“You put yourself out there! Asked someone out! That’s no easy thing and, from what I understand, your generation barely ever takes that step.” He punctuated each of his sentences with a flourish of his hand and I shook my head at how ridiculous he continues to be despite the fact that he is well into his sixties. Actually, I’m sure he’d hate that characterization. He’s sixty-two, which he’d say is the new fifty-five.

My parents waited a long time to have children. They got married pretty young, in their early twenties, but because they were both Atypical, they knew the risks of combining their DNA. Neither of them have had much trouble throughout the years with their abilities—my dad can just choose not to move things with his mind and my mom can keep her visions to herself. Which she usually does, actually, never wanting to influence me or Aaron too much, even when we would beg as children to have her tell us our fortunes. The various tips and aggressive pushes she’s given me recently are a bit out of the norm, like the path I’m on isn’t quite right and she’s trying to steer me back on track.

Even though being Atypical hasn’t put too much of a wrench in either of their lives, I think they feared that, with their powers combined or whatever, they’d have a kid that could spit fire or fly or something.

And my parents’ worst fear came true: Aaron suffered because of something that was fundamental to his nature. The AM helped him learn to control his power, which helped the headaches he’d been experiencing, but they never went away completely. I know there are still sometimes when Aaron reads minds too much or not enough and gets a migraine that puts him out of commission for hours. But over the years, things have gotten back to normal. Or as normal as they ever were in the Atkinson household. Aaron started to bond with our parents over the weird intricacies of having an Atypical ability, while I graduated high school and stayed the same boring, human Rose I always had been. I find it hard to complain though, when I have a wonderful, healthy, loving family, who will stand by me and help me no matter what, even with their own disappointment. It’s why I try so hard not to rock the boat more than I do by existing, which is why I’m still KICKING MYSELF over telling them about the narcolepsy.

Which brings me to now. Trying to get back to the usual “Rose is normal and has normal problems” by asking my sixty-two-year-old contractor father, who likes basic white-man thriller books and thinks medium salsa is too spicy, for lesbian dating advice.