I try to contain my thoughts by focusing on my immediate surroundings. The tree against my back is rough. The ground beneath my pants is a little damp. The air under the shade of the forest is cool.
Still, the thoughts break through. I have to tell everyone what my gift is. No amount of focusing on my surroundings can remove this constant sense of dread. Should I just leave now and go back to Ron? I wonder how she’s doing, where she went in town. I want to go back to her but the thought of living with my gift for the rest of my life weighs as heavy as the dread.
A twig snaps. I jump, thrown out of my thoughts, and look toward the camp.
A ghostly pale teenage boy is approaching. I glare at him, trying to get him to go away, but he continues to come. He has chin-length jet black hair with about an inch or so of dirty blond roots. He’s in a long sleeve black t-shirt and black skinny jeans that make me feel hot just looking at him.
He sits down beside me, propping his arms up on bent legs. He’s just an inch or so taller than me, but he looked way taller than that as he approached because of his slender frame and long legs.
“Hey,” he says. He has a husky voice. “Depressed?”
I bury my head in my arms. “I don’t wanna talk, okay? Just leave me alone.”
I don’t know who this weird guy is but I decide to ignore him.
What am I supposed to do? Telling everyone my gift is the last thing I want to do. This must be how Li weeds out the unworthy ones. I’m not worthy, right? Is that what she’s trying to tell me? Well, I already know that, but dammit, it hurts like hell.
Slowly, some sort of… happiness creeps into my body and then into my mind, pushing away my thoughts and doubts and self-loathing. It feels foreign, wrong.
I snap my head up toward the boy. “What the hell are you doing?”
He shrinks away, eyes wide. “I just—I was just trying to help. Sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I was wrong.”
“Just leave me alone! I already told you that!”
The feeling starts to creep its way in again.
“Stop it!” I yell.
“Don’t be angry, or depressed. Please.”
“What’s it to you?”
“What’s it to me?” he says bitterly, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. “Your feelings are too strong, okay?” He looks at me and shakes his hands in front of his chest as he talks, gesturing wildly. “I could feel them all the way across the camp, cutting through everyone else’s! Even Valeria’s! Just let me help you. I-I can make you happy for a bit.”
“So you can make people happy? Congratulations. Why don’t you make yourself happy then and leave me alone?”
“You know damn well that our gifts don’t work on ourselves.”
I sigh. I did know that. I figured it out myself, a couple years ago. Back then, the darkness was so much stronger. It was the hardest time for me. It was—
“Ugh, please stop,” he whines.
I stretch out my legs, rubbing the back of my legs against the dirt and leaves and moss below. It doesn’t feel pleasant but it’s something tangible, real.
I love myself.
I breathe out slowly, letting that sole thought flood my mind.
“Wow,” he says, “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“The feelings. They’re gone. Or well, dulled at least.”
“It’s called grounding. You know, focusing on your bodily sensations and the present moment and all that self-help junk? Gets me out of my head.”
“Hmm, I’ve never heard of that. But thanks. I feel a lot better now.”
“You feel better?” I say, my voice rising.
“Look, it’s just that if you feel better, then I feel better. That’s how it works.”
“That’s how what works?”
“My gift.”
“So you try to make others feel better so that you can too?”
“Maybe. I mean, that’s part of it, I guess. But it’s also like… Like… You know, when someone goes through something and they’re having a hard time, and you’ve been through that thing too so you know what it’s like and you want to help them because you’ve been there? Anyway, sure I guess it’s partially selfish but I also don’t want you to feel bad, you know?”
I look him over. This guy talks as though he has to say everything in one breath and gestures with his hands at every word. And yet, when he made me feel happier, I don’t remember seeing him move or touch me or anything like that.
“How do you make people happy? What’s your focus?”
He shrugs. “My mind, I guess? I just imagine someone nearby feeling something and it happens. It doesn’t have to be happiness. Can be any emotion.”
Hearing about his gift takes my mind off of the dinner meeting tonight. Besides, it’s interesting. I finally get the chance to hear about someone’s gift firsthand, and not just from the news or forums. He seems open to talking about it, too.
“What’s your range?” I can’t help but ask him more.
“I could affect everyone in my town. It was a pretty small town though. Never tried anyone farther.”
“You know, your gift doesn’t really seem that bad. I mean, you probably didn’t harm your family or anything. So why are you here? Why leave them?”
“Normies… their emotions are so much easier to manipulate.” This time he talks slower with his hands still on his knees. “You could tell that I was trying to change yours, right? Normies can’t tell, like at all. When I was younger, I took advantage of that a lot. I’d fuck up somehow and when my parents got angry at me, I’d change them to indifferent, like a switch. They never noticed, no matter how sudden it was. And after a while, I started just keeping them happy all the time, even if they weren’t
