“Yeah, seems to be.” I nodded. “Everyone’s got a different way of approaching it as far as I can tell, but apparently you can actually train yourself to start lucid dreaming.”

“What, really?” She laughed. “That’s nuts!”

“I know!” I laughed too. “Here I am just trying to figure out how to fly in the first place—which is a lot of people’s go-tos and seems completely inaccessible to me—and some people are full-on going into meditative trances to learn how to control every second of their dreams.”

“Okay, that sounds exhausting. Sleep is for resting, not … whatever that is.”

“Ugh, it’s true.” I groaned. “I really do feel like I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since this whole thing started.”

“Are you sure the lack of good sleep isn’t because you’ve been sleeping in a cast? Because that’s definitely been my issue.”

“You know…” I said, “my whole lucid dreaming thing did start after I sprained my wrist. So if you start lucid dreaming too, maybe there’s something going on at that urgent care.”

“Ooh, like we both touched the same radioactive pens while filling out our intake forms and now we have powers.” Her eyes were wide again as she fanned out her hands in mock drama, made even more endearing by the limited mobility of the hand in the cast, but instead of being able to fully revel in her goofiness, I felt a pit in my stomach at the mention of powers.

I took that moment to stuff a rice cake (crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, I have to figure out how to do that) into my mouth and attempt a giggle around it.

Emily seemed to sense some degree of awkwardness—I get the impression she’s one of those people who is good at social cues—and politely changed the subject.

“So Readit, huh?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I shrugged one shoulder. “I haven’t spent a lot of time on there or anything, but where else do you go for weird experiences?”

“Very fair,” she said. “I’m more of a Mumblr and AO3 girl myself.”

“Oh my god, please don’t hate me, but I have no idea what that is,” I said lightly, even though I totally meant it. Emily, with her casual tank top and jeans that still somehow looked so put together and cool, and her undercut, and her wing-tipped eyeliner that I’ve never in a million years been able to figure out, was way out of my league and I was convinced that the tiniest thing—the food I ordered, not liking her favorite websites—would be the nail in the coffin of my chance with her.

“Are you serious?” She laughed.

“Well, no, I know Mumblr,” I rushed to explain. “I was on there for a hot second before getting more into Instagram.”