“I don’t want to die in a way where everyone would think I was a freak,” I choked out.

She nodded, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “Another one of your quirks I’m responsible for, I’m afraid.”

I didn’t want to think what kind of death that meant I was in for. I didn’t want to know. Maybe it would be a public death. Maybe something pathetic, like a suicide. I thought of what I’d said to Nan. My life is already over. Suicide had never entered my mind before, but now, I wanted death more than anything. I wanted to be with Taryn. Now, it seemed like a definite option. In school the next day, people would whisper and raise eyebrows and some would say, “Well, what did you expect? Cross was a freak.” I would cement my status as Crazy Cross, in capital letters, until the world decided to forget about me, which wouldn’t take very long. Well, they would forget about me, but not the way I died. Years from now, at reunions, they’d say, “Remember that kid from our class who died? The freak? What was his name?” And everyone would know the sad, morbid details of the event, but nobody would recall anything else about me.

“Well,” I finally said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “What’s yours, then?”

A slow smile spread on her face. “What do you think?”

I shrugged.

She said, “Do you ever wonder about how things might have been? Without the Touch?”

I nodded. I’d thought about that often. I wondered what kind of mother she’d have been. Would she be more like Nan? I wondered what kind of person I’d be. Would I like myself? Would I be normal? Or would I find other things to obsess about? But it was useless. “What’s done is done. I know you never wanted this.”

“You were my perfect baby. Even before you were born. I wanted so many things for you.” At that moment I knew what she wanted to do. She picked a lock of hair out of my eye and swept it back. She started to say it, but I didn’t have to hear it to know.

“I know you’re sorry, Mom. And I forgive you.”

She squeezed my hand harder, and I saw everything in my head. I moved against the headboard and she didn’t say a word, just laid her head on my shoulder. We sat there for a long time, until she settled down into the covers and fell asleep. Afterward, as the minutes and hours ticked by, I sat in the vinyl chair across from her, watching her chest rise and fall. When the sea breeze picked up, I wrapped an afghan over her and thought about the irony of it all.

But I stayed. I stayed there as if glued to that uncomfortable vinyl chair. I stayed until my legs fell asleep and the sound of cars whizzing by on Central Avenue faded to the sad song of the crickets. Because I knew.

Hers was the reason she’d gotten the Touch in the first place. The scariest thing to her was losing her fiancé, or being left to raise a child on her own. That was what she’d always been most afraid of.

She didn’t want to be alone, and she didn’t want to die that way, either.

That night, I thought of death. I had visions of me being strung out in front of the world, of people laughing and screaming “freak!” as they paraded by my mutilated body. I saw children crying at the hideous sight of me. I saw people who once acted friendly to me recoiling in horror as they passed. No, they weren’t visions of the future—they couldn’t be. I knew that. But the knowledge didn’t stop me from tossing back and forth on my old, creaky mattress, as if trying to shake the thoughts out of bed with me.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I became aware I was back in my own room. It could have been night or early morning, but I felt as if days had passed. I saw the headlights on the wall. I heard the staircase creaking under her footsteps. The door opened and I felt the mattress dip. “It’s done,” my grandmother whispered, placing her hand on my forehead. It was cold. She smelled like butterscotch.

She didn’t say any more after that. She simply left and closed the door. For the first time in months, I lapsed into a deep and dreamless sleep.

What’s the first thing you notice when you wake up? Sounds, right? Sensations? Well, for me, always, the first thing was a You Will, telling me what I’d feel when I first came into complete consciousness, what I’d see when my eyes finally flickered open.

But there was nothing. My mind was silent as a graveyard. The only explanation I could think of for that was because I was in a graveyard, or destined for one. I was dead.

But then I managed to push open my eyes. I was lying on my side, so the first thing I saw was my bedsheet. I ran my hand over it. It was smooth, not threadbare and pilled. I tossed and turned a couple of times, then pulled the pillow over my face. The pillowcase felt different, too. Sleek. New.

I was just lapsing back into sleep when I got the feeling that someone was in the room with me. Something creaked, and soft footfalls made their way toward the edge of the bed. Someone was standing over me. “Nan, go away,” I muttered, trying to swat her out of the room, but then suddenly everything, once a million miles from my consciousness, came flooding back to me. Taryn. Peanut butter. The Touch. The accident. Mom. Freak.

I skyrocketed upright, ready to defend myself. I lunged forward, flailing my arms awkwardly, and toppled out of bed. Right on two feet. Two very tiny feet.

“Ha ha! Did I scare you, Nicky?” an impish voice said. “Huh, Nicky? You surprised? You jumped a mile high!”

It was a kid. Just a kid, maybe like six or seven. He was bouncing up and down, giving me whiplash. What the hell? Was this what death looked like? A little kid with red hair and freckles and a Spider-Man T-shirt? “Who are you?”

He didn’t answer, just did this Muhammad Ali dance in front of me, and I thought about how weird it all was and that’s when I realized something else. I was thinking. Not seeing the future. Not cycling. Not suppressing visions. All that was gone. Taryn was dead, and yet … I could think. Maybe my brain was having trouble waking up. I thwacked the side of my head to get it going again, but nothing. My mind was silent.

The kid jumped on me, tackling me so that I fell backward. I braced myself for the impact on the rickety old night table, but instead I descended against a plush white carpet. What the hell? When did Nan have that installed? Where was my night table with the toy truck lamp? I jumped back onto the bed, trying to escape the hands of the little booger who seemed to think I was his live punching bag. “Nicky! Nicky! Nicky!” he shouted, careering onto the bed. I began to lift my hands to defend myself when I noticed that the dump trucks and planes were gone from my sheets. They were plain white. Nice, clean, plain white. The kid’s fist smashed into my cheek, making my teeth rattle in my mouth. For a tiny thing, he had power.

The kid lunged at me again, but this time I managed to get the scrawny little devil into a headlock. I looked around. “Ow! Nicky!” he shouted, but I didn’t let go because I was momentarily stunned. It was my bedroom, but not. Somebody had to have been playing a cruel trick on me. Everything was modern, dark blue. There was a desk in the corner with a brand-new MacBook on it, and above that, a shelf with at least a dozen trophies. Running trophies, from the looks of them. It looked like a furniture store showroom, made up like someone could live there, but way too clean and perfect for any actual, living teen.

I rubbed my head and the back of my neck with my free hand. No weird lacerations or bumps or anything of the kind that would have me hallucinating. Because that had to be what this was. A hallucination. A really vivid one. After a minute I realized the imp was just kind of lying like a dead fish in my hands. I quickly let him go. He massaged his neck. “Ow, Nicky,” he said, pouting.