We didn’t get a chance to discuss theories because I threw down my napkin on the table and bolted out of there. And now I’m here, hiding in my room, trying to figure out why I was having an anxiety attack ten minutes ago.

I’m not sure that this whole dream journal thing is really helping the … the whatever that’s going on, but it does seem to be calming me down a little. There’s something hypnotically soothing about writing out everything that just happened. Like dreams, the act of forcing it into an understandable shape feels like some kind of physical processing, helping me uncover the root of what’s freaking me out about this whole thing.

I’m scared they’re right. Growing up with a psychic mother and telekinetic father, I couldn’t wait for the day that my power would appear. It was like waiting for Gandalf to show up in the Shire, knowing that you have a glorious destiny and amazing adventures ahead and all you have to do is get to that day when it all kicks off. It was one of the things that Aaron and I bonded over most. We’d spend hours playing make-believe, assigning each other abilities and acting them out like the great heroes we assumed they’d make us into. Him, pretending to be a pyrokinetic, a electropath—something big and bombastic like him. Me, wishing that I could fly. Up, up, and away from everything.

But then I grew up and both my imagination and Aaron both felt like distant childhood friends. I went through high school, and puberty, all the while devouring every fantasy novel and movie that I could, and slowly realized that maybe I was wrong. Maybe there were no exciting quests or Chosen One status waiting for me or for Aaron.

And then Aaron did get chosen and I was so jealous, the envy chewing up my insides, driving my obsession for cooking to new heights, making me so focused on trying to be exceptional at something even if it meant I didn’t belong anywhere. But watching Aaron go through the realities of being a mind reader … how hard it is, how grating, how lonely … it made it harder to be jealous.

My parents are scared. They don’t want me to be Atypical. They don’t want me to be special.

The thing that I always wanted finally happened and I can’t be excited. I can’t even be relieved that maybe, finally, I got chosen.

All I feel is dread.

SEPTEMBER 4TH, 2016

“Don’t take an umbrella today.”

Those were the first words that my mom spoke to me this morning. No “Hello” or “Good morning” or “How are you feeling, do you think you have an Atypical ability yet?” Just … “Don’t take an umbrella.”