“He couldn’t stop the voices, couldn’t turn the volume down like he can now,” I went on. “So he was just reading our minds all the time, and it seemed like the only way he could get it out was by saying it all back to us, telling us what we were thinking at any given moment. And I couldn’t take it, couldn’t stand having him reflecting all of that junk back on me, so we started fighting about it and it was just … there was no way I could ever win that fight. Not with Aaron in my head, using the most fleeting unkind thoughts as weapons against me. I never hated him, I never could hate him, but that—that invasion, that violation—was something that I didn’t know how to handle so I just made myself smaller and quieter in the hopes that he wouldn’t be able to find me and now I don’t know how to be loud anymore.”

I wasn’t sure I even knew I felt that way until I said it out loud to a bunch of strangers. I looked up, expecting to see six shocked faces, but was met instead with expressions of understanding. No judgment, just a few nods like they knew exactly where I was coming from. For that moment, I belonged.

That didn’t last.

I hardly even remember what the dream was about now, which is a bit strange. It was flashes of different scenes from a life that wasn’t mine—eating dinner with two adults I’d never seen before, walking through an unfamiliar college campus, a thin figure in a black hoodie standing in a lobby that was familiar in a way I couldn’t put my finger on. Sometimes my dreams—or other people’s dreams—are disjointed and confusing. In fact, they often are, but I’ve never gotten such clear, distinct, real flashes in quick succession.

I woke up suddenly, jarringly, my legs flailing for a moment against the plastic chair and linoleum floor, like I was trying to find solid ground beneath my feet. Every head swiveled to look at me, as if they’d just been watching me sleep, unperturbed, even though they know I CAN GO INTO PEOPLE’S DREAMS.

But there was one face that stood out against all the others. Ralphy, small and freckle-faced, was looking at me wide-eyed, like they knew exactly what had just happened. Where I had just been. And that was when I realized I had been in someone else’s head, someone’s waking head, and knew exactly whose.