“So that’s my cure? To be in some crazy emergency all the time?”

Dr. Shepard’s mouth turned down. She was never a fan of sarcasm. “People do go through intensely anxious periods and come out the other side. Others have good and bad periods cyclically throughout their lives. With anxiety, there are no one-size-fits-all explanations or predictions, Wylie. No absolutes. The unknown can be frustrating, but also encouraging. You’re here now. Perhaps we should start there.”

“Do you believe my ‘Heightened Emotional Perception,’ this ‘Outlier’ thing”—I hooked quotes around the word and rolled my eyes in a totally transparent attempt to show I wasn’t taking it very seriously—“could be the whole explanation for what’s wrong with me?”

My dad had called ahead to explain to Dr. Shepard what had happened at the camp and its link to his research, including his newly coined “Heightened Emotional Perception,” or “HEP,” which I think he felt had the benefit of heading off any eventual comparison to ESP. He had also told her I was an Outlier and what that meant. It was a relief not to have to go into the details, especially about me being an Outlier, which I found one part thrilling, one part confusing, and two thousand parts terrifying. It was like learning that for years you’d been carrying around some kind of enormous benign tumor in your belly. Sure there was good news: you weren’t sick and you’d lose eight pounds when the watermelon-sized thing was removed. But you still had to contend with the daunting sense that you’d been invaded, occupied. Worse yet, you’d had absolutely no idea.

“Wrong with you?” Dr. Shepard asked. “Right and wrong is not an effective way to frame a discussion about anxiety.”

“You know what I mean,” I said, though how could she? I wasn’t even sure what I meant. I wanted certain answers (how anxious was I really?), but wanted to avoid others (what did being an Outlier really mean?). I wanted to off-load my anxiety without taking on being an Outlier, to cherry-pick my truth. “Do you think it’s possible that I’m not actually anxious at all?”

Dr. Shepard stared at me and I felt with troubling clarity the moment she decided to play it straight, instead of opting for the good old therapy bob and weave. It wasn’t necessarily comforting, this being able to see through people so easily. It made everyone so much weaker, their gifts so much more ordinary.

“I believe awareness is a powerful thing, Wylie. Do you understand?”

I nodded. But then reconsidered. “No, actually, I don’t understand at all.”