He clenched his jaw, like he didn’t want to finish that thought. I didn’t know what to say, not when looking at an expression on Mark’s face that I had seen on Emily’s. Betrayal. He felt betrayed.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered finally, knowing I had to repair this as fast as I could. “I—”

“Just—” He cut me off. Sighed. “You should go.”

I have my answers now, at least. Somewhat. I had wanted to know if I could trust Mark and Sam and all the Atypicals that Damien had hurt, wanted to know if they were telling me the truth about Damien, if they were good people, and it turns out they’re just broken people. Like Damien, like me. Except Damien and I just keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again and they at least seem to be trying. To be growing.

I also wanted to know if I could be normal. Have a normalish life. I can’t even hang out with other Atypicals without royally screwing it up. I have my answer.

I’ll never be normal. The monster that followed me out is stuck to me for good.

MARCH 20TH, 2017

Aaron and I sat on the cliff’s edge, looking out over the watercolor expanse. An ocean of pink and purple starshine ebbed and flowed beneath us as a soft breeze fluttered our identical eyelashes, somehow more prominent in the dreamscape.

“This is really nice, Rosie,” he said after a few seconds, a year, a hundred years.

“Have we been here before?” I asked, my voice echoing gently through the infinite abyss.

“I don’t think this is a real place,” he teased and I rolled my eyes, feeling lighter than air.

“I mean, together, in dreams. This all looks familiar. Have we been here?”

He looked away from me and back out across the broad ocean that, in the past few seconds, had transformed into a blanket covering the whole world.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think I’d remember.”

“Do you remember all the times I come into your dreams?”

“I think this is your dream, Rosie,” he said, turning his face back to me. “If you recognize this place, it must be yours.”

“So you’re reading my mind,” I guessed.

“That’s one option,” he said and I didn’t ask what the other options were.

We sat in silence, staring at each other, and I watched him transform from Aaron in the present to Aaron of the past, the knobby-kneed boy of ten who would catch fireflies for me in the summertime. As soon as the boy appeared, he was gone again, and I was looking back into the world-weary face of a young man untethered.

I know how he feels.

“I think I do,” he said suddenly. “Remember, I mean. All the dreams.”