And Maybe They Fall In Love Emma Hill

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A N D M AY B E T H E Y
FA L L I N L O V E

Emma Hill
 Copyright © 2023 Emma Hill

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to
real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by: Ink and Laurel (@inkandlaurel)

Editing by: Alex Whitmarsh (@whittyreading)
 For myself, to prove that I could.
And for you, to show that you can.
 This book explores themes including intrusive thoughts, anxiety,
body image, pregnancy and birth, alcoholism, abandonment, and
sexual harrassment. Please read with care and know that you are
loved, valued, and worth being loved and valued.
CHAPTER ONE
 When Elle Coker entered a grocery store, it was all about her
hair. Everyone's Readings saw nothing but orange. It was to the
point that Elle was experimenting with headscarves, but in a small
Texas town like Sorsbury, you got funny looks if you experimented
with headscarves. Even more than if you were a redhead. Bare-
headed was best.
Grocery stores made good hiding places. Once everyone had
seen her hair and gotten over it, Elle faded into the background
while the true priority took over: grocery lists. They were
everywhere—they were the reason she didn’t hate Reading in the
grocery store. Under the tangle of lists residing in everyone’s mind, it
was easy to avoid Reading thoughts that Elle didn’t want to see. Out
in the ordinary world, making eye contact with someone could mean
finding out they’d buried their pet dog earlier that day—or it could
mean seeing herself as they saw her walking past, mirror-Elle in a
stranger’s eyes, with every flaw and failure highlighted for her in
inescapable detail. Not stuff she wanted to deal with. But in Tap’s
Grocery (or a supercenter chain on Sundays, when the Tap’s owner
took his soccer-aged kids to church), she Read puddings and
sandwiches and grocery budgets. And that was all.
Elle visited Tap’s on Thursday, when the store closed a little
early because the owner's ten-year-old son had a soccer game, and
he didn't trust the high schoolers he hired to lock up properly—the
owner, not the son, although Elle had run into him once (the son)
and Read that he (the son) didn't trust the high schoolers, either—
and people were doing their weekend shopping. They had until
seven.
For someone like Elle, weekend shopping was like a window
to the soul. You could see moms stocking up on snacks, people mid-
diet considering a weekend splurge, college students trying to
remember if the apples back home in the fridge had started to rot
yet. And the men—the ones Elle was after—shopped for beer, Frito
pie ingredients, and pastries.
The pastries were crucial. This was why Elle settled in the
back left corner of Tap’s, where the high schooler with a hairnet
picked his nose over the cheese and thought about whether his
pimple would dissipate before the friendly volleyball game that night,
which the girl he liked would be attending with her ex-boyfriend.
The pastries.
They were varied and reheatable; they were dusted, glazed,
stuffed, and swirled. Each package had a label on it with the same
logo: the bold, green “R,” which was echoed on the stack of
business cards Elle carried into the back of Tap’s.
She had permission to pass out the cards, of course. Elle,
although she was many things, did not classify herself as a rule-
breaker. Mom had spoken to the owner.
What Elle did not have permission to do was what she did as
a man approached the pastries with apple pie in his eyes. But there
was no strict rule against it, either.
Ollie Blaese was a man who checked all the boxes. When he
approached the deli around six-thirty that Thursday (“The store will
be closing in thirty minutes,” an employee over the loudspeaker
reminded everyone), Elle Read a Dorito casserole in his future, and
an unhappy one at that. He’d eaten out too much, wanted a home-
cooked meal, and hadn’t had the time to learn how to make many
recipes during his medical residency.
Medical? Doctor?
Money. Big budget. Elle readied her business cards.
Elle shopped for budgets in the store like Ollie was shopping
for Doritos. It was a necessary ingredient in her Solidify Elle’s Future
Casserole:
· Add one mom, one little sister named Ericka, and a dad
recently out of the picture.
· Stir in Mom’s abandonment of a perfectly fine career at
the bank to start up her own specialty German deli in the middle of a
land filled with tacos and fried chicken.
· Sprinkle in the fact that Mom used little sister’s college
funds to start the business.
· Give it a hefty stir, then toss in a dash of Elle really
wanting to leave Sorsbury, but the way things were going, she would
be leaving Ericka to end up homeless or working at a grocery store
to pay off Mom’s debts.
 · Add a man with a stable career who’s looking for love.
Looking for someone just like Mom. Such men are available in most
local grocery stores.
· Bake at 350 for thirty minutes. Or something. Elle
wasn’t sure what you did with a Dorito casserole.
“If you like those pies, you should check out the shop,” she
said to Ollie, and she handed him the card.
Ollie straightened and squinted at her through square-rimmed
glasses. He still had all his hair, and his face wasn’t bad, and it got
better as he smiled. He was a little rounder than Dad, but Elle had
never known her mother to make a fuss about weight.
“There’s a shop?” he asked.
“Yep. Relish, started by Helda Coker, a local.” Mom wanted
people to call her by her maiden name, but Elle wasn’t doing that
yet. “Authentic German cuisine, right here in Sorsbury.”
“Really?” he asked, delightedly. “I’ve been looking for a place
since I went to Germany last year. It’s closed down of course, so I
can’t go back anytime soon…. I will absolutely try this place out.
Does she do more than desserts?”
“All kinds of things,” Elle promised. “Sandwiches and
Wienerschnitzel and…”
“That’s unbelievable!” Ollie cut her off. “That I haven’t heard
of it, I mean,” he added. “I’ll be sure to try it out.”
“The store will be closing in fifteen minutes,” an employee
reminded them.
“You won’t be sorry,” Elle told the enthusiastic Ollie Blaese.
“Helda Coker’s the best the South has to offer.”
She believed it, too. The deli was amazing.
Helda Steuber? Not so much.
Ollie left, clutching his card and some strudel, and after
waiting an appropriate amount of time (“Five minutes. Please make
your final purchases now.”), Elle followed him out into the rapidly
chilling summer evening.
CHAPTER TWO
 It started with a farmers market. At the beginning of the year,
Mom told Ericka that she couldn't make her high school cheer
competition because she was taking some of her homemade
sauerkraut to the farmers market. Ericka called Elle, crying, and Elle
called her mother to find out that the farmers market had gone very
well, and Mom had signed up for it before she realized it conflicted
with Ericka’s schedule. “I'll do better next time,” Mom said.
By May, she had signed a lease for a restaurant space
downtown. Relish opened in June. Mom had her goods in local
grocery stores, available for delivery, and she’d even taken out a
fifteen-second ad on a local news station. Since then, she had
missed four more cheer competitions, three senior night activities,
canceled the family vacation, and asked Ericka to go on prospective
college tours by herself. Elle had heard about all of this from calls to
her dorm room at GJC, but she couldn't do anything about it, except
for the few weeks that she was home visiting. And even then, she
had summer classes, so on nights like the night she met Ollie Blaese,
Elle would lock herself firmly in her room and pretend she was back
in the dorms so she could complete her online quiz.
Before her Reading had been diagnosed, Elle took quizzes in
person and Read the answers in everyone's minds. It didn’t feel like
cheating because it was all there, waiting for her. And no one knew
to stop her. She'd still get several wrong—nobody’s mind was
infallible, especially not those in the back, where Elle usually chose
to sit—but it was easier to answer with everyone's voices scribbled
around her than to stare at the screen in silence, alone.
She didn't have time to overthink this quiz. Elle answered the
questions (business questions, since business seemed like a good
degree to get you anywhere but Sorsbury) and closed her laptop
before the grades could ruin her night further. She stared at her
desk, frustration threatening to take over again. Footsteps thumped
in the kitchen against the hollow wood floor: Ericka heating up the
casserole Elle made earlier that day, shaking the whole house.
“It was really good,” Ericka said when Elle came down. “Did
you get the fancy sauce?”
“I made the fancy sauce,” Elle replied.
 The thing about Ericka—the good thing about Ericka, not the
annoying little sister habits about Ericka—the best thing about Ericka
was her brightness. When Elle Read Ericka, it wasn't the dark sort of
scrawl that filled most people's minds. Ericka's mind was light, filled
with the best thoughts of the people around her, the cheesiest of
hopes for herself, and the sincerest view of the world. Of course
Ericka got mad; everyone did, but the thing about Ericka was that
she found ways around the darkness that other people didn't.
Sometimes, that made Elle mad. Other times, it made her feel like
her little sister was the only one in the universe she could stand to
be around.
“Was it too spicy?”
Ericka smacked her lips. “I had to guzzle about two cups of
milk, but I survived.”
Elle sat down at the kitchen table and noticed all the papers
sprawled across the surface for the first time. She Read the answer
in Ericka's mind before Ericka could explain that it was her physics
packet that was due the first day of school, and she'd fallen a little
bit behind her own self-set work schedule, but she was picking it
back up, it was just difficult to keep herself on schedule when none
of her friends were in this class this year.
“Did you ask Mom to help?” Elle asked.
“It's fine.” Ericka kept her eyes on her phone, which had
magically appeared from her pocket. Elle could see in both her
Reading and in Ericka's oversized glasses that she was looking at
nothing, just an excuse not to meet Elle’s gaze. “I can do it by
myself.”
“You shouldn't have to,” Elle muttered, before she could stop
herself. “Dad…”
“Fell off the Christmas float, so there's no use bringing him
up,” Ericka said, jumping off her seat and swinging her backpack to
her shoulder. “I think I'll go work upstairs.”
“I can help…”
“I don't need help,” Ericka said, louder than she needed to in
their little kitchen. She picked up her work from the table in a messy
pile and dragged it all with her up the steps, reverberations echoing
through the house, and then Elle was left in a silent kitchen with a
casserole that had barely been touched.
She frowned at it. How long had Ericka left it sitting out? And
had she licked the fork?
Stupid questions. Elle had made the casserole; didn't that
make it safe?
No. No it did not. She should have learned this lesson the first
week she noticed the Afterthoughts.
The ridiculous fears, the second-guessing, the tightness in her
throat some days that arbitrarily refused to allow her to eat—they’d
quickly become part of her everyday life. While she wasn’t sure,
medically, what was happening—although the internet had a couple
suggestions—Elle knew the Afterthoughts weren’t something to
share with her family or (if she’d cared to make any after high
school) friends.
And today was a bad day. Today, Elle was Afterthought
Central. They were everywhere, connecting tissue that tied Elle back
to Dark Places, Hidden Shadows, Dangers that Weren't Relevant to
Ordinary People. Afterthoughts pulled her fingers back from the fork
like invisible strings, whispering about what could be wrong with the
casserole.
It could have gone bad. It could have already been bad, and
maybe you didn't notice. Someone could have cleaned the counters
and accidentally sprayed cleaner in the casserole dish.
The Afterthoughts were ridiculous, and they were everything,
and they were everywhere, and they were nothing. Elle’s stomach
turned, predictably, from hunger to nausea.
She stood and carefully slid the plastic wrap back over the
casserole’s face. It would go back in the fridge, like good casseroles
should.
Ericka had left a pencil on the table. Elle watched it as she
took the casserole to its place behind the milk and the salad,
weighing her options. She could take the pencil upstairs to Ericka, so
Elle had the chance to apologize. Or she could leave it down here
and wait, hoping her sister would venture down sheepishly and ask
if Elle wanted to help her with physics.
 But the Afterthoughts were too strong for Elle to stay in the
kitchen with the pencil. Every surface seemed tainted somehow by a
thousand unlikely possibilities. When putting up the casserole, she
had to open the fridge, and a slight stickiness on the handle sent her
spiraling. Leftover residue from someone touching the door with raw
chicken on their hands? Dried, congealed milk? Some hidden danger
you couldn’t even imagine….
She set the casserole in its place and let the fridge door swing
shut on its own. Cooking used to be something she really enjoyed.
Now, although she’d retained her skill, it took her twice as long to
make food as it had before. And she could almost never eat what
she made.
Elle’s feet carried her to the sink before she knew she was
there. She washed her hands once. Okay, it wasn’t right that time.
Some of the sink water could have splashed up onto my hands and
now they’re worse than when they started. One more time. The
drain was clogged; cloudy water began pooling in the sink’s basin,
splashing and swirling with day-old food bits and silverware that
wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher. She washed in the hot water until her
hands burned and the cracked skin around her wrists began to sting
again.
More irritated than anything, she forced herself to stop and
gave up on any kind of dinner for the night. She went to bed hungry,
staring at the ceiling that shifted shadows every time a car drove by
the quiet street.
If Mom would just pay attention to you, I think I would be
okay.
Sometimes, when the Afterthoughts got bad, Elle found
herself retreating into imaginary conversations, saying the things it
was easier to avoid in person.
If Mom would just pay a little more attention to you, I think
I'd be okay, she repeated in her mind to Ericka. It's unfair that you
just have her, alone, and I got to have Dad in my life—even though
he's ruined the past few months, he spent time with me while I was
in high school that Mom’s not spending with you. I know what he
did, and I know it was wrong, and believe me, I'm not forgiving him
anytime soon—but before that he was actually a pretty awesome
dad.
I just know that I have to go back to college eventually, like in
just a couple weeks, and that really sucks. Thinking of just leaving
you in this house sucks. This house... Okay, the house is fine, but
the floors suck. They're so loud, which makes them so quiet when
no one's here, and she's never here. She's always going to choose
herself.
I just don't want to leave you, too.
The Afterthoughts waited for her when she closed her eyes.
Your tongue is itching, why is it itching? You drank water
before bed. Are you sure there is nothing in it that could hurt you?
Cleaners. Someone could have sprayed cleaners in the cabinet and
got some in the cup. Yes, you washed it, but was it good enough?
It’s reacting. You’re in danger. You should go to the hospital. Get up
out of your bed and go. Right now.
It’s not real. It’s not real. I washed the cup. There are no
cleaners.
What about your toothbrush? Can you be sure?
So, Elle stayed up, staring at the window where normal
people were living their normal lives until early into the next
morning.
CHAPTER THREE
 “Isn’t today your counseling day?” Ericka asked as she
entered the kitchen the next day. She'd caught Elle in the middle of
attempting breakfast; four pieces of buttered toast had already hit
the bottom of the trash can as the Afterthoughts took over. “Also, it’s
almost eleven. You totally slept in.”
Elle set down her knife and tried to find her bearings between
the stretching what-ifs and Ericka’s bubbling Reading. She hadn’t
slept in. She hadn’t slept at all. Ericka didn’t know that.
“Counseling?”
“The thing you do,” Ericka reminded her, grabbing her own
piece of toast and popping it into the toaster oven without so much
as washing her hands. “The thing the government makes you do.
The video therapy...the journal stuff?”
“Oh. Anne.”
“Yeah,” Ericka said. “Isn't that today?”
She was right. It was. Elle gave up on breakfast, grabbed a
cup of water, and returned to her room upstairs to prepare (or not)
for what was coming.
When the world discovered Readers, it was a surprise to most
Readers that not everyone could Read. The average Reader just
thought no one talked about the images floating through the air
during face-to-face conversations. But once society had figured it
out, little instances in a Reader’s life began to make a lot more
sense. It explained how the Readers knew when to speak and when
to be silent; it explained how some people just knew exactly what
you needed to hear. Readers had chalked it up to being better at
choosing the right things to say than the others. They didn't realize
they had a legitimate, almost supernatural, advantage.
A year of isolation (and some political scandal Elle didn’t really
understand) led to worldwide recognition that mind-Readers existed
and that they were nothing like the movies. The whole “images”
thing was new; past understanding of mind-Readers had limited
itself to word-for-word telepathy or similar invasion of personal
privacy.
Reading didn't feel like that; it was just part of the natural
world, part of body language, even, no more invasive than seeing
how many times someone blinked when they spoke to you.
But not everyone felt that way.
Once Reading had been definitively proven as something that
existed, it became something that needed to be regulated. By the
tail end of the global quarantine, Readers in America were required
to be registered and receive monthly counseling. It was marketed as
something that was “good for them” and “a way to help Readers
develop safely,” but most Readers had already figured out how to
live with their powers by the time the world found out. Speculation
that it was a government scheme to mark the Readers and get data
to exterminate them was largely mocked. But nobody really believed
it was for the Readers’ well-being, either.
Malicious or not, nobody really had a choice in the matter.
The Readers complied. Those who didn't—well, Elle hadn't heard
about anyone who didn't. This was her eighteenth month. Her
assigned counselor’s name was Anne, and she was a college grad
student near the start of her second-to-last semester, working with a
counseling center for her summer practicum.
Anne did not find the Afterthoughts interesting. “Did you try
our anxiety-reducing exercises?” she asked, like she was supposed
to, flipping through the notes in her bullet journal. Elle felt her face
prickle. Anne made her feel like everything Elle did was quantifiable,
understandable, and manageable. And that made Elle feel like she
was failing when the world refused to make sense.
The food stuff was common; she’d read about it on WebMD.
Plenty of people her age had some kind of anxiety caused by a life
transition, and Elle could nail down what caused her issues to the
day. But that didn’t make it easier when her Afterthoughts took over,
almost like her own personal Readings, whispering what was wrong,
why she couldn’t be like everyone else. They didn’t feel quantifiable.
They felt like they were winning.
Anne, to the best of Elle’s understanding, only cared about
the Readings, not the Afterthoughts. Elle didn't really blame her. It
wasn't like Anne herself ever ran the risk of being Read by Elle;
counselors were chosen from across the country, and if they ever did
meet their patients on accident, they were immediately reassigned.
Hearing Elle describe the Readings, having her draw out their forms
as best she could remember, talking about what they really meant—
that got Anne out of that ever-present bullet journal and back into
the conversation.
“I haven’t eaten since lunch,” Elle said. She really felt like
talking about the Afterthoughts today. Maybe just getting it all out
and hearing how dumb she sounded would help her break the cycle
and get back to normal.
“It’s only four-thirty,” Anne said. “Are you hungry?”
“I meant lunch yesterday,” Elle corrected.
Anne’s eyes flicked down to the bullet journal. “Are you
hungry?” she repeated.
Elle didn’t feel like Anne deserved to hear about it, the aching
that wasn’t quite hunger, but certainly wasn’t contentment. The
Afterthoughts’ results scribbled in her stomach like an inky promise.
“No,” she lied.
“Maybe try to eat something you really enjoy,” Anne
suggested. “If you’re hungry for a while, it can feel like you’re
nauseous when really that’s your body telling you that you need to
eat. Eating something you really like might be able to help with
that.”
“But the Afterthoughts….”
“We’ve already talked about them. Remember? You just need
to face them and see that they aren’t true at all. You’re safe. Nothing
you eat is going to hurt you.” Anne’s glasses flashed. She’d opened
up her social media on her browser, next to the video call. This
boring client won’t shut up about her dumb paranoia, Elle imagined
her typing. Maybe Anne would add a screenshot of Elle looking
frazzled to the post, to boost it in the algorithm.
Of course, Anne wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t a good
counselor, but it’s not like she would ignore the one thing everyone
expected of her: patient confidentiality.
“I used Reading again to try and find my mom a date,” Elle
said, just to see if Anne would pay attention. Right on cue, her eyes
snapped away from the social media and back to Elle.
“Again? We haven’t talked about this before.”
 Elle shrugged. “I didn’t think it was relevant.”
Anne’s pen clicked irritably, and Elle felt a quick moment of
satisfaction. “I think it’s relevant.” Anne wasn’t amused. “Your father
has only been gone since January, right?”
“March.” He didn’t leave until Mom forced him out, and it took
her a long time to do that. Elle hadn’t been there. Ericka had faced it
by herself.
Ericka faced a lot by herself now that both Mom and Dad
were gone. “I made PB&Js three nights in a row and didn’t even get
tired of them,” Ericka had told her proudly the first week of summer.
It made Elle’s stomach sick to think of Mom spending all day cooking
and serving total strangers only to come home late and ignore her
hungry younger daughter. “It’s easier to find guys her age when I’m
home,” Elle decided to say. “Instead of at GJC, I mean. The only
guys there old enough to date my mom are either professors or non-
traditional students.”
“Do you have a problem with non-traditional students?” Anne
asked, with an edge to her voice that made Elle think her counselor
might hide her age behind a filter on their calls.
“No,” Elle said quickly. “They just don’t have very much
money.”
“And why… oh.”
Elle watched the pieces click into place, feeling slightly
satisfied that someone else knew at last. “If someone else is paying
the bills, maybe Mom won’t work so hard.”
And maybe I won’t lose my little sister because Mom pushed
her away. Maybe Ericka will stay.
“And maybe you’ll get to leave and start all over.”
“What?” Elle snorted. Anne, as usual, wasn’t paying attention.
“That’s not the point. Ericka needs a dad. She needs parents who
care about her. That’s it.”
Anne was off her socials now. She didn’t look convinced.
The call ended exactly at the fifty-minute mark, just like every
call before and every call after. This time, Elle stared at her own
reflection in the darkened laptop screen for a little too long, until the
front door creaked open and Mom’s humming filled the background
of her thoughts like an inescapable whining.
She was supposed to keep a journal every month and discuss
it with Anne, but after four months in a row of failed efforts, Anne
stopped asking about the entries (maybe to preserve a little of Elle’s
dignity). But tonight, Elle took out the little green notebook with a
grand total of three entries for the past year and a half. She chose a
pencil, then put it back and got a pen.
She didn’t write any words. She just let the pen tip fall on the
paper.
She tried to draw what her Reading would look like, if she
could have one.
When she was done, Elle watched the page, as if it would
move, float into the air, become a real Reading. But it stayed
stagnant. False.
She put the date in the corner anyway and tucked the journal
back into its place on the bookshelf, where it would probably stay for
another year and a half or two.
CHAPTER FOUR
 Christopher loved overhearing coffee shop conversations. He
sat in the corner where no one looked, sketching in his notebook
and pretending to ignore the two girls stalking a guy in their class
online to see if he was really single, the couple talking about their
fractured relationship, the youth pastors giving their charges the
same stale speech. Tuesday was Christopher’s day to sketch
creatures, so he glanced up every so often and noticed how the
husband talking to his wife hunched his shoulders or how the youth
pastor had really long fingers and brought those elements to his
designs, until the page was filled with gremlins and ghouls and a
good day’s work.
It had taken a couple weeks into summer for Christopher to
adjust to life without high school. Graduation had snuck up on him;
now it was over, and he finally was free of calculus and conference
calls. It still felt a little strange, not having to wake up at six-thirty to
get ready for the first period livestream, setting his own schedule,
sketching not as something he had to cram into every free moment,
but as an activity around which he planned his day. He liked it.
“Just you wait,” Martin, his older brother, had sighed when
Christopher mentioned how nice it was to have his own schedule
outside of school bells. “College is even better. It’s wild. Time makes
no sense for four years straight. But I bet you’ll get through it ahead
of schedule, with an art degree.”
Christopher didn’t really see the appeal. He liked life how it
was right now—sure, he knew he couldn’t live with his parents
forever (Dad had made that very clear), but he was working on that.
Everyone expected college to be the next step after high school. He
wasn’t so sure.
One of the gremlins was better than all the rest. Christopher
chose him to duplicate on the next page. He gave the gremlin a desk
and some paperwork, a pair of glasses and a worried expression. 9-
5, Christopher scribbled in the corner. Martin didn’t seem to mind his
accounting job too much, but Christopher thought it just sounded
like more school—more people telling you what to do, and if you
were lucky, they let you go for lunch.
 “Christopher?” The voice startled Christopher into accidentally
giving the gremlin a scribbly mustache. He looked up through
glasses he hadn’t realized were sliding down his nose to see Reagan,
one of his classmates from high school. She had on an apron, a
mask with the coffee house logo on it, and she had a tray in her
hand. “Hey,” she said, waving a little awkwardly. They’d never been
close, but their high school on the north side of Grueneville was so
small, everyone pretty much knew everyone else. Christopher closed
his sketchbook before she could get a closer look (the gremlin
resembled the woman at the table nearest them a little too closely)
and smiled.
“Hey, Reagan. I didn’t see you when I came in.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t see you, either. It gets so busy
here. How are you?”
“Good,” Christopher said, and he really meant it.
Reagan beamed, her round cheeks dimpling around her
brown eyes. “It’s so weird seeing people now, you know? After
lockdown and everything.”
Christopher sighed. “Yeah. I’m glad it’s mostly over.”
“Colleges don’t seem to think it is,” Reagan frowned. “I’ve
been applying to some places, and they expect us to pay full tuition
for virtual classes. Can you believe that?”
“That’s ridiculous.” Christopher thought that was the right
thing to say. Reagan was going to be a nurse or something. She
didn’t really have a choice when it came to whether or not she
would go to college, but that wasn’t the sort of situation that would
bother a student like her. Reagan was in the top three of their class
and always seemed to be doing homework, even at lunch when
Christopher passed her on his way to the corner where no one else
sat. Before lunch was an at-home thing, anyway. He assumed she
worked just as hard now.
“Where are you planning to go?” Reagan asked. “For art stuff,
I mean.”
Christopher gripped his sketchbook to make sure it was
closed. “Um…I, uh…”
 “Oh,” Reagan groaned, slapping her palm to her freckled
forehead. “You didn’t tell me that, did you?”
“It’s fine,” Christopher said. “I promise.”
Awkward silence.
It was a shock for everyone when Reagan identified herself as
a Reader; their school was so small, nobody expected a Reader to
be in their district. Readers had turned out to be pretty rare, which
was part of why they’d been hidden for so long. It made sense. If
there was some part of how your brain worked that didn’t add up
with everyone else’s brains, you just kind of kept it quiet as best you
could. But Christopher didn’t understand why some Readers still felt
embarrassed about who they were. Reagan had dropped off the face
of the earth after revealing her Reading, or, she had as much as one
can in virtual school: her video camera was always off and she never
spoke in classes, like she thought everyone would think Reading was
something that separated her from the people she’d been friends
with all her life.
“It’s more annoying than anything else,” Reagan said.
“Although I bet it would be kind of cool if I could draw.”
“Yeah,” Christopher agreed. “That’s what I was…well, yeah.”
“I gotta go take this coffee,” Reagan said a little helplessly.
“Um. It was good to see you, Christopher.”
“You, too,” he said, and she was gone. His thoughts were his
own again.
Maybe not. Reading had slipped his mind. Could any of the
people he’d turned into gremlins and goblins see his distortions of
them in his sketchbook? Christopher eyed the youth pastor
nervously. Surely if someone could Read him, they would have said
something. But the coffee shop chatter stayed quiet, private, and
ignorant of the artist in their midst.
Not quiet or private to Reagan. It’s more annoying than
anything else. The world must be so loud for her, Christopher
thought, a little sadly. He’d never leave the house if he could Read.
The gremlins had lost their allure, so he packed up his
sketchbook in his bag and returned his coffee mug to the front,
where Reagan gave him a friendly wave.
 It was a warm and humid late summer day outside, but
Christopher didn’t mind so much. He watched the cars stream by, on
their way to summer vacations or a grocery store pick up. The cars
couldn’t Read him, so he let them become behemoths in his mind,
chubby dinosaurs that had glowing eyes and growled at each other
at stoplights.
Martin and Thea were waiting for him at home. They had
their own apartment, but more often than not they came over to
hang out with Mom; “He prefers an audience,” Mom told Christopher
once, rolling her eyes about her oldest son.
Mom was home a lot recently, since she was let go from the
hospital. It made it easier for Martin, Christopher guessed; instead of
being alone with his thoughts, he could harass Mom all day about
finding a new job. Which, so far, she hadn’t.
“The artist returns!” Martin shouted, raising his beer. Thea
waved at Christopher, then went back to arguing with Mom about
the game blaring over their conversation.
“It was a foul!”
“Wait till they play it back, Mama, just wait…”
“What’d you draw?” Martin asked, grabbing for Christopher’s
backpack.
Christopher hoisted the bag out of his brother’s reach and
marched to his room. “Hey, Mom,” he called over his shoulder before
closing the door securely behind him. He didn’t hear a response.
His room was full of his favorite drawings, both his own and
those of other artists. When he was sixteen, he’d shown Mom
exactly which Heinrich Kley sketchbook to buy on Amazon for
Christmas. “It has nudity!” she’d protested.
“It’s what inspired Disney!” he’d pleaded. They’d
compromised; she bought the book, but it stayed in her room,
where she selected the “appropriate” sketches and photocopied
them for Christopher. He’d hung them all over his walls. Dancing
elephants and otters having high tea greeted him every morning,
mixed in with more gremlins or goblins or Pixar concept art printed
off online scans.
Readers see in sketches.
 Christopher sighed, flopping onto his bed. The discovery of
Readers almost a year ago had made his dream seem even farther
away. If someone saw the world in art, and actually knew what they
were looking at, what chance did regular artists have anymore? No
studio would hire Christopher if someone like Reagan took an
interest in concept work.
One thing was for sure, though. Going to college would be a
waste of time. Christopher needed to improve his skill until he could
draw with more accuracy than the Readers he’d be competing
against. He didn’t need to waste time completing core classes.
He pulled his sketchbook out again and erased the gremlin’s
mustache.
One step at a time.
CHAPTER FIVE
 Mom had one date outfit. Back when she was going on dates
with Dad, it sufficed because they didn’t go on many dates, so
enough time usually elapsed that the blue dress could be reworn
without fear of recognition. Now, it was unlikely whatever man saw
her in the dress would see her a second time. Mom had become
very selective.
“He really is very nice,” she told Elle, while Elle plucked at
Mom’s hairstyle to give it an effortlessly tousled sort of look. “He
heard about the deli from the cards I have with my products, you
know, at grocery stores. Before he saw that card, his plan was to go
home and make a Dorito casserole. Can you believe that?”
“No,” Elle lied. Ollie really had turned out better than
expected. He’d asked Mom on a date during his second visit to the
deli. And he hadn’t mentioned Elle.
Her mother stared at her own reflection in the mirror before
them, pouting her lips at her dark hair with its streaks of gray.
“You’re so kind to help me get ready, Elle.”
Elle didn’t answer that. Anne’s accusations were still rankling
in the back of her mind. And she could see from Mom’s Readings
that she didn’t really mean it, anyway. Elle’s help was as expected as
Ericka’s patience and Dad’s absence; it was just who she was to
Mom.
Mom stood, brushing out blue wrinkles. She really was
beautiful, in all the genetic ways Elle had missed out on and Ericka
had acquired—big, dark eyes, graceful nose, cascading curls of dark
hair—and Mom had a way of carrying herself that overwhelmed you
with her looks while leaving you convinced that she wasn’t trying.
Ericka would learn that skill, Elle was pretty sure. Her younger sister
watched Mom closely when she could. It made Elle all the madder
that Mom was so absent, and Ericka was only left with a sister who
didn’t know how to dress, or carry herself, or do much of anything
besides apply liberal amounts of lipstick.
“Where are you going?” Elle asked Mom, burying the voice
that roared I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care!
“The Chicken House,” Mom replied. “That chicken salad
place.”
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