Scott

I had really thought it’d get better. I had really thought Laesth would hear my newest prayers for relief.

It was Saturday morning and all I could get myself to do was stare at the patterns in the plaster ceiling, listening to myself breathe and muffling out everything else. Every moment of class and with the guys since my telepathy enhanced had been a struggle of walls and privacy. I had thought it’d get easier.

And now Mom had found an apartment and would start moving her things, and Kat didn’t want to talk to me about it? And Mom only talked about church? And Dad wanted to know how I was doing and how my classes were and how the fuck was I supposed to answer that when my life had been reduced to strategizing my isolation?

I hadn’t gone to church last night, to the gods, because I was afraid of the crowd. And I’d thought making a few friends would help my social anxiety?

I huffed out a breath and rolled onto my side. My foggy, half-blocked vision showed me the outline of Mark sitting at his desk, bobbing his head as something flashed on his screen.

At least the guys didn’t give me a hard time if I bowed out of dinner or kept to myself. Even Nick had kept his distance.

Gods, Nick. That was the worst part about all this. Longing ached inside me, but I was still so angry about him experimenting on me with telekinesis, when he had been the one to tell me that you don’t do that sort of thing without asking, when he had taught me about respect. What was I supposed to do now?

I wanted his encouragement and telepathic support, but damn it all what was the point? What were the chances we wouldn’t end up broken up in a few months?

If I kept thinking along these lines I was going to start crying, still in bed on a Saturday way past breakfast, with my roommate right there.

Fine, then. I climbed down from my loft and plopped into my desk chair.

“Natalis, you could work a little harder on my motivation, okay?” I mumbled, giving the statue a brush of my fingertips.

With my guards lowered enough for me to function, they were low enough for me to pick up that Mark’s game was over, and he hadn’t had breakfast yet. I turned to him right before he pulled off his headphones.

“Morning, Scott,” he said, and I hummed in response.

Mark swiveled his chair toward me, his hair flattened where his headphones had been, and gave me a hopeful smile.

“Hungry?”

I sucked in a breath. Damn it, Natalis, can you at least give me five minutes before you test me like this? “Yeah, let me throw my jeans on.”

We were crossing the lawn toward the DC soon enough, and I was blocking out the such a beautiful day . . . on that side and the okay, the 3D graph of this formula is . . . on the other side as we went.

Mark held a surprising amount of worry, though I tried to keep the actual words he was thinking out of my head as well I could. Some scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast later, we were sitting across from each other at a table, eating silently.

And he was going to break the silence in three . . . two . . . one . . .

“Are you doing okay? And you like totally don’t have to answer if it’s none of my business, got it?”

This had probably been a weird two weeks for Mark, with his roommate having an introvert meltdown. “Did Nick tell you what happened to me at all?”

Conversations with Nick popped through Mark’s head. I tried to retune my shields as well as I could. “He said you were having a hard time with family stuff.”

“Oh.” Surprise straightened my back. At least he had kept the telepathy stuff private from the guys. “My magic’s almost worse than that.”

“Worse than you were already going through?” Mark asked, mixing around his egg-and-ketchup combo.

“Yeah. I can actually hear the thoughts of people around me, now.”

Mark’s eyes widened, his face lighting up. “That is intense! Can you hear what I’m thinking? Oh man!”

I kept my eyes on my half-eaten breakfast. “I am trying really hard to not hear what you’re thinking. Though I can tell you’re sort of half-embarrassed and half-excited.”

Mark laughed. “Bright as the stars!”

“It’s exhausting to keep everyone’s thoughts out,” I admitted.

That flipped his expression, and I sighed at having to give every person I explained this to mental whiplash.

“What’s it like?”

Should I tell him the truth? “I didn’t know that so many people are just like me: unsure, trying stuff out, worried about what others think. I didn’t know so many sing to themselves, like my mom does. So many lie to themselves when they know they’re lying.”

“Everyone does that,” Mark said.

I chewed on my piece of toast, mulling over thoughts that weren’t mine, and why did I still have to worry about them? “But why?”

“Out of habit? Out of self-deprecation? I don’t know. Can you tell the difference?”

“A little bit. There’s a glitch of thought before a lie. And the emotions are all off.”

“Ah.” Mark lowered his gaze and poked around at his food for a while, and I enjoyed the silence, letting the world around me fade to a buzz so I could eat in peace.

Not too much later, his voice echoed through. “Hey, Scott.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think you can tell if someone is lying if they don’t know they are?”

I frowned. “What are you getting at?”

He fidgeted in his seat. “I mean, if someone says something, and they don’t know if they believe it or not, can you tell if they do?”

“Try me.”

Mark looked right at me, waited a beat. “I don’t like Chase. Not like that.”

When he said Chase’s name, I got a friendly feeling, nothing that suggested something romantic. But this was a pretty heavy circumstance, and my answer could mean a lot to Mark. Almost more than I felt comfortable with it meaning.

“I think you’re telling the truth.”

Mark visibly relaxed, his shoulders slumping and a smile turning up his lips. “I have been trying to figure that out since last Friday, you have no idea.”

“Did something happen?” I laughed.

“Just a joke,” he said, standing.

We cleaned up our plates and wandered back to our dorm, and though I was glad I could help him, it had been a weird, unexpected request. I wasn’t sure I’d want to do it again.

But it was something that I could almost guarantee the Emperor would have me do if I were to work for him, though. I shuddered; I didn’t want to think about that at all.

Thanks to what Nick had taught me, I’d draw a line with that part of my ability. I wouldn’t—and shouldn’t—have to tell someone their own truth if I didn’t feel comfortable.

We walked by Nick’s dorm, and I felt his presence in there. I threw up shields so he wouldn’t feel me.

I had to divine my own truth, about him. About what I wanted. That would be a whole lot of discomfort I’d have to face, and soon.

Nick

To the gods, a C+. I held the biology exam at arm’s length, vaguely aware of the ridiculous grin on my face and that I was in the way of the next person picking up their exam. I skipped over to Mark and Lucas back at our seats with my exam clasped to my chest.

“You look happy,” Lucas said, stuffing his exam in his backpack, but not before I saw the B+ on it.

“I am happy. Actually, I am extremely happy, because my grade is not horrible. It is, in fact, redeemable.”

Mark laughed. “Nick: exceeding everyone’s expectations since . . . what year were you born again?”

Lucas snickered, but I continued to beam as we filed out into the rain. I formed enough of a telekinesis bubble around me to keep most of the rain off as I put away my exam and flipped up my hoodie. But the bubble became exhausting after half a minute, and I let it wane as Lucas headed off to practice and Mark to his next class.

I needed to celebrate this momentous occasion, and I knew exactly how I was going to do it. With a quick detour to my dorm to grab an umbrella, I headed back out into the rain.

I had always loved the sound of rain in the city. It splattered on glass and cement with a rhythmic whoosh that reminded me of being lulled to sleep from the sound of rain on my bedroom window. It was a sound of comfort, safety, home.

Though, when I stepped in a deceptively deep puddle off a curb, I was unable to ignore that the cold and wet parts of rain weren’t quite as pleasant.

Finally, I ducked into the mall and squeezed past slow-moving people with strollers, teens standing around with their phones. After some maneuvering, I made it to the comic shop.

“Good afternoon!”

I gave the clerk, the same woman from last time I was here, a smile-and-nod combo.

“Anything I can help you find?”

I was about to say no so I could browse on my own when inspiration struck me. “Yeah, actually. Do you have any issues of The Stranger?”

The clerk pouted for a moment, then her face lit up. “Yes, we do. Such a classic. This way, I know we have a few issues back here.”

She led me to a section of reprints, and I picked one up, turning it over. The original comic had been printed when I had been too young to read it; I had read the whole series as a newer bound book. But these reprinted single issues seemed a little . . . disingenuous.

“Do you have any originals?”

The clerk gave me a knowing nod before leading me back to the front counter. She typed at a computer as I scanned the mini figurines that lined little shelves on the counter.

“I thought so. Okay, you are going to love this. Hang out here.”

The clerk disappeared past a curtained doorway behind the counter, and I spun a display of key chains with a flick of magic while I waited for her return.

“Here we go. Issue twenty-seven of The Stranger, where the members of the Tinker Brigade have revealed themselves to the Queen. Circa 285.”

The clerk laid a comic in a plastic sleeve on the counter, its cover showing the Stranger with his lantern held high, the Queen clasping her jacket and looking fearfully into surrounding wood. It was a good one, if I recalled correctly.

“May I?” I asked, gesturing at the comic.

“Maybe if I—” the clerk started, the comic fluttering slightly. But I beat her to it by floating it off the counter, slipping the comic out of its sleeve and opening it carefully midair.

“Wasn’t going to touch it or anything,” I said with probably a bit too much snark.

“Ah, good, good. That’s very useful for handling comics, huh?” she said, while I browsed the pictures.

“After I was confident I wouldn’t slip and rip a page, yeah.”

The colorist had favored bold palettes through these night scenes, with the light cast from the lantern in shades of shocking orange. Yeah, Scott would love this.

“So what do you think?”

“I’ll take it,” I said cheerfully, slipping the comic back into its sleeve and plucking it out of the air.

She rang me up and I handed over my credit card, still distracted by the comic. Ooh, this had been inked by the same guy who did the first series of Tulian Soldiers. I definitely liked his style.

She handed me back my card. “You enjoy that one. If you’re ever interested in any of the other issues, originals or reprints, I can have them ordered for you.”

“I’ll know where to find ya,” I said, sandwiching the comic between my notebooks in my backpack. With a wave, I headed toward the dorms.

The rain had let up enough for me to take my phone out, and I sent Scott an overexcited text. It was only after I hit Send that my doubts returned about the nebulous state of our relationship. Since I’d been waiting for him to reach out, we hadn’t yet talked through what had happened, what we were now . . . and we definitely needed to. I reread my text, a bumbling of excitement and “we gotta hang out” and now I wasn’t sure if he’d even reply.

I got back to my dorm with the weight of uncertainty pulling me down. Samuel and Kaylah were watching some TV show on his bed. She was sitting between his legs with the laptop on her lap, and in the darkening room, they were illuminated with the shifting glow of the screen.

“Hey, man,” Samuel said casually. I hummed, and turned on my desk lamp, then pulled the comic back out, placing it gently on my desk.

There was that guilt again, tugging at the back of my mind, this what-am-I-doing-I-can’t-keep-doing-this feeling. But Scott would love the comic, and we’d read it together, and I’d tell him all about the rest of the series. And he’d tell me about gods. It’d be great.

It’d . . . if . . . no, he’d text me back.

I checked my school email and looked over the outline of an essay I’d need to be starting soon for literature.

Yeah, he’d respond eventually.

I guess if I was going to do that essay I’d have to read the book? I cracked it open in front of my computer screen and rested my head in my hands.

By the time I was bored to tears, my phone finally buzzed.

Scott: You sound excited. Want me to come over?

I glanced at Samuel and Kaylah.

Nick: Actually, can I come to you?

Scott: If you don’t mind Mark, yeah.

Replacing the comic into my backpack, I headed over there.

“What’s the occasion?” Scott asked as I came in. I immediately noticed I barely got a wisp of emotion from him.

“He didn’t fail his biology exam,” Mark called over his shoulder. Scott raised his eyebrows, so I waggled mine. Good, there was a little smile.

“Congrats. Is that why you’re excited?”

Still no rogue emotions from Scott. It was . . . not the same, and I didn’t like it.

“Yeah, uh, also! I got you something.”

I took off my backpack and gestured for him to go to his desk, so he cleared his laptop from it. As I kneeled beside him and pulled out the comic, I felt all off, and all wrong. This already wasn’t going the way I’d hoped it would and . . . damn it.

“It’s an issue of The Stranger! Like, from church the other day.” I laid the comic on the desk. “This one’s halfway through the story but I thought it was cool, and it’s an original, and—”

“You got this for me?” Scott asked, and I got a flutter of appreciation from him that left as fast as it had appeared. “An original?”

“Yeah! From the 280s. It’s not super rare or anything, or in great condition, but it’s a good issue and I thought we could read it together?”

“This is older than we are?”

“Came out when I was one—”

“How much did this cost?”

“Um.” No, this wasn’t going at all like I wanted. And who cared how much it cost—besides Dad. But it was no more than the brigade figures, or the prince. He wouldn’t get that mad again, right? “Don’t worry about that, I was excited about my grade and—”

“Nick. Don’t dodge the truth. You’ve had two huge fights with your dad about you spending money and then you buy me this and why?” Scott said, hushed, strained, and I blinked as a chill swept down my back.

“Because . . . I like you?” Did you ask me if you could read my mind like that?

“It’s not reading if you’re sitting here thinking about how much your action figures cost and how mad your dad got.” And when the phone call will come for this one.

“I—” Well fuck, he had me there. “I just thought—”

Scott huffed. You thought you could give me something nice and everything would go the way you want it to.

His words stabbed into me, pushing me painfully back, and even though he immediately released a wave of horror, the damage was done. I stood, went to grab the comic.

“Shit, Nick, that came out all wrong.”

I hesitated, heat flushing across my chest and up to my cheeks, a visceral reaction to the wound he had ripped. “No, I don’t think it did. It was exactly what you meant. You’re accusing me of buying our relationship because I got you one thing.”

“I’m not used to this. You don’t . . . nothing you’ve been doing with us makes a lot of sense to me.”

Unfortunately, that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. But I didn’t need to say so—he probably already knew. Because apparently I was as open a book now as he had been to me when he first got telepathy.

“No, that’s not—I mean, when you think—” he stuttered. “What I mean, is—”

“Look, are you going to read this? Or should I go get my money back?”

Scott shook his head, and I reached out to pick it up, but he put his hand on the plastic sleeve. “I want to read it.”

“So you shit on my gift and then want to keep it anyway, and you say I’m the materialistic one here. Okay.”

“No, no, it was an assholish thought and now is getting blown out of proportion—”

By me, okay, right. Thanks.

“No, Nick, that’s not—”

I scoffed, yanking my backpack off the floor as I stood. Something ripped as I pulled open his dorm door. It severed as I shut the door behind me.

It was probably my heart.