“Safe,” he said, and it was clear that he wasn’t going to give me any more than that.
“What— When— Does—” There were a million questions shooting through my brain but finally it settled on the one that would have the simplest answer. “How did you break in?”
“It was easy.” He shrugged.
“How? I know it’s not actually a prison—or, well, I guess it is,” I realized, “but it’s not like you can just walk in there—they’ve got security in the lobby.”
“That kind of stuff isn’t a problem for me,” he said simply. “Or, at least, it wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?” And then the penny dropped. “Your ability … what was it?”
His jaw clenched, his mouth tightening. I now realize how careful he had been to avoid mentioning the specifics of his ability up until that point. How reluctant he was to say much about it.
“I was able to influence people,” he said. “Make them … feel comfortable, if I wanted them to feel comfortable.” The way he said it made it sound like there were a few other examples he could have given.
“Mind control?” I asked, feeling like I wanted to slide to the other end of the bench. But Damien just rolled his eyes.
“Definitely not,” he said. “Several Atypical medical professionals have been very adamant about the fact that what I do is not mind control.”
“Oh.” I nodded, going for casual. “Cool.”
“And, remember, I can’t do it anymore anyway so … you’re safe.”
“That’s not—”
He gave me a look.
“Okay, so yeah, I got a little freaked for a second, give me a break.” It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I’m still new to this whole Atypical thing.”
“Didn’t you say your whole family was Atypical?” he asked.
“Yeah, they are, but I don’t know…” I tried to find the right words to explain the difference. “It’s always been so normal, my family having their abilities. I mean, we grew up with my dad moving things without lifting a finger and my mom predicting the future, so when Aaron started reading minds, it just felt like … of course. Of course this is my life. But it was always a secret—we don’t talk about Atypical stuff with anyone. So the fact that I’ve now met dozens of people—total strangers, all of them—who are Atypical too, it’s…”
“Yeah, I get it,” Damien said. “I remember when I met my first group of Atypicals. It was … a lot to process.”
“How old were you?” I asked. “Did you grow up with Atypicals?”
“No, I was about your age, actually, when I first started hanging out with people who were like me, but—” He stopped himself and narrowed his eyes at me. “Rose, why did you want to get coffee with me? It sounds like you’ve had plenty of opportunities over the past few months to hang out with other people like you, so were you just looking for an Atypical friend or do you…”
“Do I what?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He put his coffee cup down on the bench and crossed his arms. “I was kind of hoping that you’d had some information about the AM. Something I could use.”
“Use for what?”
“The woman in charge of the whole outfit, Wadsworth … I think she’s holding out on me.” He grimaced. “I think that she knows how to fix me and has set me loose so she can treat the world like her lab.”
“I…” I had no idea what to say to that. “I don’t have any information you can use,” I admitted. “I was just … curious, I guess. About what I saw. About what the AM was really like.”
“Did I satisfy your curiosity?” he asked dryly and I snorted.
“I wish,” I said. “I just have more questions now.”
“Yeah, you and me both,” he grumbled.
“Do you think—I mean, if someone was—the thing is—”
“Rose, whatever weird invasive question you’re gonna ask, just ask it.” He sighed wearily. “I’ve answered every possible question about myself in the past two months.”
“No, it’s not that.” I shook my head, like rattling my brain around would help it think better. “It’s … my dad is sick.”
There it was. The biggest weight in my life, the anvil that had fallen out of the sky four months ago to land on me like a cartoon coyote, dropped at this total stranger’s feet. It felt … good. To just say it out loud, without consequence. One hour with Damien and I knew he wasn’t the type of guy to say, “Oh god, I’m so sorry, do you want to talk about it?” He wasn’t going to pry, he wasn’t going to give me pity. I could just say it and have it out there, in the open, without having to pick it back up again.
“Sick how?” Damien asked and I felt relief flood my body. A simple, direct question, one asked without sad eyes staring at me.
“He’s got Alzheimer’s,” I said, my throat desperately wanting to close around the word. “But that’s what the AM said and if they can’t be trusted … well, how do I know that they’re telling the truth?”
“Look, I’m the last person to defend them,” he said, “but why would they lie about that? Your dad’s a telekinetic, right?”
I nodded.
“Right, so those are a dime a dozen,” he continued. “Me, I’m unique, that’s why they want to fuck with me. But your dad … they’re not gonna bend over backward to experiment on a telekinetic.”
“But what if they’re just wrong?” I asked. “What if they were trying their best or whatever, but they didn’t really take his power into consideration? Like, they said it might make things worse, but if that’s true … I mean, if they took away your ability, maybe they can take away his too. Make him better.”
“Yeah, maybe…” Damien said skeptically. “But would that be worth it? To give up his power?”
“Of course,” I said. “Being alive is better than being telekinetic.”
“I thought you could live a while with Alzheimer’s,” he said.
“Sure, yeah, you can,” I said, “but ten years still isn’t enough. And my parents aren’t even sure that’s how much time he has. The AM themselves said that they don’t know for certain how or if his ability is going to affect things. I mean, it’s a human disease and we’re—”
“Not human?”
That hung in the air between us, so stark and heavy that it felt like I was in the dreamworld, like I could feel the words “not human” as a physical thing between us.
“No, I mean of course we’re human,” I rushed to say. “But we’re unique. I mean, all humans are unique, but Atypicals even more so and there’s stuff—I mean, you’ve said it yourself, everyone at the AM has said it—there’s stuff we don’t know—”
“Rose.” He scooted closer to me on the bench, lowering his voice. “How serious are you about this?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, bringing my voice down to match his.
“Did they give you anything while you were at the AM? To control your power?”
“Uh, yeah.” I nodded. “Sleeping pills. Which actually really helped.”
“Oh, that’s … that’s good,” he said, like he was expecting a different answer. “I’m glad they’ve figured some stuff out at least.”
“What do you mean?”
“The AM has never seemed that interested in helping Atypicals,” he said, his jaw tightening. “They’re more interested in protecting themselves against Atypicals. Making themselves immune to Atypicals. Immune to their abilities. Dampening our powers to keep them safe.”
“What? How?”
“I’m not totally sure how it works, but I’ve seen it in action, I know it does work.” The tiniest of smiles was growing on his face and I noticed that it seemed kind of out of place, like it wasn’t something he did very much. “If someone took it, you wouldn’t be able to walk into their dreams, your brother wouldn’t be able to read their mind—”
“And you think that’s what they gave you to take your ability away?” I asked.
“Um, yeah, I think maybe it was.” His
eyes darted around, like he was nervous about someone overhearing us. “But think about what that could do for your dad. Isn’t it worth a try?”
“You think I should have my dad ask the AM about it?”
“What? No—” His eyes went wide at the suggestion. “Definitely not.”
“Why not? Surely if someone volunteered to be experimented on—”
“No one’s supposed to know about it,” he explained. “It’s not really sanctioned by the rest of the organization. The head of the division, Wadsworth … it’s her invention. And she doesn’t want anyone else to have it.”
“What is going on over there?” I said. “You’re saying the director has, what, her own whole separate mad scientist thing going on?”
“That’s not far off actually,” he muttered.
“Wha—”
“Look, can you help me?” He scooted closer to me again, his eyes wide and pleading. He still looked so tired, like being out of the AM wasn’t giving him any peace.
“What can I do?” I asked and I saw his shoulders relax.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said, turning back to lean his back against the bench. “I need to … I need to do some thinking.”
“Okay…”
“But you can’t tell anyone about this,” he said. “Not even your family. No one.”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” I said, starting to wonder exactly what I’d gotten myself into.
I guess that remains to be seen. Saying very little else, Damien got up from the bench, told me he’d text me, and then left. I walked home, hoping the cold air and long trek would help me clear my head. There were so many things about that conversation that were strange, that were hard to digest, that needed a lot more interrogation. But my brain was really stuck on one thing. Even though I denied that Atypicals weren’t human, I’m not totally sure I believed it.
I don’t always feel human. I don’t always feel … here. In fact, sitting on that cold park bench with Damien was the most in my body, in the world, I’d felt in months. Talking to someone who understands—who knows what it’s like to have an ability that makes other people uncomfortable, but that feels like the missing piece of who you are, who knows what it’s like to feel utterly lost … it made me feel like I had my feet on solid ground.
I wish I could explain this to my family, explain how, despite the fact that we’re now all bonded in our Atypical-ness, that I am one of them in the way I always wanted to be, I still don’t feel like I belong. But before I could even broach the subject, maybe even tell them about my day, explain that the AM is not to be trusted in the way that they want, my parents jumped down my throat the moment I entered the kitchen.
“Where were you today, Rose?” my mom demanded. She was in her scrubs still, must have just gotten back from her shift, which is when I remembered that I was supposed to stay home today and help my dad with some house stuff that we weren’t sure he could handle on his own.
“Shit,” I mumbled.
“Shit indeed,” my mom said, moving around the kitchen in an agitated storm, opening cabinets and pulling down cookware to make … something. Honestly, based on what she was grabbing, it felt like she was just taking things at random—I couldn’t think of a single dish that would require all that stuff together, though now I definitely am thinking about what dish I could make with cottage cheese, long grain rice, seaweed, and pine nuts.
“I’m really, really sorry—”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” a voice said, and that was when I noticed my dad sitting at the kitchen table, his face buried behind a newspaper.
“Of course you don’t.” My mom sighed, stopping her whirlwind around the kitchen for a moment. “But Rose promised—”
“I’m so sorry, Dad,” I said, hoping to see his face come out from behind the newspaper. It did not.
“Were you off sleeping somewhere?” my mom asked.
“What?” I said. “No.”
“I know that you and Emily have been getting closer and that that might mean some bed-based activities—”
“Whoa—okay,” I interrupted, blushing furiously. “Let’s—”
“So if you were over at her dorm, wasting the afternoon in dreamland—”
“Mom, you like Emily,” I pointed out, feeling prickly at the way she was making it sound like she was some kind of accomplice. Like I didn’t rush over to see Emily the moment I got out of the AM, like I don’t relish every single moment I spend awake with her.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I think she could be good for you, which is why I don’t love the idea of you using her as another way to get your fix—”
And there it was. My mom wasn’t concerned that Emily was an accomplice—she was worried for Emily. That I would be a negative force in my own girlfriend’s life.
I thought I had gotten the monster under control, tamed it enough while I was in the AM, trusted that my family loved me enough to let some things go, but suddenly it roared up inside of me, remembering how my mom looked proud of Emily when she talked about her poetry at Thanksgiving and how I couldn’t remember the last time she looked at me like that.
“My fix?” I yelled. “God, can’t I get a break? I just spent two weeks in an institution because you weren’t happy with the way I was using my power and now you’re giving me crap about it?”
“Rose, it isn’t healthy—”
“Have you seen me sleeping?” I demanded. “I’ve been so much better since I came back, which you would know if you ever asked about me!”
“Or maybe I would understand if you spent more time with us!” my mom shouted back, starting to pace again. “I know you’ve been doing better, which I why I thought that you’d actually want to spend time with us, with your family—”
“It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you,” I said. “I forgot about today—”
“But it’s not just about today.” My dad folded his newspaper down so he could look at me as he talked. “I don’t care that you weren’t here to help me fix the broiler—”
“I’ll fix it tomorrow, I promise—”
“That’s not the point, Rose, that’s what I’m trying to say.” He sighed. “The point is that you’ve been avoiding all of us for months. And we know that it’s hard adjusting to an Atypical ability but we’re here for you.”
“I’m not—I’m adjusting fine.” I sighed. “I just have other things going on in my life!”
“Things more important than your family?” my mom asked, coming to stand in front of me, her arms crossed.
“Why does it have to be either/or?!” I shouted. “Why can’t I have a life? Isn’t it my turn? I’m finally one of you and I—”
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to be this thing that growls.
“You know what,” I said, “never mind. I’m gonna go take a shower.”
I turned on my heel and stomped upstairs, not even taking off my shoes in the hall, which is normally something my mom would yell at me for. When I got to the top of the stairs, I heard the creak of a door and saw Aaron stepping out of his room.
“Heard you and the ’rents fighting,” he said, leaning against his doorframe.
“Come to gloat?” I snapped.
“What would I gloat about?” he asked, and it felt like he really didn’t know. Like he was actually asking the question.
“Are you kidding me?” I said, opening my door and going inside, too tired to acknowledge the absurdity of what he was saying. But apparently, things weren’t as obvious to Aaron as they were to me, and he left his stupid cool-guy doorframe lean and followed me into my room.
“Rosie, what’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean, what’s going on with me?” I snapped, throwing my bag and coat on the bed.
“I mean, why are you getting into fights with Mom and Dad and why do you look at me like I’m your worst enemy now?”
He was leaning on my doorframe now and I wanted to push him out and slam the door.
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“Why am I being interrogated every time I come home?” I spat back.
“Look, we need you right now,” he said, his voice softening. “With everything that’s going on with Dad—”
“I know, Aaron,” I snapped. “I know. But this has to do with Dad.”
“Your coffee with some random Atypical has to do with Dad?” Aaron asked, his face scrunching up.
“Look, I can’t talk about it—”
“What do you mean you can’t talk about it!” Aaron shouted and I walked toward him, lowering my voice so we wouldn’t attract Mom and Dad.
“Aaron,” I said in a hushed voice, “did you ever get a weird vibe from the AM?”
“What?”
“When you were there, did you ever get a weird vibe?” I repeated.
“Why?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“Just … forget it.” I sighed. “I have to take a shower.”
“Rosie—”
“Bye, Aaron,” I said, grabbing my robe and stomping down the hall to the bathroom.
I’m safely ensconced back in my room now, still in my robe, my hair wrapped in a towel, wondering if I skipped dinner entirely if my family would freak out. Probably. They’d assume I was sleeping which, yeah, sounds nice right now, but really I just want to hang out in here and text Damien. But it’s probably not worth the fight I’d have with them—I should just go down and face the music, try to pretend like this afternoon never happened.
January 15th, 2017
Dear Mark,
I think I made a friend today.
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s not like my track record with “friends” is anything to boast about. But Rose is cool—she didn’t judge me, didn’t push me too hard on anything I was telling her … she just believed me. It actually reminded me a bit of how you first—
I know you probably wouldn’t believe this, but I actually do want to help her. I’m not sure I can, but I might as well try. What else do I have to do?
Should I feel bad about lying to her? I mean, it really was a lie of omission—I let her believe what she wanted to believe. That the reason that my power is gone is Wadsworth’s serum, her self-administered vaccine. I wish. I wish Wadsworth had given it to me, that I was immune to you. Even though I know it’s not just your ability that I’m not
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