This time he nods, and after a minute he looks at me. “The only time I think there’s any chance at all to save them is when you’re with me.”

I give him a grim smile. “Oh, there’s definitely a chance.” I think about it for a minute—the vision police, or the president of scenes, whoever or whatever controls this beastly mind game—and I say, “I don’t think we’d get this chance to save people if it was hopeless.”

As I say it, I try to convince myself that I believe it.

Twelve

Five things that you can never truly understand unless you live through them:

1. Hoarding

2. Visions of dead people

3. Driving a giant meatball truck to school

4. Depression

5. Love

6. Sexy time

Okay, so that was six, but I could probably come up with even more. Shall I elaborate on said list? I say no on numbers one through four.

Number five—I just really had no idea how painful love is. I mean, my love is different for Sawyer than for anybody else I love. If Trey was the one going through this vision thing, I think I could handle it better. Oh, it aches, the love. Gah. I hate my pathetic overdramatic self.

Number six. Sexy time—I guess I’m trying to process this one. Let’s just say that weird things happen when you get all sexy with somebody. I seriously didn’t understand this even from reading some of the skanky books my dad brings home from yard sales that mom forbids us to read. Like, during sexy time, stuff happens physically and mentally and emotionally all at the same time, and you kind of lose your mind a little bit. Let’s dissect.

First, you’re just minding your own business one day when something inside you randomly decides that you are attracted to a certain person, and you really have no control over it. Like, one day he’s just some guy in your math class, or some boy you played plastic cheetahs and bears with in first grade. And then before you know it, he’s like a freaking sex magnet and you can’t stop thinking about him. What the heck? He says something or does something that changes absolutely everything. You used to think he had a big nose, but now it’s perfect or whatever. Or you thought you’d never like a person with zits, but then you totally change your mind and decide zits aren’t so bad after all. And if you kind of look at them in a different, intense way—and I seriously did not factor in the power of all the possible ways to look at someone—it makes your body get all electric and wilty inside, and so you decide, hey, I wanna suck face with that person. What?

Seriously? I mean, I care about germs. I do. I work in a restaurant, and we have rules upon rules, and I am a stoic follower of germ rules. But if Sawyer Angotti wants to put his germy tongue (GERMY TONGUE NOT RELATED TO HAIRY TONGUE) in my mouth, I will welcome it. What has happened here?

Yeah, I took health class–slash–sex ed, and I learned all that textbook stuff, like that the first sign of pregnancy is missing your period and that whole “point of no return” and shit like that. But they do not, I repeat, they do not teach you about that delicious, delirious, buttery, melty feeling between your legs.

I’m not trying to be gross or weird here. I’m just saying there is no teaching or describing this in any possibly accurate way. Parents do not tell their children about this, even the hippie parents who are all like “sex is beautiful” and stuff. There is only discovering it when you are going through that whole rationalization scene—how you used to think other people’s tongues were disgusting, and then suddenly in one instant they’re like the best thing ever and you want it in your mouth like now.

And let’s talk about the boys. And how things like penises are so weird and awkward and probably superugly, and then they, like, react to things like they are alive and living their own little life in your pants—I don’t know. Like a freaking barnacle or something. And as a girl, I’m sorry, but I have never really thought about this penis factor as it pertains to me. And boys? I have to say that I am very sympathetic. Because what if, like, my boobs or my elbow or something totally wigged out into the shape of the Eiffel Tower whenever I started kissing someone I liked? I mean, seriously. How embarrassing. But guess what? Because of number six, suddenly it’s not embarrassing, because we’re in some sort of bizarre temporary world where such things are acceptable.

And I’m not talking about actual sex, okay. I mean, I just had my first kiss, so it’s not like I’m experienced enough to address that. I’m talking about the attraction thing and the mushy gut stuff that goes with that.

And it’s those feelings that I am most shocked by. Indescribable. Which means, of course, I want like hell to describe it.

I think I might even write my next psych paper about it. Poor Mr. Polselli.

But the last thing I need to say about this is that I

should not, not, not be thinking about sexy time when Sawyer is having a vision portraying a freaking homicidal maniac who blows people’s brains out. I mean, how awful am I that my mind and my dreams return to sexy time again and again? Pretty freaking awful.

But here’s the thing that’s even worse. What if Sawyer can’t save those people, and he dies trying? Seriously, what if he dies? I don’t know if I can handle it. After all I did to save him with my vision, I have to go through this all over again, only somehow, now that we are together, it’s a hundred times worse. Because I’m the one with a crazy, endlessly depressed father and these crazy psycho genes, and I infected Sawyer with this vision that he has no choice but to obey.