Waiting (Jake PoV)*

Edward Greene. Nineteen years old. After struggling with his semi-active Gift for nearly four years, he inadvertently unleashed it in a subway station when it was triggered. Thirty-eight people were killed in the ensuing panic. Most of them died when they jumped in front of the incoming subway train trying to flee from some invisible horror.

Naomi Pooles. Thirty-eight years old. She didn’t even know she was Gifted until an unusual event triggered it. Three people died after throwing themselves out of windows and falling four stories.

Name after name of people who had the terror Gift. The vast majority hadn’t even known they had a Gift until it was too late. Terror was one of the more dangerous sides of the Gift. It wasn’t like fear. Powerful fear tended to paralyze a person like a prey animal froze in the presence of a predator. Terror was different. Everything fell away except for one overriding desire: flee. Rational thought seemed to leave as instinct took over. It led to people inflicting physical harm on themselves and others to escape as quickly as possible. Jumping from buildings, through windows, into oncoming traffic, the list went on.

Our project was nearing completion. A few more tweaks and it would be ready for presentation. I could probably complete it myself but I was waiting for Chloe to give the final okay. She was my partner after all and had a say.

With the inevitable end of our work together, it put me in an interesting situation. We had no more reason to meet. Even our lunch meetings had a false pretext of talking about our project. She always used the project as an excuse to start a conversation with me even if it quickly veered in other directions. Without this, I was curious if she would continue to speak with me.

Searching around my thoughts, it seemed like I would have liked this to continue. It was nice having a friend at school—if she was a friend. It was difficult to tell. I enjoyed listening to her talk about things. She always seemed to have something to talk about, even if I didn’t say much in response. My stoic nature and silence didn’t seem to bother her and her Noise didn’t grate at me as most did. It was comforting.

I glanced down at my phone. She was late. This wasn’t like her. There had been a few times she ran late, but it was nearly an hour after we normally met. I debated sending her a text but didn’t want to disturb her. I wish we hadn’t been interrupted at lunch. I’d been about to ask if she wanted to go to the charity event this weekend.

My attention back on the book, I pressed on. I didn’t make it far before I was checking my phone for the time. Five minutes passed. Twenty. Another hour. I couldn’t explain why I was constantly checking my phone or why my leg had been bouncing up and down for the past hour. My body was oddly jittery tonight.

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes as I focused inward. I hated fighting against my Gift. It was like tearing at a piece of skin knowing the wound was only going to get bigger and more painful the more I did it. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do it for long. One of the strong emotions my Gift was keeping at bay was concern. There was a restless worry that was eating at the walls of my mental fortifications.

With my eyes back open, I was back in the library with a fresh perspective. So I was worried about Chloe. The discomfort my body was showing made sense now. Another odd quirk of my situation. While my emotions seemed numb to my conscious state, they could still impact my physical body under the right conditions. Strong or particularly intense ones could manifest reactions just like anyone else.

Fascinating.

Paying attention to my emotions wasn’t something I normally did. Only my aunt and uncle could elicit emotions strong enough to get my attention—or at least had been. The number of people had gone up. Not even Alexis and Natalie caused reactions this intense.

The book had lost its hold of me as I turned inward as I reflected on my physical reactions and tried to pull at the emotions that lingered just outside of reach. How long was I supposed to wait for her? I debated texting her if only to see if she was okay. That was acceptable, was it not? I didn’t want to step beyond the boundaries of our relationship. In the end, I decided against it. I would wait until I needed to leave for the last bus. Until then, I would continue reading.

Her Noise reached me before anything else. It was so powerful it was like a pressure on my mind. Her euphoria was overwhelming to the point it blinded me to all her other emotions. Never before had I seen someone’s Noise so consumed by a single emotion. The intensity of it ground against my mind to the point where I could feel a faint resonance inside me. It wasn’t like the burst I had experienced on the rooftop, but this was a continual **** that was more than the numb presence I was used to.

“You’re here,” she said with a wide smile as she took her seat across from me. “I honestly expected you to leave.”

I closed the book and set it on the table, giving it a pat. “The book is quite fascinating.” I shifted in place as my body reacted to some invisible string of emotion. I think it was discomfort. The situation was off. Looking at Chloe, I found I was woefully out of my depth. Her Noise was an unreadable wall of euphoria. There was no way for me to know what she was thinking or feeling and I didn’t know how to respond or act around that. Ever since my Gift had awakened, I’d had the Noise to guide me. Without it, I was lost.

Her smile faded slightly as her head dipped. “Really sorry. I totally didn’t mean to do this to you. These two assholes—” Catching herself, she glanced away as her smile completely died. For the briefest of moments, other emotions were powerful enough to push against the euphoric bliss she was radiating. Still wasn’t enough to give me a hint on what she was feeling or thinking.

“Did something happen?”

“I—it’s not important,” she muttered still not making eye contact. Her face lit up as she scooted closer to the table and leaned forward. “You added more people to the list! This person wasn’t…”

She was trying hard to avoid the topic. I gracefully followed her lead, letting it drop as I walked her through my revisions. She approved them all and we spent the next hour putting the finishing touches on the project. By the end, it was clear that she was stalling. We were done and we both knew that, yet she nitpicked over every little thing.

“We need to get going if we are going to make the last bus,” I finally said, interrupting her idea to add in a little more about one of the active level Gifted.

She took a deep breath and nodded. As we gathered our things and cleaned up our area, I found my attention returning to her. The most fascinating thing was happening to her Noise. Disappointment and a few other sad-adjacent emotions were pushing against her euphoria. Each time they spiked, they were near-instantly crushed. Her Gift was mercilessly crushing her true emotions and keeping her in an inflated joyous state. That kind of power was astounding. No wonder guys paid her handsomely to experience it. Not only did it linger, it actively suppressed negative emotions. The only reason I could pick those up was because it kept happening.

“Something wrong?” she asked with the smile that had been lighting up her face nearly the entire time we had been together. At the same time, she brushed at her hair. A few emotions fluttered through her Noise faster than I could identify them. I still couldn’t get over how encompassing it was. It was like having someone endlessly scream in your ear while you were trying to hear a conversation with someone.

Without the ability to see her emotions, I was on a ship without a destination and no rudder. I was fortunate to be numb to my emotions or the panic beating against my mind would have paralyzed me. “No, nothing,” I said as I looked down and quickly finished packing up. “Ready?” She nodded and together we walked out of the library.

I set a leisurely pace. There was still some time before we needed to catch the bus and my normal pace was a bit too fast for Chloe. She was considerably shorter and my steps seemed giant in comparison to hers. I did shove my hands in my pockets as we walked. It was a cool night, but nothing bothersome. The silence was new. Chloe was usually a font of conversation. So much, I barely got a word in. Since leaving the library, she hadn’t said a thing.

Glancing over at her gave me nothing. Her Noise was still uniform and her body language was a perfect mirror to her internal state. Her walk had a pep to it. A strut that suggested she was the happiest girl on the planet. That smile too.

“It must be painful.”

My words surprised both of us—at least I think I was surprised. She certainly was as it spiked her Noise before vanishing.

“Painful?”

“The smile.”

She blinked a few times. “A-ah.” I think she tried to **** herself to stop, but the effort exhausted her. She sighed. “It’s not painful so much as exhausting. Going to be a few hours before I wind down enough to start feeling normal again.”

“Your Gift?” She nodded. “I see.”

“You aren’t going to ask?”

“Not my place.”

Her giggle was bubbly. “It’s no secret. Everyone knows what mine is.”

“I don’t.”

Her mouth made a cute ‘O’ as she looked up at me. “Really? Rare to find someone at the school who doesn’t know about me.” A few seconds of silence passed. “You aren’t curious?”

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t. You are a fascinating person.”

The way she looked at me was confusing. It was frustrating I couldn’t read her Noise. I didn’t know how to process what I was seeing. Not with emotions moving so quickly across her face.

“You mean that?”

“Indeed. I have been interested in you since our first meeting.”

“First…?” The sadness and disappointment were powerful enough to split her Noise. Enough that it shook my mental defenses and stripped the smile from her face. “Oh. Right.” She let out a breath and looked forward. “Well, my Gift is euphoria. Semi-active. Never officially tested, but I’d put myself up there in terms of strength." That was an understatement. She was... extremely powerful. "When my trigger condition is met, my Gift can transfer a portion to another individual in physical contact with me. Results vary from person to person, but the average is a nice happy buzz for two or three days and general pleasantness for the remainder of the week.” She looked back at me, making sure she was making eye contact before finishing. “If you haven’t guessed yet, my trigger condition is having an orgasm. Uh, probably. Not like I know, know. There have been times it fired off without it, but it is a surefire way of getting it to go. I just know it can be triggered by someone else’s orgasm too, though the overall effect is weaker that way. Gives the other person incentive to get me off, so at least I have that going for me.”

Her gaze lingered as she searched for my reaction. Not knowing how I was supposed to react, I kept my face in its usual passive state. “So that’s how that works. Interesting.”

Chloe’s eyebrow quirked. “‘Interesting?’ That…uh…isn’t the reaction I get from most guys.” Her face went through several emotions and seeing them made me realize how much I relied on the person’s Noise rather than what they were expressing through physical means. “I usually get either disgust or interest of another variety.”

“Since I met you, I have been wondering how your Gift works considering it is powerful enough to linger in others for some time. It is the first time seeing such a powerful and long-lasting Gift.”

“So when you said you were interested in me since we first met…” I tilted my head, not knowing what she was asking. “You were talking about my Gift?” she finally asked.

“Indeed. What else would there be?”

A light blush formed as embarrassment warred with her euphoria. “You saw me with Adam.”

The silence stretched as I processed what she was implying. “Ah,” I said suddenly without inflection. “The sex.”

“The sex,” she repeated with a nod.

“No. That wasn’t on my mind. I said as much.” Crushing swirls of emotion were all but swallowed by her euphoria as she looked away.

“I thought you were being shy,” she muttered.

I didn’t need to read her Noise to know this wasn’t going well. Something about this was upsetting her. Even if she wasn’t feeling it like she normally would, it was there. My hypothesis was she had some level of interest in me. Either that or she was hoping on some level I was interested in her on a sexual level. Did she want me to become a customer? That was unlikely. A possibility, but her interactions around me suggested a budding friendship. A friendship was far more valuable to her, as she had plenty of willing customers already.

Confronting her about this was the best, but I found myself hesitating. Without the ability to read her Noise, I lost one of my main methods of understanding. It would be like trying to convey complex ideas with only vague gestures. The last thing I wanted was causing offense. Best to wait until her Noise was back to normal to have such an important conversation.

We didn’t speak again until we got to the bus stop. We were the only ones there waiting and I took a seat on the bench. She took a seat beside me, hands pressed against the bench as she leaned forward slightly.

“Jake?” I made eye contact. “What were you going to ask me at lunch? Before…”

“Ah.” With everything that happened, I’d forgotten about that. I shifted as I considered my options. Was it safe to have this conversation right now? There was some risk if things didn’t go as planned. But would that outweigh the danger of saying it was nothing?

Her movement suggested she was uncomfortable in the growing silence.

“This Saturday there is a charity event happening and I was curious if you would come with me.” Her eyes widened as she took a breath. “Of course, I’ll be more than willing to pay you for your time.”

“Pay?” The question came with her expression freezing on her face. I struggled to connect the expression with emotion. Confusion? She was smiling though. Did that mean she was excited at the prospect of payment? Or was that her Gift? My examination of her Noise offered nothing. A solid euphoria without even a blip of something useful.

I nodded, unsure as I followed the course with what I had planned. “I can’t pay you much, but I will do my best to compensate you for your time.”

“You don’t need to pay me,” she said looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite understand. This wasn’t fair. I couldn’t read her Noise when I most needed to. It was like trying to read a language I hadn’t seen or used in nearly a decade. Pieces of it were there, but incomplete.

“You are doing me a huge favor and I know I am inconveniencing you.”

“It’s really—”

“Would two thousand work?”

She said nothing. Her expression had gone stiff. Had I insulted her with a low offer? Or was it the offer itself? My mind raced as I attempted to weigh damage control options, knowing I had fumbled this. Would it be better to increase the amount, or to withdraw the offer entirely?

A long breath left her as her shoulders sank. “You are really…” The silence dragged on as she looked away. Her answer was soft enough that I barely heard her. “Two is fine.”

Now I didn’t even have access to her facial expressions. So the amount was the issue? “If that’s too little—”

“Stop,” she said, holding up her hand. “Really, Jake. Stop.” She smiled. “I’m going to believe this is you trying to be nice your own, weird way and misunderstanding the whole situation. But really. Stop.”

I nodded, deciding it best to keep my mouth shut. “Um…”

“Yes?”

“It has a bit of a dress code I feel I should mention.”

“I have something I can wear. Don’t worry.”

I smiled, wondering why she was acting awkward. I was glad she agreed to come. Two thousand was a bit steep, but it would be worth it to put Sophie’s mind at ease. Not to mention the event would be a thousand times better with Chloe there to talk to.

The problem was Chloe. She had a smile on her face as she happily sat beside me, but I knew I was misreading the situation. I just wished I knew what it was.