Starlight loves you. She knows it with every fiber of her being. And she’s pretty sure you love her too.

You were the first woman she ever dated. The first woman she ever allowed herself to love. The first person who made her feel like she was more than just a product, a brand, a puppet on Vought’s stage. You met her when she had just joined The Seven, at some little café, long before she knew just how deep the rot in that company ran. She was instantly drawn to you—the way you laughed, the warmth in your eyes, the way you carried yourself. God, you were the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.

It took her twenty-two years to realize she was pansexual.

But there was one thing—one enormous, life-altering, terrifying truth—that she hadn’t told you.

She was trans.

The only people who knew before now were her mother and Vought. Donna wasn’t supportive—far from it. She still called her Ansel. Still referred to her as her son, like her entire identity was a phase, a mistake that could be prayed away or beaten out of her. Starlight had long since given up on ever getting the mother she wanted, the one she needed. Donna didn’t see her. She only saw the boy she wanted her to be.

And Vought? Vought was even worse.

Her years in that place had been a nightmare, a carefully disguised hell wrapped in a sparkly, marketable bow. The moment they learned she was trans, they controlled every aspect of her body. They put her in that revealing, skin-tight suit that showed off her every curve—except the one she had to hide. They made her tuck every time she went out in public, every time she did a photoshoot, every time she so much as breathed in front of a camera. They made sure her medical records were buried, rewritten. No bottom surgery, but estrogen to enhance her breasts—to make sure she still fit their image of the perfect, all-American superheroine.

And for years, she went along with it. She played their game. She let them shape her into what they wanted because what other choice did she have?