There it was. The biggest weight in my life, the anvil that had fallen out of the sky four months ago to land on me like a cartoon coyote, dropped at this total stranger’s feet. It felt … good. To just say it out loud, without consequence. One hour with Damien and I knew he wasn’t the type of guy to say, “Oh god, I’m so sorry, do you want to talk about it?” He wasn’t going to pry, he wasn’t going to give me pity. I could just say it and have it out there, in the open, without having to pick it back up again.

“Sick how?” Damien asked and I felt relief flood my body. A simple, direct question, one asked without sad eyes staring at me.

“He’s got Alzheimer’s,” I said, my throat desperately wanting to close around the word. “But that’s what the AM said and if they can’t be trusted … well, how do I know that they’re telling the truth?”

“Look, I’m the last person to defend them,” he said, “but why would they lie about that? Your dad’s a telekinetic, right?”

I nodded.

“Right, so those are a dime a dozen,” he continued. “Me, I’m unique, that’s why they want to fuck with me. But your dad … they’re not gonna bend over backward to experiment on a telekinetic.”

“But what if they’re just wrong?” I asked. “What if they were trying their best or whatever, but they didn’t really take his power into consideration? Like, they said it might make things worse, but if that’s true … I mean, if they took away your ability, maybe they can take away his too. Make him better.”

“Yeah, maybe…” Damien said skeptically. “But would that be worth it? To give up his power?”

“Of course,” I said. “Being alive is better than being telekinetic.”

“I thought you could live a while with Alzheimer’s,” he said.

“Sure, yeah, you can,” I said, “but ten years still isn’t enough. And my parents aren’t even sure that’s how much time he has. The AM themselves said that they don’t know for certain how or if his ability is going to affect things. I mean, it’s a human disease and we’re—”

“Not human?”

That hung in the air between us, so stark and heavy that it felt like I was in the dreamworld, like I could feel the words “not human” as a physical thing between us.

“No, I mean of course we’re human,” I rushed to say. “But we’re unique. I mean, all humans are unique, but Atypicals even more so and there’s stuff—I mean, you’ve said it yourself, everyone at the AM has said it—there’s stuff we don’t know—”