* * *

Studying might’ve been a mistake. Two hours in, it was clear that Cassandra already knew everything, and Aidan was bored. He reclined on pillows stacked against her headboard and slid farther down them by the minute. He was never really any more interested in studying than Andie was.

“You wish we were at the game?” he asked.

“A little.” Or a lot. Watching Andie’s game with a hot chocolate and a long piece of red rope licorice sounded ten times better than what they were doing. Notebooks and textbooks and loose-leaf handouts lay strewn around them in carefully organized circles and piles, the pages exposed so the words could whisper “U.S. History” into the air like a cloud. She glanced at the clock; it was too late to turn back.

“Are they going to win?” Aidan asked.

“Yes,” Cassandra replied sulkily.

Aidan took a drink of his soda and set it on the nightstand. Then he started discarding books and papers, casually dropping her carefully ordered stacks onto the floor. Each moved pile opened up space between them on the bed. He shrugged out of his zip-up hoodie and crawled toward her.

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll like it.”

“Are you sure?”

He paused. “Fifty, sixty percent sure.”

Laughing, she let him take the last notebook out of her hand and heard it hit the carpet as he laid her on her back. The room was quiet as they kissed, the bedspread and walls grown used to their antics. They’d been making out in her bedroom for almost a year. Sometimes, when he wasn’t there, the air seemed full of him still, imprinted with a thousand memories of things they’d done. Everything inside the walls was tied to him somehow, right down to the walls themselves. He’d helped her paint them white six months ago, when she’d finally had enough of the lavender of her girlhood. But they’d been lazy, and distracted, and they’d left roller marks. In a certain light, the lavender still showed through at the corners.

“My parents will be home any minute,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So disentangle your hands from my bra.”

Aidan smiled and rolled onto his back with a groan. “Ow.” He pulled a textbook out from under his shoulder and tossed it onto the floor. “We study too much.”

“You know why I study so much.”

He looked at her and held out his arm; she rolled closer and rested her head on his shoulder.

“The future, the future, I know. You don’t know where we’re headed. A little weird for a psychic.”

“Shut up.” She nudged him in the ribs.

“I’m kidding. But I’m telling you. It’ll fill in. It’s the only thing it can do.”

Cassandra said nothing. They’d talked about it before. The dark spot waiting up ahead, somewhere around her eighteenth year. The day when she’d no longer be able to foresee things. It was a strange thing to foretell, her own lack of foretelling. But she knew it, just as surely as she knew on which side a coin would fall. She wouldn’t be psychic forever. One day it would be gone, like a light going out.

It’ll fill in, he always said. And she supposed he was right. But since they wouldn’t be able to scam freshmen for cash forever, they’d better have a backup plan. Like college.

Cassandra listened to Aidan’s heartbeat, the hot rushing of blood so strong beneath her cheek. When she’d first told him she knew her gift would disappear, she’d asked if it would make her less. If it would make her boring, or ordinary. He said no, but sometimes when she made a prediction the look in his eyes was so intense. Almost proud.

“Do you think I’ll feel stupid?” Cassandra asked.

“Stupid?”

“After I can’t see anymore. Will it be like a blank? Like words on the tip of my tongue that I can’t quite remember?”

“No.” He kissed the top of her head. “I don’t think it’ll be like that.”

“What do you think it’ll be like?”

“I think it’ll be like … life,” he said after a few seconds. “Like other people lead. I think you’ll go to college, and I’ll go to college, and we’ll get a place together. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

It was. Despite a few misgivings, most of her couldn’t wait. It might be nice to not know for a change. More of an adventure. Aidan said that some people would kill to have her ability, but she didn’t know why. It never came in any particular use.

“Yes, that’s what I want. That’s why I study.”