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could be wrong. I am, a lot. But even though I know that my memories of Gram’s power are limited, I’ve never seen Aunt Mari do anything like I can do with just a thought, either.
    I close my eyes again, burying my face against Gabriel’s chest. He’s warm, solid, and I burrow in hard, pressing my nose to the worn cotton of his shirt. Behind my closed lids, a frail, white-paper bird flaps to life.
    And a boy as pale and still as marble watches me in the musty dark of a garage loft.
    I know what it feels like when Gabriel pokes inside my head. Vague pressure that’s not really pain, the sharp light of day visible through a slightly open door. I pull away, even though he grabs my arm to keep me beside him. “Cut it out. You know I hate that.”
    He scratches his head roughly and lets go of my arm to stand up. “Yeah, well, sometimes I can’t control that, either.”
    For a minute we simply look at each other, and I wish I could read all the emotions I can see in his eyes as easily as he can read me, whether he’s trying to or not.
    He means too much to me already. The way he scratches his head when he’s frustrated, the way he slouches just a little when we’re walking together so the height difference between us isn’t so obvious, the low hum in his throat when we’ve been kissing for a while. Tiny, insignificant things that don’t come close to the way he trusts me, or the way he listens to me, but put it all together and just the sight of him makes my heart ache with how much I want to keep this. How much I want to keep him.
    There’s so much I don’t know about Gabriel, but Danny leaked pieces of himself like someone had poked a hole in him. Not a day went by when I didn’t hear how he felt about this movie or that band, and I can still make lists of not only his favorite foods and books and people but the things that made him who he was—the things he felt, in his bones and blood, about everything.
    “I should probably go,” I say, pushing to my feet and walking into the living room, where my boots are tossed in a pile on the floor with my coat and bag.
    “Wren.” Gabriel sits down on the sofa where I’m putting on my shoes. His cheeks have lost that hectic flush. “I’m sorry. Really. You can stay, we don’t have to—”
    “I know.” I force my mouth into a smile. “But I think I want to, and . . . I don’t trust myself right now. I’ll come by the store tomorrow, okay?”
    I don’t kiss him good-bye when I leave.

Chapter Five
    “MY BRAIN’S GOING TO BE COMPLETELY broken by the time we get to Christmas break,” Darcia says. Her notes and textbooks are spread around her on Jess’s dining room table. It looks like a library heaved up its lunch. A stray pink Post-it Note is stuck to her sleeve, and her hair is twisted up on top of her head with two pencils.
    “Breathe,” Jess says absently, and flips a page in her chem book. “Cal called again last night.”
    Dar groans and picks up her copy of The Metamorphosis , ignoring her.
    “And?” I say when Jess doesn’t elaborate. Behind her notebook, Dar scowls at me, and I shrug. Jess doesn’t freak about exams, but she does sort of freak about boys. If you can call overthinking the possibility of one date freaking, that is.
    “It was . . . nice.” A satisfied little smile tugs at her mouth. “He’s nice. Nicer than I thought anyway. Which is an excellent example of not judging a boy by his very footbally cover.”
    I raise an eyebrow. “Footbally?”
    Jess waves this off carelessly. “You know what I mean. So I think I’m going to go for it. Almost definitely.”
    “ Meanwhile ,” Dar says with a distinct edge to her voice, “I’ll be grounded because I’ve failed all my exams, but you have fun. Be sure to tell me all about it.”
    Jess blinks, and even I sit up a little straighter. It’s not that Darcia doesn’t have a temper, but it usually takes something like dynamite and a four-alarm fire to set it