“Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves,” Dr. Loving continued and I braced for the “name, grade, and a fun fact about you!” rundown. I wasn’t that far off.

“We can start with first names and your personal pronouns,” she said, “and, if you’re comfortable, you can share your ability as well. “I’ll start: I’m Dr. Loving, she/her, and while I don’t have an ability, I’ve been working with Atypicals for fifteen years.”

Dr. Loving felt like the exact type of person you would want for a therapist, a perfect blend of confidence and cool. She’s a tall Black woman with trendy square glasses and a better fashion sense than I’ve ever seen in a doctor, which makes her feel younger than she probably is, like she’s one of us. And then she talks in that warm, assured voice she has, and you’re instantly pulled into a sense of security and vulnerability.

So we went around the table and all introduced ourselves. There was Sharon, a middle-aged Asian American woman with superspeed that seemed to bleed into her very high-energy personality; Marco, a thirtysomething shapeshifter who changed his appearance so often throughout the session, I never got a grip on what he actually looks like. Then there was Ralphy, a young teenager with pale white skin and a shock of red hair who spoke softly, and refused to share what their ability was.

Two young, brunette women introduced themselves as a unit, Cam speaking while Cat, who’s Deaf, signed. Cam can make force fields and Cat can walk through walls—everything about them seemed predestined to click and watching them talk throughout the sessions was … hard. I’ve never had that kind of connection with anyone and couldn’t comprehend how they so easily understood each other. It wasn’t just that Cam was interpreting Cat—apparently when Cat was first going through the program, she didn’t like the way the official AM interpreter was communicating for her and demanded that Cam be allowed to interpret whenever they were in group together. I don’t know any ASL, but Cat definitely makes her voice known simply by the way she signs, making her tone clear with her hands and face while Cam repeats what she’s saying for those of us who don’t sign. But their shared languge was more that that—it was the way they looked at each other, the way they both laughed at jokes that the rest of us didn’t understand.

Eventually, it was my turn, and I’d been so distracted by learning everyone’s ability (and wondering what Ralphy’s could be) I didn’t even have time to be nervous.

“I’m Rose,” I said, sticking my hands between my legs and the chair to stop myself from giving another awkward wave. “And, um, I can dreamdive?”