore.)

"Did, were we going to hang out more?" Augustus asks, confused. She hadn't really thought Aurora was coming just because it was Augustus' birthday, she'd kind of just thought it was coincidence because the washing machine in her dorm was getting fixed. The dinner and piercings had already been more hanging out than they usually do together these days, really.

"No," Aurora says. "It's just almost dark, isn't it? Are you okay to drive at night?"

Augustus sways in place a little, feeling a weird sort of bafflement in her stomach — hadn't she mentioned this at dinner earlier? "I don't, really," she admits. "The lights make it hard to see. But, I am spending the night, so I will not have to. I won't be driving home until the morning, so it will be fine."

She wants to think that maybe that will be it, but Aurora is still doing something with her face that makes Augustus think maybe there's more. "I will probably be back by lunch tomorrow, if you needed something," she tries to guess, sneaking a glance at the clock to check and see how much of her early head-start she has lost. Honestly, she would have thought that if Aurora wanted to tell or ask her something, she would have done it while they were at the piercing place — there had been a long wait, but Aurora had spent most of it quiet on her phone instead of talking to Augustus.

"No, you don't have to rush or anything," Aurora says quickly, eyes glancing around at the hallways like she is trying to find something. Augustus cannot think what it might be, but this seems like probably the end of the conversation — if Aurora does not need anything tomorrow, she probably doesn't need anything now — and so Augustus nods agreeably and picks up her bag again to go ahead and leave, when Aurora speaks up again to ask, "Does dad know?"

Augustus makes herself stop again, hand on the doorknob. "I told him a few days ago, I think," she says, a little confused. She would have sworn that she had mentioned it at dinner too, but she knows for sure that she had let him know about the plan as soon as she and Changeling had finalized it. She isn't sure where their dad is right now, exactly, but he is in the house somewhere, so even if he didn't hear Augustus just say she was leaving, then Aurora is still right there to tell him if she needs to. "If he asks, you can just tell him I'm at Spencer's house, I guess. I have my phone if you need me." Augustus tries to think if there's something she's missing, and can't come up with anything.

She shrugs. "Anyway, bye," she says, and then hurries up and just leaves before Aurora can say anything else. Perhaps it is rude, but if Augustus waits any longer, she will be late. If there really is something else that Aurora needs, then she probably would have already said it, and if she hadn't, then Augustus will just make sure she is keeping an eye on her phone to look out for any texts.

It's not until Augustus is already halfway to the Changeling's house that she realizes that Aurora asking if their dad knew was probably meant like she was asking if Augustus had permission to go.

Today is Augustus' 30th birthday.

The thought sours in her stomach a little, and she clenches her hands around the steering wheel to feel the texture strain against her skin, feeling small and annoyed. This has been happening more and more lately, Augustus feels, and she does not know what to make of it or what to do about it.

It's like this: Augustus does not know exactly when Aurora had stopped looking at her like she had when they were younger. When she stopped seeing Augustus like the older sibling, the way she should, because Augustus is the older sibling. Augustus is a whole twelve years older than Aurora. Some people talk to Augustus different after they find out that she is autistic, but Augustus has had her Autism diagnosis and been in special education classrooms and speech therapies for longer than Aurora has been alive. Aurora has never known Augustus any other way, and the whole time they were younger, Aurora had talked to her like she was older, because she was.

Then something happened, but Augustus doesn't know what. Suddenly, it was like Augustus went from being the one who made Aurora dinner after school when their dad was at work, and the one who did Aurora's hair in the morning after their mom moved out, and who gave up the TV so Aurora could watch what she wanted and helped fix Aurora's nightlight when the bulb burned out and looked for Aurora's toys every time they got lost to being something different.

Something less.

Augustus doesn't know where all the rest of it went. Where all the memories of that stuff hid to make Aurora think of Augustus like someone who can't take care of anything, or herself, or do anything right. Why Aurora went from arguing with their dad about the difference between how he spoke about Augustus and all the things he expected her to do, to seeming like she agrees with him about all the stuff Augustus can't do after all. It is getting more and more frustrating, the more it keeps happening, made worse for how Augustus cannot ever understand why it is happening. She can never find the words to speak about it, and even if she could, she worries she is not brave enough to even try.

(What had happened to change Aurora's mind? Was it before or after Aurora got too old to need Augustus to make her dinner and drive her everywhere? Was it because Augustus graduated high school, and listened and not really cared when all of the adults around her talked like they thought college just wasn't an option for her? Was it because the jobs Augustus always managed to get were kind of bad and didn't pay her very well? Did it happen because Augustus had never moved out of their dad's house, partly because she couldn't afford to, and part because she wasn't so sure she could? Was it when Aurora's friends in high school started coming over and saw that Augustus was still home like she always had been, instead of gone somewhere else like their older siblings were? Was it before or after Augustus had come out to her? Did it happen before or after Aurora left for college and found it was easy for her to do? Is it because Augustus does still need help with things that Aurora can do by herself? Had Augustus done something wrong? Was she something embarrassing after all? The only thing that could be worse than the wondering is the knowing that the answer is Yes, and so Augustus never asks.)

(At least when their dad treats Augustus like a child, she can argue with herself that technically, no matter how old she gets, she will always be his child, and maybe that's why they get stuck at this impasse. But what is the argument that Aurora is supposed to have? Augustus has always been the older sister.)

Augustus parks on the curb in front of the Changeling's house and shakes all of the thoughts off as violently as she can, and then carefully fixes her glasses and her hair after. She doesn't have to think about it anymore, and she doesn't want to anyway, so she just doesn't. Tomorrow, Aurora will go back to college and never call to talk to Augustus, and so as long as Augustus doesn't think about it, it will be much easier to forget that it hurts. Tonight, it is Augustus' birthday, and she is going to have a good time hanging out and having fun with her best friend, and there is nothing anything can do to change that. She nods to herself and gets her bag, makes sure that her car doors are locked, and then goes to knock on Changeling's door. There is a spider in the corner of the porch building itself a web; Augustus watches it work until Changeling opens the door.

"Hi!" she chirps, finding it a little easier to not feel sad just at the sight of it.

"What is in your nose?" Changeling asks back.

"I got it pierced! It's cool," Augustus tells it happily. "I'm not allowed to touch it yet, and I can't take it out for at least six weeks or it will begin to close. My sister came with me for my birthday, and so now that I know how to do it right, I can go back and get my ears pierced once this one heals." She steps past it into the house, and then bends down so that Changeling can lean in and get a better look at the new little hoop in her septum. "It was cool. They were playing metal on the speakers, but I didn't hear any of the bands you like. The form let you pick pronouns, and my dad didn't come with us so I put my real ones, and they actually used them! The butch who did the piercing was even taller than me. It was a good birthday."

She finishes talking and stands back up straight so that she can kick off her shoes and put her bag down by the little table Mrs. Mendez has in the entryway for stuff. Usually, she'd put her bag in Changeling's room, because that is where they would be hanging out, but tonight their plan is to watch the TV in the living room, so leaving it here is better in that case. This way, it is out of the way so no one will trip, but also close enough that it will not be a pain to reach if Augustus needs something from it before they go to bed.

"Did it hurt?" Changeling asks, holding itself very stiffly as it follows a half-step behind Augustus to go on to sit at the couch.

"No! I was worried it might, because I have never done it before, but I didn't even realize she did it at first. I can kind of feel it now? But it is, more in a way of just being aware of it; I still don't think it actually hurts any. Did yours hurt?"

Changeling shrugs as it sits down next to her. It does not sit facing the TV, but sideways so that it is facing Augustus, so Augustus twists herself around to mirror and face it too. She gives a curious little wiggle when she sees that it has something in its hands she hadn't noticed before, but Changeling keeps talking before she can find the question to ask about it. "I do not remember," it tells her. "My mom took me when I was a baby."

"Oh, that's right," Augustus says, nodding. "My mom did that when Aurora was little, too. Not me, I guess because they didn't know I would grow up to be a girl," she adds, a little sad. "But I got a punch card at the pierce place, so I can get them soon." She is still trying to decide if she will want to get both ears pierced, or just her right one, so that is why she had decided to get her nose pierced first today. "What's that?"

The Changeling tightens its grip, and the thing makes a crinkly paper noise under its fingers. "It is your birthday gift," it says, glancing away off to the side.

Augustus sits up a little straighter. "No way?" she says. She had thought that the plan for the night was her gift already.

It's like this: Augustus does not really like to watch movies — they are long, and she usually gets distracted, and when she is watching she can never figure out when is a good place to take a break, so that makes her get distracted wondering about when would be a good place to take a break, until she eventually gets so distracted that she just goes ahead and takes one anyway and then forgets she was in the middle of something and only really realizes she never finished the movie until like a week later.

Augustus has always wanted to like scary movies, though. She has tried to watch them by herself, and could not get into it the right way on her own, and her dad will not try to watch movies with her anymore because he is fed up with how Augustus wanders off and then comes back to ask questions, so she mostly knows about them, but hasn't watched them for herself.

When she had told this to the Changeling, it had said that it would do a movie night for her where it would stop all the movies at all the best times it knows, so that Augustus could pretend they were TV show commercial breaks, and that way she could get her wandering distractions out without missing parts of the movie. It said it would also explain all of the details Augustus forgot or didn't understand, because it loves to talk about scary movies, so it could pause when Augustus had questions without being annoyed like other people get. All so that Augustus could finally watch scary movies for herself (the best ones, it had assured her, because it knows all of the classics and the best Hidden Gems), instead of only hearing about them secondhand.

It was already one of the best gifts Augustus could ever think of. She hadn't thought there would be more.

"Do not get your hopes up," Changeling instructs unnecessarily. "There is only one."

Augustus squeals out an excited noise as it leans forward to hand the gift to her. It is a very clumsily taped together crumpled up ball of paper, because the Changeling cannot wrap gifts for shit. Augustus doesn't mind it one bit — Changeling could tell her that the paper ball itself was the present, like how people give cats trash to play with like toys, and Augustus would be happy and excited for it, just because it would be something Changeling had gotten for her.

There is something in the middle of the paper, though — Augustus can feel it, a little rigid and heavy on her palm. She picks at the tape until she can peel the whole thing open like an egg, and the little dense thing slips out and into her lap before she can catch it. It takes her a second to find it again, and then once she does and can finally see what it is, she almost feels like she is going to cry.

It is a new carabiner. Augustus holds it in her hand, while her other smacks the heel of her palm against her leg to get out the excitement before something bursts out of her chest. The carabiner is a little bigger than her usual one, and is an entirely new shape and color. The emotions jumble up, huge and yawning, in her chest and stomach until they are almost overwhelming.

Augustus' usual carabiner is shaped like a little black heart. She had wanted to get a pink one, but it was one of the first things she had bought "as a girl" when she was a teenager, and even the black color had made her hands shake from the nerves of it. It's very old by now, because she has had it for so long, and the little hinge is kind of loose and some of the color has chipped off. She has wondered about replacing it before, but could never figure out if she was any braver than she had been as a teenager, and it was easier to just keep using the same one for forever.

The one that Changeling got for her is brand new, and the hinge works perfect, so Augustus will not have to worry about keys one day slipping off if she moves the wrong way anymore. It is a little bigger than her old one, so she can put even more keys and key-chains on it if she wants to. It is shaped like a little bone, and it is the color pink — bright and perfect and everything Augustus has always wanted.

She moans out an inarticulate excited noise, swiping at her eyes when a few tears slip out. Had she said something about it one day? Or had the Changeling just known? The thought of either one makes Augustus' chest feel very hot and full and tight. There is an impulse to slam her head into the Changeling's shoulder, but it would not be a very good Thank You because the Changeling does not like to be touched, so Augustus curbs the desire by hopping clumsily in place until it fades. Then she paws excitedly at the old carabiner on her belt loop to get it off, and immediately starts picking keys and key-chains off of it so that she can move them straight over to the new one.

"I love it!" she manages to exclaim finally, thrashing a little more and accidentally dropping the ring with her Sonic key-chain and little mini-library card on it.

Changeling bends to pick it up and give it back to her before Augustus can coordinate her too-stiff limbs to do it herself. "I am glad," it says, and she can tell that it is because of how fixedly it is watching all her keys find their new places on the bone clip as Augustus moves them all over.

For a moment, Augustus considers putting the old carabiner onto the new one, where it could sit and just be an accessory, and then she gets a much better idea instead. She stands up, and puts the new carabiner on her belt loop and squeals delightedly at the sight of it. All of Augustus' clothes are either very dark or very faded, and the bright pink metal looks so pretty and stark in contrast against it all — it is perfect. She jumps up again, and listens to all the rattle and clank of her keys and key-rings as she mess of it smacks against her thigh.

Then she stoops down and clips her old carabiner right on the open belt loop of the Changeling's cargo shorts.

"There!" she says happily. "Now we match!"

It is not a visual matching, perhaps, but it is a conceptual one. The black looks very good against the beige of Changeling's shorts, and it used to be Augustus', but more importantly, it is a shape Augustus picked out. This is what makes it a perfect match to how the Changeling had picked her out a new one. Augustus does not know if she would have been brave enough to pick a pink color for herself, and she does not know if she would have picked a dog bone shape, but the fact that Changeling had chosen it makes it the most perfect thing in the world. It is a very Changeling shape to pick, and Augustus will think of her friend every time she sees the carabiner from now until forever because of that, and she can't think of anything better.

(It's like this: Augustus has never once in their whole friendship ever had to wonder whether Changeling thought she was weird, or bad, or embarrassing. Augustus never feels worried that she is missing pieces when she is with the Changeling, because the Changeling always sees her, and it has never acted like it is disappointed in what it sees, and Augustus does not have the words to express how much that makes her feel. She only knows how big she wants.)

"It- One does not typically give return gifts on one's birthday," Changeling says stiffly, staring fixedly at the little heart resting against its thigh. Augustus can tell that it is pleased anyway for how it sways — she can picture its tail wagging furiously in her head perfectly. It is also blushing so fiercely that for a moment, Augustus almost gives in to her impulse to kiss it right on the cheek and feel the heat for herself.

She redirects her energy into throwing herself back down on the couch instead, listening happily to the clatter of her keys, which sounds better to her than it ever has before. Augustus almost does not want to stop looking at the shape of it for even a second, but she shifts her gaze anyway, tilting her head back towards the Changeling and grinning at it as big as she can. "Thank you, Changeling. It is perfect."

(She does not have the words for her wanting. Augustus wants to never leave the Changeling's side again for a second. She wants them to be best friends for the entire rest of their lives. She wants to wrap it up in the tightest hug she can manage and never have to let go. She wants the Changeling to lean in and bite her hard enough to leave a mark that won't ever fade, and she wants to actually feel the pain of it. Augustus wants.)

The Changeling hooks its fingers into the V of the little black heart on its belt loop, like it wants to feel the pull of it there, and does not look up from the sight of it. "You are welcome," it says softly, and Augustus' heart feels so full she could burst from it.

Augustus thinks about asking if they will start the movies soon, but she hooks her fingers into the corner of the little pink bone and holds her tongue. She wants to feel the moment of this last for as long as it can.