I slept from about eight thirty last night until eleven this morning, with that small break in the middle of the night when I woke up from Aaron’s dream, and for the first time in a long time, I actually woke up kind of groggy. I guess my body had become unused to sleeping for fifteen hours in the past two months. I was also hungry as hell, so my first stop was the kitchen, where I found Aaron on his laptop, typing frantically.

“Nice of you to show your face, Rosie,” he said, not looking up from his computer.

“What are you doing down here?” I asked. Aaron normally worked on his desktop in his room. Something about RAM and gigabytes and blah blah blah. My computer was for memes, YouTube cooking videos, and Serious Eats.

“My computer’s on the fritz, I’m picking up a part later today—I can drop you at work if you want,” he added, looking up at me while holding the coffeepot, which I was sad to discover was empty.

“All the coffee’s gone,” he said.

“Yeah, thanks, that’s really helpful,” I said, going into the fridge for some juice instead.

“So … ride?” he asked, tapping away.

“Um, yeah, thanks,” I said. “My shift doesn’t start until four though.”

“That’s okay, the store is open until six.”

I just nodded as I poured myself some OJ. Suddenly the typing stopped and I looked up to see Aaron staring at me intensely.

“What,” I snapped.

“You were in my dream last night, weren’t you?” he asked, like it had just occurred to him. Maybe it had.

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb, Rosie, you’re bad at it,” he said, snapping his laptop shut.

“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes, even if there was a little part of me that was actually complimented by that weird backward insult.

“I thought we talked about this.” He sighed, sounding WAY too much like our dad in that moment.

“Look, can we just … not? Today? Please?” I tried to make it sound casual, like I was just over everything, totally cool and aloof, but my voice cracked on the last word and Aaron stood up, coming to stand on the other side of the kitchen counter from me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning on the island to look right at me.

“What, you’ve decided you’re gonna be an older brother today?”

“Damn, Rose,” he said, leaning back. And yeah, that was harsh. Boy, do I wish it was the worst thing I had said to him in this conversation!

“Sorry,” I sighed, even though I didn’t really sound it. “I just—”

I took a deep breath and Aaron leaned back in, clearly understanding that this was actually serious.

“I told Emily,” I said finally.

“Oh,” he said. “About your ability?”

“Yeah.”

“And…?” He winced, like he was bracing for impact. God, I hate when he’s right.