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long.”
    Emotion swells inside Shiloh when I say Ally’s name. He has had a crush on her for about a year now. I wish she cared. I also wish that every time I mentioned Ally, there wasn’t a brief moment where it felt like I was the one who had feelings for her.
    I explain to Shiloh about my panic attack in the club, and the girl I met and how I am terrified that I might always feel what she’s feeling. I explain the wound on her wrist and all the other scars she had, like an animal had attacked her. He takes it all in calmly, nodding every once in a while, pondering my misery.
    “Ouch.” He pretends to wince. “You know, my mom was just talking about the weird bite marks people come in to the hospital with sometimes. Usually on drugs. They don’t remember how they got bitten. She thinks they’re bad pet owners making excuses. Threatened to call animal control a number of times. Maybe it’ll fade soon?”
    “Maybe, but it’s different. I don’t just feel hung over. I feel her emotions too.” I glance at the weed-ridden flowerbeds in front of us. She was beautiful, for being so sick. Her eyes were such a brilliant green. I hope she made it home.
    “Maybe she’s like you.”
    “Like me?” The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. “You mean an empath?”
    Shiloh nods. “Yeah. Maybe that’s why you still feel her. It’s not a one-way street like normal. It’s two-way, and you’re both feeling what the other is feeling. She’s probably as freaked as you are right now.”
    “I…I don’t know…”
    “This is amazing. We gotta tell Ally. We may have found you a partner!”
    “Whoa, there.” I raise my hand up to stop him. “We don’t know that for sure. It doesn’t change the fact that this girl is in serious trouble. I don’t exactly want a stranger who gets high as my new best friend.”
    “Don’t be so harsh. You don’t know her life.”
    “What good would it do if we found each other?” I ask. “If she is like me, we would just sit there and bounce emotions off each other’s brains until it fried our systems.”
    “Maybe you could help her. Instead of just sitting around being terrified of your own power, try using it for good. Imagine what the two of you could do together!”
    “I’m not a comic book superhero,” I snap. “I’m not searching for my calling. I’m searching for a good online college so I can live on my own terms. I’m sorry if I’m not living up to your potential.” I put my head in my heads. This isn’t me. It’s her. The anger inside her is poisoning my own mood. I’m only fighting Shiloh because this scares me so much. If I have to connect with another person, to store another body in my head for the rest of my life, I might break. And she’s already so broken.
    But I do want to make sure she’s okay.
    “James, you’re not living . You’re hiding from the world. From everyone. Fine, you don’t want to help people. At least help yourself.”
    I take a deep breath, trying to find my reasonable self. “How?”
    “Find her, and maybe you can at least reverse this connection.”
    “I don’t know where she is,” I say with a sigh.
    “But you could, if you tried hard enough.”
    I frown. Shiloh isright, as usual. If I try hard enough, I can sort of tell where Ally or Shiloh is. The only problem is that it’s even more tiring than trying to feel them.
    “I’ll help you,” Shiloh adds, as if reading my mind. “You don’t need to go alone.”
    “Shiloh, what makes you think I can do any good?”
    “Because you have some experience with this,” he says thoughtfully. “There was a time when you needed help, too, Jay. Maybe it’s time you passed the torch, you know? You got help, so now you need to help someone else.”
    He’s serious. Damn. He is thinking the same thing that I am. This girl is in pain, and I know a little something about that. If she’s anything like me, I know she’ll need a lot of help to get better.
    Maybe the kind of help