Page 16 of Hot Girls Date Shifters

I smile to myself.

Growth comes in funny forms.

The narrow trail curves gently beneath the trees, moonlight spilling through the branches overhead in silver ribbons.

Tonight, the full moon hangs low and enormous above the forest canopy.

It's surrounded by the prettiest golden-orange halo.

Almost...

Magical.

I laugh quietly.

“There you go again.”

Talking to the moon.

Thirty-four years old and still romanticizing the universe.

My mother would roll her eyes.

My old coworkers would've called me naïve.

Maybe I am.

Maybe I should know better by now.

Maybe after enough bad dates...

Enough almost relationships...

Enough men telling me how “great” I was before choosing someone thinner, younger, or easier...

Maybe I should've stopped believing in fairy tales.

Instead, I quit my job and opened an occult bookstore.

Go figure.

I shake my head, smiling.

“I really am ridiculous.”

But I'd rather be ridiculous than become one of the women I used to work beside.

Women who'd stopped dreaming years before retirement.

Who measured their lives in quarterly reports and PTO requests.

Who talked about vacations they'd never actually take.

Who sighed every Monday morning like happiness was something that happened to other people.

That terrified me.

Not getting older.