The sun had barely crossed the treeline on Saturday morning when I reached Katherine's dorm, missing my poor car, and I paced in the parking lot arguing with myself. I wanted to tell Rachel everything and hope she'd understand, but she knew about my illness and would chalk it up to insanity, or she'd bring it up to the Dean who would contact my doctors, and that would be worse than the police. As a former ward of the state, I could be taken into custody if the authorities believed I constituted a threat to myself or others.

Miss Gold told me to be careful, but I wasn't planning anything I hadn't already done, and we needed Rachel to stay compliant. I also preferred that she stay friendly since she was the only one I knew on campus with a vehicle and I still needed to get the chest back to my apartment. I had plenty of reasons to string Rachel along, but not a single one of them made it feel right, and I might have turned around if not for Katherine. Everything she was going through was because of me, and if this one little thing could help her without ultimately hurting Rachel...

A few students left the dorm, but class schedules were lighter on Saturdays and I hoped most of the girls would sleep in. I finally let myself in through the side door nearest Rachel's room and knocked exactly half a second before I chickened out.

"Yeah?" came Rachel's muffled voice.

"It's Tom. Got a minute?" A series of heavy thuds sounded off her wooden floor followed by hasty footsteps, but a few seconds later she stood in the open doorway tugging at the waistband of a pair of gray sweat shorts.

"Sorry, had to make myself decent." She straightened the strap of her satin camisole and gave me a shy smile. Not a good sign. On any normal day, Rachel was about as shy as a punch to the groin. I cleared my throat and forced myself to meet her eyes. "No problem. Everything okay in there?"

She stepped back to let me in. "Bumped the desk when I stood up. Knocked over some books, no big deal." She crossed the room to pick them up and I knelt down to help.

Rachel was distracting enough at her worst, I was aware of that even when I was head-blind from medication, but as I reached for a textbook, her posture gave me a clear view down the front of her top and I froze. I couldn't have avoided it, but instead of looking away my eyes locked on her breasts, small, firm, and perfect.

"See anything you like?" she asked dryly.

"I—I'm sorry, I—" I stammered, quickly averting my stare.

"Relax, I doubt I have anything you haven't seen before." She stood and glanced down at her low neckline, then looked back, more amused than angry.

"I'm sorry," I said again, "I'm an idiot."

"You're a guy," she corrected, "and I wasn't careful. Some girl flashed her tits around me I'd probably look too." Relief that she wasn't upset couldn't overshadow my embarrassment, and it didn't stop me from wondering if she'd have reacted the same way had she been in a normal state of mind. It made what I was about to do seem even worse.

"Um," I began, realizing only then that I hadn't come up with a believable reason for visiting her. "I wanted to say thanks for bringing Katherine her classwork. And see how you're doing. You feeling okay?"

"Mostly. Why?"

"You looked down yesterday." It was all I could come up with, and it sounded weak even to me.

"You're sweet, but I'm fine." She blew it off and nodded toward her mini-fridge, "You want some water? Yogurt?"

"No, thank you. I was wondering if you could help me out though."

"What's up?"

"My car died."

"Someone run into you?" she asked.

"Nothing like that, but I have to move something heavy and you have a truck."

"Willy?" That was the name she'd given her Jeep Wrangler. "I guess he's better than your Ford Fiasco."

"Be nice. Do you think you'd have some time to help out? Or..." I hesitated because it seemed like a big ask, "Or let me borrow your Jeep?"

Without a pause to consider, she opened a drawer in her desk, pulled out a keychain, and held it at arm's length, "He's just gonna sit in the parking lot all week, may as well let him stretch his legs. Tires. Whatever."

"Are you sure?" I asked as she dropped them into my hand. It felt too easy.

"Why not? I trust you, Tom." She put a slight emphasis on the word 'trust' and her eyelids fluttered when she said it, but her brows knit as if she weren't so certain. I reached toward her and she followed my hand with her eyes until I made contact with her upper arm, then looked back at me expectantly. The mysterious lights gathered around her, open and welcoming, along with a scent I hadn't consciously recognized before, like fresh rain.

"Rachel, you can always trust me." I tried to put meaning into my words and activate that rush of power from the back of my mind, but nothing happened. Nevertheless, her expression softened and she allowed me to take and hold her hand without objection.

I had no idea what I was doing wrong. I tried to use that strange force like I used my muscles, but like the fairy lights it seemed to be disconnected, something I wasn't engineered for. If the effect I was having on Rachel hadn't been passive we'd be in big trouble, and as it was, the clock was ticking. If I let her go for more than half a day, she'd fall into anger or despair, and without the enhanced sense of trust I'd somehow imposed on her, both scenarios would end badly.

I'd never had much trouble holding up my end of a conversation so I chatted with her for a few minutes before leaving. She laughed easily, like we'd been close friends for years, and subtle flirting began soon after. In a disturbingly short time, her eyes began to lose focus and I said my goodbyes. She seemed disappointed, but remained friendly and let me go without a fuss, watching from the doorway as I crossed the parking lot. Without looking back, I slipped behind the wheel of her Jeep, and returned to the apartment.

Katherine had moved the coffee table and was in the middle of a yoga routine when I walked in.

"Hey mister," she said with an upside-down greeting. "How'd it go?"

"She let me borrow Willie so I can get the trunk today."

"You got your mojo to work?" I shook my head and she straightened out of her pose. "Is she going to give us trouble?"

"I don't think so. Right now, she's a little tipsy, but I'm not sure if it'll get her to bedtime."

Katherine's concern sharpened, "Thomas, what if she's getting used to it? What if she recovers before lunch?"

I hadn't thought about that, but had to concede it was possible, even likely. "I don't know." I threw my hands up and sat on the sofa, "I'm as new to this as you are."

"You'll have to try again."

"I know, I'll stop in again when I return her car."

"I mean that other thing."

"I did, it didn't work."

"Then try harder." She countered, her voice growing stern.

"I don't want to fight with you." I said, leaning my head on the back of the love seat. Katherine dropped into the cushion beside me and pressed her lips gently against my neck.

"I'm not fighting, I'm scared. She's my best friend, and she can literally kill me with kindness. I don't want to experiment on her, I just want to stop her, or at least slow her down. Didn't we talk about this? You agreed to do it."

"I know, but where do I start?" I sighed, "Your guesses are all I have to work with and there's no instruction manual. I can't just call up that—power—whenever I want."

"Then you're just giving up?"

"No."

"Try it on me again."

"Also no."

"We're running out of options, Thomas. Look, you've done it to three people so far and nobody is hurt."

"Rachel didn't make it sound like Gloria was okay."

"She's fine. Kennedy called to ask if I'd study with them again tomorrow. She said after Gloria slept off her... condition, she was bouncing all over campus, like someone—and these are her words, not mine—shoved a power cable up her ass and plugged it in. She's mostly normal now and worried about the test on emotional intelligence next week." I was relieved to hear it and told her so. "But see? Nobody's hurt."

"So, what about Miss Gold? She said to be careful and I'm stretching my interpretation of that pretty thin."

"I don't care about her, she's not here when you need her so we have to figure this out on our own. I think we're doing okay."

"And if this turns out to be a problem?"

"It'll be a problem if you do nothing."

I wasn't going to change her mind so I let it drop. "Fine, I'll try again this afternoon, but in the meantime, I want to grab the trunk and get Willy back to Rachel. Do you want to come with me to the storage unit?"

"Tempting, but I'll get a refresh before you go and stay here. I want to finish this routine, grab a shower, and get my schoolwork done before this evening." She stood up and stepped smoothly into an elbow handstand, her legs scissoring into an inverted split.

"Holy crap!" I exclaimed, eyes glued to her.

"What?"

"I've never seen you do that before."

Katherine brought both legs down and sat on her knees. "That's because I've never been able to, but I've been working up to it for a while." She put her palms on the floor, pushed her backside into the air, and slowly stood. "You should try it."

"It's more fun watching."

She grinned, "Is it? Maybe next time I can wear something a little more entertaining."

"That's not what—"

"A little less restrictive." Two steps brought her to my chest, and she reached her hands around my neck.

"That's a really bad idea."

"Maybe, but wouldn't it be fun to find out?"

"Less fun if you turn into a mindless sex slave."

"Oh, I don't know. You don't like the idea of me walking around in my underwear?" The memory of her pink lingerie jumped to the front of my mind and I shoved it into a dark corner.

"Katherine —"

"All meek and compliant?"

"Katherine!"

She laughed, "You're so innocent, Thomas. I know why Penny likes teasing you."

"This is kind of serious," I objected.

"I know, but right now I'm enjoying myself. If you could do what you wanted and blame it on your condition, wouldn't you?" She smiled broadly, but my expression must have turned as cold as the sudden ice in my chest because she backed away, her face going white.

"I'm sorry, Thomas, I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

"I know. It's okay, I'm glad you can make jokes." I lied. Her words hurt, and I didn't know how to hide it. I spent most of my life training myself to bury my desires because of the problems they might cause me or someone else, and the dead last thing I ever wanted was to indulge my illness.

"I wasn't thinking." She said, stepping close again, arms constricting around my chest. I hugged her back. I'd always had a chip on my shoulder over the sacrifices I'd made to fit in with normal people, and it bothered me when someone trivialized them, even when it was unintentional. It was self indulgent and a burden Katherine didn't need to bear.

"It's fine, really," I assured her, "I know what you meant. You don't have a mean bone in your body." I meant to lift her spirits, but something was wrong. She stiffened and looked up, her face taut and eyes shimmering.

"Katherine? Are you okay?"

"That's not true."

"What isn't?

She didn't answer for a long time, then she pulled away and stood, staring out the window. "Thomas, can you promise me something?"

"Anything."

"If I share something with you, can you promise not to hate me?"

"That's not even possible," I said, thinking she was making some kind of joke, but her face fell further. She paused again, caught on the cusp of a decision, then continued with a kind of resigned calm, like an inmate walking down death row.

"I used to be a cheerleader. Did you know that?" I hadn't. Katherine never talked much about life before college, but it didn't surprise me. She seemed built for the job. "I was really popular in high school. My family had money. Straight A's. Prom queen. I even dated the varsity quarterback."

"I imagine a lot of girls would kill to have that kind of life."

"Yeah," she replied, and I could see the frown in her reflection on the window. "I thought I had it all. I thought I deserved it."

"I'm sure you did," I protested. "All that stuff is hard work."

"Maybe."

I took her hand and gently pulled her onto the couch. "I bet you were amazing." I thought of all the cheezy cheerleader tropes and none of them fit the girl beside me. She turned toward me once more, a deep sadness darkening her eyes, but I didn't interrupt. After a while she began again.

"There was a girl. I don't remember her name, that's how terrible I am. She was pretty, but quiet, scared of crowds. I didn't like pretty girls who weren't like me or my friends. I guess I saw her as a threat, or maybe it broke the illusion that being attractive was something given to people who were worthy."

Anyway, I thought it would be funny to prank her. The whole squad agreed, but it was my idea. She had gym with us at the end of the day, but she was painfully shy and would always stay late so she could shower alone.

"We stole her clothes one afternoon just before a big home game and left behind a uniform. Just the uniform. We took her underwear, socks, shoes, everything, so she had nothing else to put on. When she came out of the locker room, she was so embarrassed. Scared. The uniform was way too big for her and she had to hold on to it to keep it from falling off. She was trying to sneak out of the building when we ambushed her."

Katherine stopped and rubbed one arm nervously, staring at the floor. Her unexpected vulnerability made me feel closer to her than ever, but it came with a cost. She was showing me the chinks in her armor, and not even the chemicals I'd put into her were enough to mitigate the pain she was dredging up.

"We dragged her, shouting protests all the way, to the sports field. All us girls in cheerleader uniforms, the crowd screaming so loud that hers just blended in. Nobody noticed we were forcing her.

"I remember how strong she was, that it surprised me. She was so quiet, not an athlete, but it took all six of us to drag her. I think the only reason we were able to get her out there was because she kept trying to hold her neckline closed or keep her skirt down."

The words cut her deeply and she bled in tears. "When we passed the sidelines, we surrounded her and picked her up, linked our arms under her, and started throwing her into the air. We did it all the time with each other and had lots of practice, but she kept flopping around like a fish, shrieking, arms and legs flailing so much that she kicked several of us hard. It made me mad.

"She'd stopped trying to hold her clothes together. The skirt flapped around her waist, everything under it out there for the world to see, and she just kept screaming and kicking. She eventually hit one of my friends hard enough to knock her over, and we all just stepped away and let the girl fall to the ground." A watery bead ran down Katherine's face and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. "She didn't break anything, but she was hurt. She just laid there crying so hard she could barely breathe, hugging herself, exposed in front of the whole school. I laughed, Thomas. I laughed so hard."

Katherine finally broke down and cried openly, desperately clinging to me. I just held her, not knowing what else to do. Minutes passed and I thought she was done, but when she'd recovered enough, she continued in a steady, automatic tone.

"She never came back to school. I don't know what happened to her. We were scolded. We should have been expelled. I was so self-centered it took me weeks to notice everyone treating me different. There were six of us, but everyone knew I was the ringleader. The other girls in my squad were scared of me after that. They all felt regret, but I just kept on like nothing changed. They gradually started avoiding me, and it pissed me off." She spat out her words, but her anger was aimed inward.

"There was a cheerleading camp over the summer that I'd attended for two years and my squad won a competition out of fifteen teams the last time I was there. Rumors must have gotten out because that year they declined my application, which pissed me off even more. My boyfriend dumped me. My best friend stopped returning my calls. The more I was turned away the more I rose above the people around me until I stood over everyone, drunk on my own ego.

"I thought I was strong until I lost all of my support, and when I finally started reaching out, nobody reached back. For the first time in my life, my friends weren't there to hold me up. It was like being in solitary confinement. Since there wasn't anyone left to blame, I started doubting myself. Each day the person in the mirror looked a little more like a stranger as the illusions I'd built around myself collapsed one by one.

"I didn't break until the middle of summer. I had a shelf in my room with all my pictures and trophies from cheerleading. In a fit of resentment, I started packing it all away. Maybe I thought I was getting everyone back for abandoning me, or that they'd regret it when their captain quit the team." She snorted a humorless laugh. "Even then it didn't occur to me that they wouldn't want me back.

"The last thing I put away was my favorite picture. It was from camp, and I'd just been tossed into the air, doing a full split six feet above everyone while they cheered me on. Something snapped and I just stared at it. For just a moment the person in that picture was the poor girl I bullied. Alone. Mocked. I imagined what it what it must have felt like, how I would have felt if it happened to me when everything that had ever given me strength was gone.

"I think I was in shock. For the rest of the day I couldn't put that picture down. I used to blame her. If only she hadn't kicked us. If only she hadn't struggled and screamed so much. If only she hadn't been so shy. If only she wasn't so pretty. I thought she was weak, that anyone but her would have handled it better. I was wrong. It would have destroyed me.

"After dark, I took the box with all my trophies and pictures into the back yard and burned them. My uniform too. I cried all night, for everything that I lost, for all the people I let down, for hundreds of little regrets I could never take back. But mostly I cried for her."

Katherine's voice broke and for a minute she couldn't go on, but she took another long breath to steady herself and continued. "My mom was amazing. I talked to her about it on and off for a few weeks and she hugged me and cried with me. She never yelled or got angry or said she was disappointed. I hoped she would, that I'd be punished, and it would help set things right. I think she would have if she heard about it from someone else. The school must have been really embarrassed about it because I still can't believe they never called her.

"She saw how broken I was, and she was still my mom, so instead of the punishment I deserved, she gave me a fresh start and transferred me to a private school for my senior year. I tried to keep to myself, but it was small and there weren't enough students to hide behind. No cliques. No masks. The other girls there included me like they'd known me forever. They drew me out and treated me like a sister."

The new memory seemed to calm her considerably. "It was a totally different life, Thomas. Even after they heard about my past, they gave me the second chance I wanted but knew I didn't deserve. When they found out I'd been a cheerleader they even asked me to represent the school. It was the only time I told them no.

"I wanted to be like them and forget the person I'd been. I was given so many gifts and I abused them, and I hurt people, and I didn't care. That's why I have to keep looking inside. I need to search myself especially when things are hard, like now, or I might start believing the lies again."

Then something changed in her, strengthened her, though it brought more tears, and her eyes fixed on mine.

"But you!" her voice was almost accusing, "Life took everything away from you. Instead of blaming others for it, you did all you could to protect them, even when they were cruel to you. When you finally got hold of a power that was created to be abused, it scared you more than anyone else, because you're always looking out for other people, putting them first. Everything about you is good and honest and kind. How could I ever hold this—thing—that's happening against you? How can I hold anything—" she choked, "how can I not—" She sobbed again, crying into my shirt while I stroked her hair, wishing there was something I could say or do to lift her out of her despair.

"You're not a monster, Thomas. I am."

"Don't say that."

"Please don't hate me," she whispered.

"That will never happen," I told her sharply and hugged her tighter. "Not ever."

I didn't care who she used to be. I wasn't better than her. I'd been so obsessed with changing my circumstances, going to school for no better reason than to give myself a finer life, that I had hardly any time for other people. I hadn't even called Tracy or Dr. Dang, people who sacrificed for me, in almost a year. Katherine hated study groups, yet led them regularly just to give students she hardly knew a leg up, asking nothing in return. She inspired me to be better than I was.

I kissed her head, and when she finally looked at me again, I drew her close and kissed her lips, and not because she needed it. I meant it with my whole heart.