The waiter, whom October called Brad but whose shirt had the name “Al” stitched above the left pocket, asked if he should bring us some wine. October looked to me for the answer and I nodded without hesitation. I was nervous, and the restaurant didn’t have a full bar, so tequila wasn’t an option.

Brad/Al nodded in return, and then he turned to October and nonchalantly said, “How’s Chris?” as he poured water into our glasses.

“Fine,” she answered. “Out of town, as usual.”

“Rough life that guy has.”

October rolled her eyes and smiled politely, and I questioned what the hell I was doing there with her.

We were quiet then, the subject of Chris hanging between us like a spider that had just descended from the ceiling, neither one of us wanting to break the web and have to deal with the thing crawling around the table.

Once the waiter came back with the wine, October tucked a wavy chunk of hair behind her ear, looked around the empty room, and said, “Thanks for humoring me with the early-bird special.”

I shrugged, not having given it much thought.

“It’s this weird thing I have.” She paused, picked at a seam on the edge of her scarf. “This condition . . .”

“You have a condition where you have to eat dinner before the sun goes down?”

She laughed, and I remember noticing how much I liked the sound. Her laugh was artless—probably the only artless thing about her—and contained absolutely no pretense.

“Anyway . . .” She took a sip of wine. She seemed nervous too, and I could tell she was really trying to think something through. A moment later, using a lot of medical jargon, she explained her condition to me.

I shook my head. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Glancing obliquely at the ceiling, she thought for a few more seconds. Then she said, “In layman’s terms, if I see someone being tickled, I’ll feel as though I’m being tickled. And if I see someone get shot in the head, I’ll feel as though I’ve been shot in the head. But it’s not just physical sensations. I can often sense the emotional experience of another person by touching them.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around what she was saying, and I tried not to sound offensive when I mumbled, “This is an actual thing?”

She nodded and went on to explain that during her childhood, she couldn’t watch much TV or go to movies because it caused her too much pain. Apparently this made her something of an outcast among her peers and, like me, she spent a tremendous amount of time alone. And, much like how I turned to guitar, she turned to drawing and painting to keep her company.

“I was a ferociously lonely kid,” she said. “Art saved me.”

Sounds familiar, I thought. But I didn’t say it. “How old were you the first time it happened?”

“Eleven.” There was a small vase of daisies in the middle of the table. October picked out a flower, spun it around in her fingers, and then, one-by-one, began gently petting the petals as she continued. “I was sitting on the floor in our living room. My mom and dad were on the couch behind me, watching a documentary about the Maasai tribe in Africa—my parents are both anthropology professors, and this was the kind of stuff they watched for fun. There was a scene in the film where a man slaughters a goat. I watched him draw the knife back and slit the animal’s throat, and I started reeling on the floor, gasping for air, feeling like there was blood gushing from my neck.”