Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Sam

If I have a superpower, it’s invisibility.

Like the perpetually overcast skies of Portland in winter, I’m part of the background — a robot with a disappearance drive, the dullness against which everyone else shines. My nondescript jeans and hoodies, along with the absence of any observable personality, allow me to slip through entire days with negligible human interaction.

With the power of invisibility comes the freedom to daydream, which is useful because I’ve never been a fan of reality.

Reality overflows with unanswerable questions:

How many colors does it take to properly render a nebula?

Why do people like having televisions on in the background?

Would my mom be more or less tolerable in a gravity-free environment?

Thinking of the world in terms of fantasy is sometimes the only thing that helps me survive. Homework is the paperwork that keeps my kingdom running. Puddles that soak my shoes could be portals to other dimensions. The legions of people who overlook me in this hellpit, better known as high school, are trolls to be dodged or ghosts to slip between.

It’s barely a month into senior year and I’ve already built a fortress of enormous canvases in the back of the art classroom, staking out a corner that makes the most of the weakening natural light as fall edges toward winter. There isn’t much of a view through the windows — just the greenway that hugs the south side of the school heading back toward the football fields. I have the perfect vantage from which to see the occasional stoner or handsy couple heading into the woods when they’re supposed to be in class. Sometimes I spin stories in my head of what their lives might be like, knowing only that they’re nothing like mine.

As usual, the art room is populated with a mix of dedicated artists and people just looking for easy As, all of whom are happy to treat me like a piece of furniture. I swirl oil paints together on my palette, waiting for just the right shade of indigo to develop as I mull over some equations I’m certain will be on the AP Physics quiz later. Lost in a mix of math and pigments, I nearly crap a clutch of flaming dragon eggs when an unfamiliar voice behind me softly says, “Oh god, this is perfect!”

I swivel around on my stool only to be shocked immobile by the girl standing in front of me. Her wavy dark-brown hair cascades over a sweater the color of seafoam, and a little star pendant rests between her collarbones.

Zoe Miller spoke to me. I’ve clearly entered a parallel dimension.