“Uh … He’s really into tech stuff,” I said, soothed by the fact that I wasn’t technically lying to Emily on our very first date. “Like, coding and all that.”

“Ooh, very cool,” she said. “Are you two close?”

“In age,” I answered, my voice feeling more barbed coming out of my throat than I meant it to.

“Gotcha.” She nodded sagely and I knew she was reading something in my tone that I hadn’t fully intended to be there.

“Do you have siblings?” I asked, trying to change the subject and mostly failing.

“Two sisters,” she said. “They’re both older, already off in the real world.” Her oldest sister, Maria, works in humanitarian aid and it was clear that Emily has been looking up at her with stars in her eyes since they were kids. The middle sister, Chelsea, was in law school and sounded sharp and funny. I found myself laughing more and more as Emily talked, imagining her as a young girl, getting into and out of trouble with two other girls with her smile.

The way Emily talked about them made me feel warm all over, and just slightly cold inside, as I looked at something that I felt close to having but couldn’t quite grasp. When we found out what Aaron could do, what Atypical ability he’d gotten in the dice roll of genetics, there was a brief, tiny moment, when I liked the idea of Aaron being able to read my mind. It ended up being a lot weirder than I expected, but for one second, I thought that maybe if he could hear everything I was thinking, we could be effortlessly close like some other siblings seem.

But instead, when I got home from my date to find my family in some kind of weird argument, I couldn’t look at Aaron and roll my eyes in a moment of sibling solidarity like I would if we lived in a TV show. I just stood in the doorway between the front hall and the living room, wondering what the hell was going on.

“I’m telling you, I left it right here,” my dad said, pointing to the arm of the couch. “Are you sure you didn’t move it?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Aaron said. “I haven’t even been in here all day.”

“We really should talk about that,” my mom said. “I don’t think it’s good for you to be staring at that screen all day.”

“Mom,” Aaron said, “literally everyone stares at a screen all day. It’s 2016.”

“Can we focus please?” my dad said, sounding more exasperated than I’d heard him in a long time.

“… what’s going on?” I asked, practically tiptoeing into the room. I’d planned to tell my dad about the date right then (the end of which was very good) but the weird frustration rolling off of him in waves had squashed that plan.