As April goes on, the world thaws around us and overnight everything is green, inside and out. I don’t have to try and hide who I am anymore and Adam’s walls start to dissolve. The big, unpredictable waves between us don’t seem so scary now. We’re floating.

Adam is way more chill about my ability than I thought he would be. I guess his parents do some pretty weird science kind of stuff, so that part wasn’t as hard to believe as the fact that I like him. I tease him about that a lot and he doesn’t try to swallow his smile.

“What’s Dr. Bright’s deal?” he asks me one day, tilting his head upward to look at me from where it was resting on my chest. We’re lying on the grass in my backyard, soaking up the spring sunshine, and his face is so close to mine I can count his freckles. I want to bend down and kiss the ones on his nose and then I remember that I can and I give in to the impulse. I instantly feel stupid about it but Adam moves his face to kiss me for real and I forget to feel self-conscious.

“So … what’s her deal?” he repeats a few minutes later, sitting up on his elbows, arms draped over my torso so he can look at my face right side up. “How did she get into this line of work?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug, making his arms pop up a bit. “It’s not like we spend my therapy sessions talking about her.”

“But aren’t you curious?” he asks. “I mean, you said she has other patients like you—wouldn’t you want to meet another empath?”

“Fuck no.” I laugh. “That sounds like a nightmare.”

Adam’s face scrunches up as he thinks it through. “Okay, yeah, point taken. But still, don’t you want to know who her other patients are? What they can do?”

In this moment, my answer is yes. I’m filled to the brim with Adam’s burning curiosity, a soft fire that makes me want to get up and run around. There’s stuff that I get excited about, but I’ll never really understand how Adam feels this way about learning so much of the time.

“I guess,” I answer truthfully. “I don’t know, it seems complicated. I’m only just now starting to get my own life under control, I’m not sure I want to add a bunch more freaks to it.”

“I’m the only freak you need?” Adam smirks, but there’s a sliver of self-doubt running through the teasing.

“You’re not a freak,” I say, before smirking myself. “You are a total dork, though.”

He swats at my shoulder and I grab his hand, maneuvering it into mine, looping my fingers through his. Satisfaction pours out of Adam.