For the first ten or so minutes we spent walking around the store, Zu kept turning to look at our linked hands, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Every now and then, some bin of unwanted DVDs or an aisle endcap of pointless knickknacks would catch her attention, but her dark eyes would always wander back to where our hands swung between us. We had just turned down one of many ravaged cleaning supply aisles when she gave my arm a tug.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, kicking aside a stray mop.

Zu pointed at the glove I was twirling around with my free hand.

I lifted our hands between us. “What’s so bad about this?”

She blew out the breath she had been holding, and it was evident I had missed the point. I was dragged all the way to the other end of the aisle, where she let go of my hand to snatch a white box from the shelf. Zu went to work tearing the box open, tossing aside the foam and plastic stuffing to get the old-fashioned silver toaster inside.

“I’m not sure we’re going to need that,” I started slowly.

She pinned me with a look that very clearly said, Quiet, please.

Zu tugged the other glove off her hand and spread all ten fingers out along either side of the appliance. After a moment, I saw her shut her dark eyes.

The metal piping that served as the toaster’s innards heated to a glowing red. A long black cord dangled near her feet, unplugged. The cheap little thing only lasted another minute before its insides started to melt together. I made her put it down at the first sign of smoke.

See? she seemed to be saying. Get it?

“But you can’t do that to me,” I said, reaching for her hand again. “You don’t have to worry about hurting me, because you never could.”

I know how it feels, is what I really should have been saying. I know what it’s like to be scared of what you can barely control.

I had forced myself to stop thinking about what I had done to that undercover PSF. I didn’t let myself wonder if I could do it again, let alone test it out. But how, I wondered, were either of us ever going to learn to control ourselves if we couldn’t practice? If we couldn’t stretch and test boundaries?

“Let’s see if we can find something useful,” I said, slipping my fingers around hers again. I waited until I felt her hand close against mine before leading her back down the aisle. “What do you think—”

I’m not even sure what I was about to ask her, but she wasn’t paying attention to me. Zu stopped so suddenly and gripped my hand so damn hard, that I stumbled back a few steps. My eyes followed the line of her outstretched arm to the upended clothing and shoe racks.

More specifically, to the lone hot pink dress dangling from an otherwise empty rack.