"What?" Julianna stared at Beth with stunned astonishment.

"That bracelet helps me transform," Beth spoke her words very slowly, hoping that Julianna could at least get her message once again. "But it can also make scary imagery come alive. However, I have yet to learn to control my magic, and I am afraid that the bracelet will reflect random imagery during the runway show and attack people! I mean, Paige and Jade. They are mean, they always try to outdo us, but they are people as well. I can't just stay and let that stuff attack them if that's what happens. And Simone. Somehow, I feel she might not be bad."

"Beth, I appreciate your consideration, but I still don't know if those magical things that you are experiencing are true. I can't see a logical explanation for this. We have worked hard on the project, but it was a stressful time for both of us. Maybe you started overthinking and mentally overworking. Let's just concentrate on the runway show for now."

Beth's heart sank to her stomach immediately.

Now Beth was at a loss for what to do. Tangled thoughts flooded her mind immediately. She knew deep down that it was hard to let people who had never shared her experience believe in her, and Julianna didn't mean to dismiss her words. Yet she couldn't help but feel somewhat lonely as if all her colorful senses and memories had been trapped in a muted body, disconnected from everyone outside.

There was a small voice inside of her.

Throughout my life, I have been told that I was wrong, that my true feelings were all "just a phase."

"Magic is just stressed people seeing things." Why do you all keep telling me this when none of you had seen what I experienced? I transformed into a white dress with ribbons. Those materials I got come from that magic. The color-blob monsters almost swallowed me. I have felt everything. I only wanted that Paige and Jade to not get hurt.

It's like I am merely speaking towards a wall when I am pouring my heart out.

"What's wrong? If I see the magic one day, then I will recognize its existence. Let's just leave together as usual now." Julianna's speech dragged her into reality.

Maybe it was for the better that Beth took a rest from all those turmoils for now. Maybe what she needed was to pretend nothing had happened, so that her magic may fade away naturally. Despite these, Beth felt wrong settling the debate about the existence of teenage magic on the back burner. Several people in her life had talked about the existence of magic. Naturally, there should be more people who have a similar experience, right?

It suddenly occurred to her that she could simply go online to look for like-minded magical peers.

✨

Quickly unlocking her phone, Beth tapped on the Safari icon on her phone and typed 'magical people' 'Laurel' and 'rumor' in the search engine.

Several pages of results showed up. Magical teenager Support Group. Debunking the Magical Teenager Myth. College-bound High School Students Reporting Seeing Weird Colors as College Season Approaches.

Beth tapped on the support group site, hoping to simply find some information about the magic by scanning everyone's discussions on the forum. However, when the webpage loaded, what she saw greatly exceeded her expectation.

The support group site was a bizarre yet colorful rabbit hole. Not only were there quite a few people online, but those people also set up a trend of showcasing their outfits during transformation. Some wore suits, some wore skirts, and some others had overalls and a cap. Among all those people posting in the forum, their backgrounds also varied — philosophy student struggling to find the meaning of life, high school freshman recovering from the rejection of a crush, middle school girl who lost a cherished set of butterfly specimens. The reason each person got magic was so individualized that it became hard to conclude what magic is, and why it happened. Despite that, most of the posts created by these people detailing their magic journey indicated that they were yearning for something fundamental to their selfhood, which couldn't yet be found in their daily lives.

The philosophy student may be seeking a reason to live, the high school student was looking for unconditional love. Beth thought. I want to go to Lisette and become a fashion designer. But it shouldn't be as simple as that, right?

"I am the Marie-Lisette student with several distinguished literary awards who dropped out to take gap years and volunteer for children. AMA."

A thread with a thousand upvotes, posted by user 'AmaBirdie', came on top of Beth's feed. Isn't Marie-Lisette that elite high school Jules didn't like about?

She opened up the thread. A long paragraph captured her attention.

'For those of you who don't know me, my name is Amanda, and I was a former Marie-Lisette student who would like to consider herself good at school. During my free time, I wrote for Black Andromeda, a bi-weekly literary magazine nicknamed 'the cradle of rising stars in literature'. You may say that I am privileged to be endowed with so many gifts. Well, many of my former classmates looked up to me, saying that I shall one day walk among the greatest minds in history. They were wrong. All the internal stress I've been feeling eventually burnt me alive. I attached myself too quickly to things and people, yet often felt lonely and abandoned.

That was when my magic came to me, a magic could channel my many nuances of emotions into words, symbols, and paragraphs. As expected, I became addicted to it. Every day I used it to express what I felt today on paper. When my magic was working well, I felt myself flying to the very top of the mountain and diving into the very deep of the ocean. With my words happiness became ecstasy, and sadness became despair. A friend was like a lover, a lover was like a god. However, my monsters appeared in the meantime when my heightened emotions manifested in my daily life. In a happy, restless person I only saw an inner sense of emptiness. In an innocent soul, I only saw their ignorance about the world. My monsters made my words manic and my writings not distinguishable anymore. That was when I stopped going to high school.

A lot of you here assumed that I died or disappeared after my magic went awry since I didn't appear on the forum for a whole year. Well, after I first left high school, I was indeed admitted to a hospital, and almost injured myself badly several times. Fortunately, one of the doctors saved me and gradually helped me get rid of my magic. For the whole year, I was not here, I spent time at home and in nature a lot, away from the stress and intensity of crowds. I wrote less frequently for Black Andromeda, only when I had something I really felt conveying. Now I'm volunteering for children. Over time, my magic disappeared naturally, thanks to myself feeling fulfilled in simple, mundane details of life again.

Next year, when everything's well I plan on transferring to another high school to start again. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me!'

Under the thread, a comment was upvoted to the top, posted by user 'CyborgEatsMyApples'.

'Congrats on being free of magic! What part of you does your former magic represent? What's the reason you had heightened emotions as your magic?'

Ah! That's such a brash, personal question! Beth exclaimed. 'AmaBirdie', however, didn't seem to be bothered by it.

'When I was still a child, I could sense the change in people's emotions and environments very quickly. Everything, even inanimate ones, had feelings of joy and pain for me. My parents told me that while I cried a lot and became startled easily, I was also one of the most easygoing and sweet kids around. The very first time I held a dying animal in my arms, I couldn't shake off the feeling of sadness when I was awake alone in the night for a week. People said that I am someone who can be a little intense but will go to great lengths to care about you if you mattered.

There were many unique things that I experienced. Moving home and starting an unfamiliar life, becoming best friends with someone, having my first crush...though many of the details faded away, the lingering melt pot of feelings remained.

My parents called it a gift that will accompany me for a lifetime. Now I finally came to understand their words. My magic was derived from my gift, which is more of a gift in disguise at first for me. Thanks to my magic, I've got to know you, my lifelong friends I will always love.'

With her tender words, 'AmaBirdie' opened up about her magical journey. There was no shame in the words she wrote when she looked back on her flawed past. When 'AmaBirdie' talked about her magic disappearing as her ultimate recovery, Beth instantly thought about Bianca. Reading Bianca's portfolio made her feel as if Bianca had come close to her, despite not meeting her actually in real life. Since she is in college now, did her magic go away as well?

On the tap screen, Beth quickly typed a message for 'AmaBirdie'. Within two minutes, she received a notification.

'Do we all need to get rid of our magic one day? Sorry I am a newcomer so I am not sure how magic works for now.'

'When we beat our emotional monsters, our magic goes away as the monsters perish.

As for me, I placed a lot of internal pressure on myself to understand things deeply and do well in everything I'm interested in. As a result, I was constantly burning out from my emotions. While they are important to me, I've found a better way to express them without having me push myself to extreme limits. Just like that, everything became fine again. To let my magic go, I simply think you need to understand what caused it to happen in the first place.'