“Yeah, but you’re not normal anymore, huh?” she asks, and my breath catches in my throat. She’s teasing me but it doesn’t feel teasing. It feels like a genuine question.

“I don’t know that I’m really all that different.” I shrug. “I just, you know…”

“Can feel other people’s feelings,” she finishes.

“Yeah,” I breathe.

“So what am I feeling right now?” she goads, whatever weighty thing she was feeling replaced by the desire to irritate me.

“Um…” I close my eyes and try to focus on the different sensations, like Dr. Bright has been teaching me the past few weeks. “You’re … curious…”

“Well, duh.”

“… and you’re scared too.” I open my eyes to her surprised face. Saying it out loud makes the fear worse, her feelings making my stomach a bottomless pit.

“But I don’t know what you’re scared about,” I admit. “I just feel the feelings, I don’t know the why. But I mean, I can guess.”

“I’m not scared of you, you dummy.” She rolls her eyes, expertly answering my unasked question while sidestepping any actual talk of our emotions, and the floor comes back to my stomach.

“Wow,” I say dryly, “are you an empath too?”

“‘An empath’ …” she echoes. “Sounds so official.”

“Well, yeah, I guess it is official. Dr. Bright even said that I’m one of the most powerful empaths she’s ever known,” I add, my cheeks warming.

“So, what … are you, like, a superhero or something?” she asks skeptically, but there’s a little zing in my chest. She’s … excited?

“Yeah, because feeling people’s emotions is so useful,” I scoff. “‘The Great Amazing Feelings Boy.’ That’s not a comic I’d read.”

Alice laughs so hard she falls off my bed, and I feel normal for the first time in weeks.

4

ADAM

I poke my head out of my nook and hear nothing but the silence of a school out of session. Nothing new there—it’s a library after all, and one that not many people use—but hopefully the halls will be similarly empty by now. Four o’clock, on the dot, the last day before winter break. I’m probably the last person left in the building.

Just like that, another semester is finished. And one with a minimum of unpleasant interactions. Also a minimum of any kind of human interaction, but having no friends seems a pretty fair trade for days with no surprises, no fights, no class periods spent crying in the bathroom. Not that I ever did that. Figure of speech.

I step out from behind the stacks and immediately jump out of my skin.

“Jeez,” I breathe, just barely stopping myself from clutching at my chest like an old woman. Caleb Michaels is standing on the other side of the shelf, looking far too calm for someone who was just surprised by another person in a completely silent library.