Chapter One I think I invented a superpower when I was in grad school. Invention is the wrong word. It just sort of happened. But I gave it a name. * * * After Dad died, I started feeling things. I started feeling other people’s emotions. Sometimes it was so strong, I couldn’t tell my own emotions from theirs. But I was consumed by my own grief all the time. Momma and I cried together a lot at first. She seemed to get over him faster than I did. I was still consumed by grief, but one day I felt happiness out of nowhere. I looked at Momma. It was her happiness. She was looking at a picture of Dad. I wished I could’ve been happy with just the memories, but I wanted him with me. I wanted him to see me get my black belt, graduate from high school and college, walk me down the aisle on my wedding day, hold my babies’ hands. Momma and Daddy had had a lifetime together before I came along. I was considered a geriatric pregnancy. I’d only had 11 years with him. It took years of self medication with drugs and alcohol, but I finally hid my grief. I learned to be happy again. I went to high school. I got kicked out for a few weeks, but I came back and finished only a semester late. Maybe not with the best grades, but I finished. I finished college, although not as well or as quickly as I could have without the interference of drugs and alcohol. I felt other people’s emotions often. Guilt that didn’t belong to me, happiness I didn’t deserve, anger that wasn’t mine. It took many years to learn which were my emotions and which were someone else’s. Usually I had to be physically close to them, sometimes emotionally close. Sometimes they could be on the other side of the room and so consumed with whatever they were feeling that I, a complete stranger, could feel it. I learned that’s called an empath. They’re not that rare. My empathy might be stronger than others’, I don’t know. I’ve learned to control it. I’ve learned to separate it. I’ve learned to not tell people what I know about them because it freaks them out. I’m a good listener. I literally feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach when someone tells me about their heartbreak. I can have a horrible day myself and be genuinely happy for someone else. All in all, this empathy has come in handy in making and keeping friends, friends who helped me get through my worst days when I missed my dad, my best days that became my worst because I still wanted him there. Momma and I remained close, and she never remarried. She kept working and joined sewing circles and dated here and there. She dated more than I did, actually. I just wasn’t interested. My empathy helped me understand why she was able to move on, too. Because she was still living. * * * I’m 25 now, and whatever’s going on with this empathy thing has gotten stronger and weirder. It started last week. I don’t know how the really strong power came on, and I don’t know the name for it. If I had to name it, I would call it a superpower, and I would call it absorption. * * * My college roommate was named Ashley. She was a total bitch. I hated sharing a dorm with her. She had it in her head that her boyfriend was in love with me. I have no idea where she got this delusion. He was hot though, but I figured he was out of my league and dated only skinny bitches like Ashley. He and I would talk about superheroes and comic books when he came over and we’d run into each other at comic con before he started dating her. But if he’d wanted me, he would’ve asked me out before I introduced him to her. He and I weren’t terribly close before they dated, but we were friends. He was one of the few men I knew who could be just friends with a woman. After they broke up because she was controlling, we remained friends, and became better friends, even though I’d introduced him to the spawn of Satan. I was pleasantly surprised he was so chill, being hot and dating bitches like Ashley. But he was surprisingly down to earth. I admit, I had a huge crush on him. But I remained, as the funny fat friends usually are, one of the guys. Better than being a DUFF, though- dumb, ugly, fat friend. So I accepted my role as just friends and got over him and came to sincerely enjoy his company without having to dangle or hope for sex to keep him around, like I had to do with many men. Like many women have to do. It’s no wonder people have fewer friends as they get older. His name is Charlie. He’s one of my best friends. My other best friend is named Sam. He’s another man who can be just friends with a woman. It also helps that he’s gay. I met Charlie in college and Sam in high school. The three of us remained friends all through grad school, even though we were in different programs. Sam and I moved back to our hometown to go there, and Charlie came with us.