“I can see the person in front of me and if I focus, I can see their aura. The average person’s aura is beige, neutral. There are people with different colors all the time—you are not beige. All auras become a deeper and brighter pink the closer a person is to death. The other commonality is sickness, it’s gray spots. I look at that woman over there”—he pointed—“and see her seasonal allergies. Ragweed. There’s a small area over her sinuses. If I went into a hospital, I could tell you where someone’s cancer is, whether someone was truly physically ill or if their symptoms were mental.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re anxious and depressed. There’s also something around your eyes I’ve never seen before. Blue and death-pink.”

Eyes back on the table, down to her brown loafers, on her feet crossing and uncrossing below the table. She had completely forgotten what Professor Collins wanted her to get from this. Ayanna decided that if the professor didn’t like the interview, she would just quit. It was fine. Everything felt wrong.

“Where do you think the doors went?” she asked. “Why have they been gone for so long?”

Matthias reached for her, quick. Ayanna backed away, almost tipping her seat into the woman behind her.

“I asked you not to touch me.”

“It will give you peace.”

Ayanna picked up her bag, didn’t risk reaching for her napkin or cup.

“For special cases,”—Matthias stood up and wiped some crumbs off his pants—“I do this for free.”

She walked away, could feel him behind her, close at her heels. Ayanna assumed he wouldn’t reach for her in front of all these people. She was torn between making a scene and feeling the mix of uncertainty and fear thumping in her chest. Matthias was well-dressed, he clearly had money, and she might only be seen as a Black body having a mental health crisis in a cute coffee shop that people loved to take pictures of maple lattes in. The pleasure of going to aesthetic places and being briefly ensconced in a world of good lighting, beautiful wood, and food better looking than most of the faces around you. The danger of being out in the world and seeing the faces swivel toward you over and over and trying to determine why you would even think you belong in a place as lovely as this. So, instead, she walked a little faster, dodged all the people waiting for their eight-step drinks, did not notice when one of the baristas waved at her—a girl from the soccer team—and did not pay attention when opening the doors.