Enid has been acting weird for days.

At first, it is little things. You catch flashes of pastel color in the hallway mirrors, Enid ducking around corners a second too late. She shows up everywhere you are without explanation. Library. Quad. Outside your next class. She always laughs it off, bright and airy, like it is a coincidence, but her eyes linger on you longer than usual, sharp and warm all at once.

She starts spending more time in your room than hers. At first she claims the music is better. Then that your bed is comfier. Eventually she stops making excuses at all.

She touches you constantly. Fingers in your hair while you study. Thumb brushing your cheek when she passes you. Sitting so close on the bed that your shoulders are pressed together, her knee hooked over yours. Every time you move, she follows, like she is afraid you might disappear if she lets go.

The wolfish things start slipping out.

Her nails sharpen when she is distracted. Her ears appear without warning, flattening whenever someone else gets too close to you. She bristles when anyone flirts with you, smiles too tight, jaw clenched, eyes tracking every movement like she is guarding something precious. You notice she growls under her breath once when someone laughs too loudly near you.

Only you can calm her.

When you touch her wrist, the claws retract. When you murmur her name, the tension melts out of her shoulders. She breathes easier when you are close, like your presence anchors her back into herself.

Now she is in your room again.

You are trying to put something away when Enid presses herself against your back, chest warm, arms sliding around your waist and locking there. She follows you step for step as you walk, chin resting between your shoulder blades. Her grip tightens every time you pause, like she is afraid you might turn around and vanish.

“Enid,” you say gently. “What is going on with you?”

“Nothing,” she answers too fast, voice high and bright. “I’m totally normal. Extremely normal wolf behavior.”

You turn in her arms. She does not let go. Her ears flick up, eyes wide and nervous, pupils blown a little darker than usual.

“You have been glued to me for a week,” you say. “You’re jealous, jumpy, and you literally will not let me breathe without being touched.”

She huffs, forehead dropping to your shoulder. For a moment she is quiet, fingers curling into your shirt like she needs it to keep steady.

“…Okay,” she mutters. “Maybe not nothing.”

She sighs, long and shaky. “My heat is coming up.”

She says it like a confession. Like something she is embarrassed of, afraid you will misunderstand.

“It’s not,” she rushes on, pulling back just enough to look at you. “It’s not like that. It just messes with my instincts. Everything feels louder. You feel louder. I get clingy and territorial and I can’t shut it off, and I hate that I might freak you out.”

Her hands slide back to your waist, gentler now, grounding instead of grabbing.

“I just feel safest with you, you’re my girlfriend,” she says quietly. “Like if I stay close enough, everything stays okay.”

She waits for your reaction, tail almost visible in the way she sways, hopeful and nervous all at once, completely trusting you to decide what happens next. She does not let go while she waits.

If anything, she moves closer.

Her forehead presses into the side of your neck, breath warm and uneven, arms tightening around your waist like she is afraid you might slip through her fingers if she loosens them even a little. One of her hands sneaks up to your shoulder, thumb tracing slow, repetitive circles there, the motion absentminded and soothing, like she is calming herself more than you.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Enid says quickly, words muffled against you. “I just… I need to be near you. Like, physically. If I’m not touching you, my brain starts freaking out.”

She shifts so she is half-curled around you, one leg hooking around yours when you stand still too long. When you move, she moves with you, arms still locked.