“Rosie,” he started, and I tensed, wondering what he’d heard. He was squinting, like something was hurting his eyes—I didn’t know what that meant, but I really did not want his pity or a placating speech about how it’s okay to be normal, so I pulled the emergency switch.

I started to think about kissing mysterious urgent care girl.

“Aw, come on, Rosie!” He flinched back, shaking his head like he could shake the thoughts out. “Blech.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you hear something?” I asked innocently.

“No, I didn’t,” he insisted. “You know I’m actually pretty good at the whole ‘controlling my ability’ thing. All I know is that you were thinking thoughts I don’t want to hear or see.”

“Aha! So you were listening,” I said.

“It’s hard to avoid seeing the beginnings of the tracks,” he explained and I rolled my eyes, having heard this lecture before. “But that’s all they are—the start of a train of thought. I don’t actually know the contents of the thought. Just the … brand.”

“So, when I’m thinking about making out with a cute girl…”

Aaron made a throwing-up noise.

“It’s just a big neon sign saying ‘Sexy Thoughts, Stay Out’?”

“Kind of,” he said, wincing. “And then the whole system automatically shuts down.”

“Like how you cover your eyes and scream like a little kid whenever a snake shows up in a movie?” I teased. Aaron glared.

It worked every time. And thank god I figured out a method of getting Aaron out of my head. Things had been okay for the past year, but in those early days, when he couldn’t help it, I always worried he would say all the brutally honest things I think about myself, about our family, out loud and destroy the peaceful balance I had created.

“For the record,” he went on, “I wasn’t listening to you before. I don’t know what you thought I was going to say, but I was just gonna point out that it’s weird. Seeing you do something day after day that isn’t cooking.”

“What?” I asked, trying to catch up.

“Come on, Rosie,” he said, gesturing at my journal. “You’re not exactly the ‘commit to a hobby’ type.”

Another wince, except this time it was me. He pulled his arms back, leaning back in the chair and gazing down his nose at me. As if putting some degree of physical distance between us could fix the fact that he knew he was hurting me.

“I commit to things,” I said, fiddling with the edge of my notebook.

“Like what?”

“Cooking.” I barely resisted the urge to stick out my tongue at him.

“Besides cooking.”