“And thank goodness for that,” she said, smiling and then kissing me lightly on the cheek. I blushed and did my best to keep myself focused on the task at hand.

“Right.” I chuckled. “This is kind of like that. It’s a small portion but—”

“An awesome one?” she teased.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding enthusiastically, relieved she was on board so far.

“Okay, so what are Atypicals?” she said.

“People with supernatural abilities,” I said, diving straight in.

“What?” She laughed.

“Atypicals are people with supernatural abilities,” I said. “Like telepathy and pyrokinesis and super speed. And I’m one of them. My whole family is Atypical, actually.”

She went still for a second, face scrunched up, before bursting into laughter.

“Rose, what are you talking about?” she said, still smiling.

“I’m a dreamdiver,” I explained. “And Aaron can read minds, my dad is telekinetic—” I tripped over the word but kept going. “—and my mom is psychic. It’s not as accurate as you might think though—she gets these random visions but she still has to figure out what they mean. All our abilities come with, like, major terms and conditions.”

“Rose…” Emily wasn’t laughing anymore, her smile rapidly collapsing.

“I’ve never told anyone that before.” I exhaled a huge sigh of relief, wrapping my arms tightly around Emily, so full of warmth and joy in that moment I barely knew what to do with it.

That didn’t last long.

Emily’s hands wrapped around my upper arms as she gently pushed me away, to look me in the eyes with a face lined with worry.

“Rose, what are you talking about?” she asked. “Are you … are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m—” I leaned back to get a better look at her. Her eyebrows were tipped toward each other in a stressed V-shape, her eyes darting frantically around my face, like she was trying to take in an image she didn’t understand.

“I’m fine, Em,” I insisted. “I’m—I’m great, actually. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long—”

Suddenly, she was standing up, out of bed and putting on her clothes faster than I could blink, talking rapidly the whole time.

“Rose, I don’t know what kind of weird prank you’re pulling on me,” she said, her cheeks growing red, “but you know how I feel about jokes meant to make other people feel stupid.”

“Emily, I promise you, I’m not pulling a prank,” I said as I followed suit, not because I necessarily wanted to get out of bed but because it felt weird to stay while she was clearly having a hard time processing this stuff.

“So you mean to tell me that there are, what, superhumans and no one knows about them?” she said, growing louder as she paced around her small dorm room. “How is that even possible?”