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Tom was coming toward us from the other direction and then slowed, wanting to avoid the scene. Alex kept walking to class and shoulder-checked Tom on his way. “You’re a piece of shit,” Alex called over his shoulder. Tom didn’t bother to respond.

  I had planned on going back to pretending John and I were strangers. I could read his mind from afar. But now I couldn’t resist.

  It was a risk, since I wasn’t sure how John felt about me now. I walked up to him and put my hand on his arm.

  “Ready?” I asked him.

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He nodded and we walked into English, leaving Sarah in our wake, everyone looking at us as we entered together.

  When we took our seats, I expected to be able to read his mind.

  Nothing. Dammit. I didn’t understand why it happened when it did.

  Tom walked in and, eyes glued to the floor, took a seat near the front. I felt everyone look from him to John.

  Was he upset that his whole group of friends would be forced to pick sides? I realized I was even more frustrated that I couldn’t read his mind because I was curious. I also wanted to know if John hated me now.

  Class started, and Mrs. Bartell announced a pop quiz on Beloved, the book we’d been assigned to start last week. John probably wasn’t prepared. He seemed tired.

  Tom was the one chosen to hand out the list of questions we could write about. I wouldn’t reach out to help him, so he had to place the papers on my desk. I peeled one off the stack and handed the rest to John.

  He reached out, but I let go too soon and papers started to fall. We reached out to catch them at the same time, and our hands touched accidentally.

  “Sorry. Thanks,” he mumbled. I was surprised to see him blush.

  “No problem. Did you read the book?” I whispered, and he leaned his head closer to mine to hear what I was saying. People were passing out the papers and hadn’t settled down to write yet.

  “Not all of it.”

  “Okay. Just write about the first chapter and introducing character and how it’s done.” He gave me a strange look. “This is the last thing I would want to do if I were you,” I said by way of explanation. So much for ignoring him.

  “Time is starting now,” Mrs. Bartell said officially from the front of the classroom. Everyone dug into the assignment, including John.

  I turned my attention to it, dreading having to pretend this would really take forty minutes of my time. I don’t know why I decided to write what I wanted to write. I’d just have to replace it with a dumbed-down essay ten minutes before the end of class.

  “Five more minutes,” Mrs. Bartell eventually chimed. I crumpled up my dissertation and switched over to start the new essay. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed John was finished with his essay and watching me. Shit. I quickly wrote the dumbed-down version.

  Fuck Tom. He’d turned into an asshole anyway. Fuck Sarah. This is fucked up, but at least it’s a fresh start. It’s just me now.

  I was excited I could hear him and his nihilistic thoughts again.

  “Okay, everyone. Thank you! Have a great weekend!” Mrs. Bartell acted like she hadn’t just tormented everyone on a Friday morning.

  John held out his hand, offering to turn in my paper. I paused and then handed it to him. I suddenly felt a wave of relief. Then I realized it wasn’t mine.

  It was John who mostly felt liberated, like he no longer had to play a part he’d grown out of. His old life was finally gone and he could freely admit how things really were. He had no idea which direction he was headed in, and I sensed I was somehow part of that.

  He walked our two papers up to Mrs. Bartell. “Thanks, John.” She gave him a maternal smile.

  I left before we could walk out together, elated that I’d figured it out. He needed to be open to it, to me. When he was scared or mad, I couldn’t read his mind.

  When I’d almost reached my next class, I realized I’d left my first essay in a ball on the floor. I ran back to Mrs. Bartell’s classroom, but it was nowhere to be found.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His tone was surprisingly sharp. I’d found Angus and the Lost Kids on the sheer cliffs by the Pennybacker Bridge. Curiously, Ellis and Roger weren’t there. Before I left, this had been the Lost Kids’ hangout—usually boys-only. From this vantage point, you had views of the Colorado River, the downtown skyline, and the Hill Country to the north. The boys had put up some crappy barbed wire and an unconvincing-looking Private Property sign along the trail, at least temporarily claiming this spot so they could do whatever bad things they wanted in private.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said. The Lost Kids stopped their balance-beam walk along the edge of the cliff to stare, surprised by my appearance. I focused on the spot where they were standing until a few rocks gave way under Paul’s feet. He instinctively grabbed on to Angus to catch himself as the ground crumbled down the side of the cliff. Paul recovered and gave me the finger.

  “What?” I shrugged and hid my smile. It felt good to mess with them like the old days. Angus grabbed my elbow and led me from the edge of the cliff, farther away from the group. Angus turned his back on them, blocking me from sight with his height. I took a step back when I realized he was annoyed.

  He squinted at me. “You’re supposed to be at school.”

  “So are you.” I’d raced here after English, deciding to skip out. Regardless of how I felt about him and my sister, I needed to see him. I was on such a high now that I was getting it—what it was and how to use it. I wanted to describe it to Angus: how I knew John’s thoughts, what he was going to do, this incredible control I suddenly had. Angus was the one person I knew who would understand the risk I was taking. But now, based on his reaction, I could see coming here seemed desperate.

  “What’s going on?” he asked impatiently.

  Over his shoulder I could see the Lost Kids stripping off their shirts and egging each other on. It was about a million degrees and they’d done this before—jumped off these cliffs to the water below. They were idiots. Anyone driving on the bridge or in a nearby boat could see tiny figures falling through the air.

  I changed tactics and slowed way down. “After our conversation, I wanted to see how you’re doing. What you’re doing—”

  Angus stole a glance over his shoulder again, clearly uncomfortable being alone with me.

  “Julia, forget everything we talked about. I never should have gone to that piece-of-shit school. It wasn’t fair to you.” He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up and making him look less preppy and more like I was used to seeing him.

  He knew me. He couldn’t suddenly pretend we weren’t on the same wavelength. Why was he acting like this?

  “Angus, shut up. I can handle that you lowered yourself to come visit me.”

  He spoke quickly, trying to extricate himself. “Look, it’s best for both of us to lie low.”

  “What is going on?”

  After a moment he relented. “Curfews, school, and then home every day. We’re not supposed to hang out in a group anymore.”

  “Who’s not allowed to hang out?”

  “All of us—our group. Ellis and Roger stay away now.”

  “Novak decided this?” It sounded like a military state.

  “Yeah, he’s cracking down. Something about cutting away any individual who puts themself before the group. Clearly he’s worried about us getting caught before we manage to leave. Looks like the party here is over.”

  “Then what are you guys doing here?” I asked, skepticism more than apparent in my voice.

  “By three p.m. we’ll be back at school and no one will have missed us.”

  “Yeah, right,” I scoffed. Leave it to Angus to think he could get around my father by dating his daughter and pointedly ignoring his rules. It was a problem that he thought he could get away with it. Angus’s ego would be his undoing. I realized the same could be said for me. It’s what brought me here today. I’d wanted a friend, but I’d a
lso wanted to brag.

  “So besides hanging out together secretly, you guys aren’t breaking any rules?” Just then I heard whoops and glanced around Angus. Paul took the plunge that would break any regular person’s body. For a second both Angus and I were quiet, vicariously enjoying what must have felt like a second of pure freedom.

  “Let me rephrase that,” I said. “You’re not doing anything new?”

  “No.” He shifted. I couldn’t resist, but Angus could? He was far too competitive with me to let it go.

  “Yeah, right, Angus. I know you too well. All you want is to be recognized as one of a kind.”

  “We have a good thing going on. Why would I want to lose it over using this strength I seem to have? Especially when lying low for now is the one consistent thing I’ve been asked to do.” Angus looked in the direction of the boys behind him, wanting to get back to them. “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to end up at that school. And there is no fucking way I’m living away from my own kind. You need to get out of here before it gets back to your dad. It could get us all in trouble.”

  “So if you don’t use it and it never comes back, you’re fine with that? You’re okay with being mediocre?” I knew I could get him with that.

  “I’m not mediocre.” Angus’s nostrils flared.

  “Tell that to my dad.”

  I began to walk away, but not before he got in his parting blow. “Julia!” I turned back to him. “I can’t see you anymore,” Angus said. Then, lackadaisically, like he hadn’t a care in the world, he walked back to the boys.

  I made it down the rocky trail and back to the parking lot before I lost it.

  Angus didn’t matter. I had to remind myself that only Novak mattered. I just had to weather this until he let me back in. And then I would make sure I never forgot who had prematurely written me off.

  Not knowing where else to go, I drove back to school. Fifteen minutes later I was walking to class. I passed a trash can swarming with flies, and it couldn’t have smelled worse. Graffiti was all over lockers that no one seemed to use. A total hellhole. How had this become my life? Did I really have nowhere better to be than this godforsaken school?

  “Hi.” I looked up at the passing voice and saw John walking in the opposite direction. I turned my head, looking at him over my shoulder, and he did the same. Unwittingly we both smiled.

  Sad that a smile from the boy I was using was the best part of my day.

  He thought I was sexy and beautiful. That was the first thing I knew John thought when we had our initial encounter at Barton Springs. It was strange knowing what someone thought. It began to feel wrong. Especially since I was growing to actually like him, in spite of myself. I didn’t know anyone from our group who would admit to feeling fond of an outsider.

  He was like a radio frequency, and his thoughts were now a constant stream playing in the back of my head. The more I listened to him, the more impressed and surprised I was. He had a fascinating mind. I highly doubted anyone would still like me if they knew the inner workings of my mind.

  He was funny, although that could get annoying. For instance, he wouldn’t stop rhyming the name Regina with the word vagina. Every time he saw Regina in class, same thing. So I chose when to focus and when to tune out, depending on when it became interesting. Typically that was when it had something to do with me.

  I would hear him in class, thinking about me. Thankfully he’d decided our differences had to do with my family’s limited exposure to the real world. Other than that, I was the same as him in all the ways that mattered. Besides, anyone searching the internet could read about strange things that occurred in emergency situations. I had to constantly be on guard, making sure I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but he no longer watched me closely to see if I was a strange phenomenon. Now he watched me because he liked me.

  When our English class was hijacked so we could discuss college applications, the class gathered in a counselor’s room. I sat down at a table, John taking the seat next to me. Midway through the lecture, he shifted and stretched out his legs. The side of one leg was suddenly against mine. He was wearing jeans, so I wasn’t sure he knew. I tried to read his mind, but I couldn’t focus—I was too aware of him and wrapped up in the fact that we were touching. I let it happen, sitting with it for a full twenty minutes.

  For a couple of days after that, I backed off, wanting to discourage his attention. He quickly got the message and looked the other way. But I found I missed it when it stopped. I began talking to him again. I was aware of how, when I’d sit low in my seat, he would always look at my legs. It was harmless and one-sided and definitely made English class less boring. In one of my few interactions with Victoria, she commented that my shorts seemed to be getting shorter.

  The overall dread I’d picked up from John was decreasing. His parents watched him with eagle eyes, wondering how his every move was affecting his future. This weighed on him, but it was like he’d already quit trying, believing he would inevitably disappoint them.

  I felt accountable for his bad fortune to some extent. I was directly responsible for his being arrested, not to mention his shoulder getting reinjured, which put potential scholarships at stake. No wonder he was freezing up. I got it. I was in the same position. We were both stumbling at the moment when it mattered most.

  My priority was getting back to the group, but I did want to see where this skill was going. It was in the back of my mind that if my ability was special, it could earn me some long-awaited respect from the group. At the very least I needed the distraction and it would keep me from falling too far behind Liv, George, Emma….And, honestly, how could Novak catch me reading someone’s mind?

  Reading John’s mind did feel invasive and manipulative, but I told myself not to feel bad. I wasn’t hurting him. It would have been so much easier, though, if this ability worked on someone besides John. I was still disturbed by the fact that I could put a mental barrier between myself and outsiders so I wouldn’t be distracted by them, but John always broke through, like he did the first day I met him. Either he broke through or I let him in. Neither was a comforting thought.

  It was taking him longer today than usual. I looked at the time on my phone and then threw it back in my bag. I was going to have to leave pretty soon if he didn’t show. We’d silently fallen into a routine. Every day we met up after practice and talked, lingering until we had no excuse and had to start walking to the parking lot together, our teammates’ eyes on us.

  I heard steps and turned around, trying to hold back my smile. Jesus, Julia. But it wasn’t him. It was his brother.

  “Hey.” Alex nodded at me and then looked over at the locker room, like he was waiting with me for John.

  “Hello.” I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I’m Alex.” He turned to me and looked at me hard. Oh my God, he was protecting his brother. That was funny. Alex looked almost identical to John, but he had light-brown hair. The kind of light brown that only lasts through childhood and eventually turns dark. He was cute, but his good looks didn’t have the depth that John’s had. Alex’s were simple, easy, what you see is what you get. John’s were layered and deceptive. At first he looked almost plain, but when you studied him more closely, he became even better looking…especially with the way he would look at me, the expression on his face so completely calm and totally in contrast with what he was really thinking.

  Alex was staring at me expectantly, which snapped me out of my reverie.

  “I’m Julia,” I said. I was glad when John walked up just then.

  “Sorry,” he apologized to me, acknowledging for the first time that we did have some kind of standing date. “What are you doing here?” he asked his brother.

  “I blew off the workout today,” Alex said.

  John was annoyed and shrugged. I felt all of his irritation. He thought he was being spied on, that his parents had asked his brother to see how he was doing at practice. And I assumed Alex was here because he t
hought John was going down the tubes hanging out with me. Nice.

  “I have an appointment,” I blurted out. I needed to get out of there. These two had a major bond. Best friends. I hadn’t known that. I didn’t want to get in the way. That’s what I used to have with Liv, and I knew their parents’ crap was interfering. I didn’t want to be one more thing.

  But it made John even more pissed at his brother, thinking Alex was chasing me away.

  “No, really, I have an appointment at five thirty.” No one said anything, but they were staring at my hand.

  “What happened?” John took a step closer and reached out as if he was going to examine my hand. But he seemed to remember himself and didn’t try to touch me.

  “What?” I glanced down, surprised to see I had blood on my hand. The glass water bottle I’d been holding had shattered, the shards contained in the perforated rubber casing. I’d crushed it with my hand and hadn’t even noticed. Maybe Alex had made me nervous. It was extremely hard to break one of those bottles with your hands, but I was more concerned about my blood being everywhere than the boys being suspicious of my strength. It was my paranoia. They didn’t know it was a big deal for me to leave behind traces of my blood.

  I walked the remains of the water bottle to a nearby trash can and saw there was an ugly gash on my palm. We all started looking around for something to stop the bleeding. John quickly rifled through his bag and came up with a clean T-shirt.

  “No, I can’t,” I said when he tried to hand it to me.

  “Take it,” he said.

  I did, reluctantly, knowing he wouldn’t be getting the shirt back. “Thanks. It’s fine. I’d better go.”

  “Are you sure? It looks bad.”

  “No, it looks worse than it is. Really.”

  “Okay,” John said gently, “I’ll call you tonight?”

  He froze the second after he said it. It had just slipped out. John looked completely nonchalant—I thought he really should be an actor—but he was absolutely freaking out inside.

  I needed to respond.