I haven't slept in three days.
Not since Monday morning when Scarlett Jackson cornered me by my locker and I told her to stay away from me. Not since I saw something in her violet eyes, something that looked almost like... hurt? Which makes no sense, because girls like her don't get hurt by guys like me. They barely notice guys like me exist.
Tuesday, 2:47 AM. I'm staring at my ceiling, listening to things that shouldn't be audible. Mrs. Ashley's cat padding across her hardwood floor three houses down. The Johnsons' baby crying in the nursery on the second floor. My own heartbeat thundering in my ears like a bass drum.
I roll over and press my pillow against my head, but it doesn't help. If anything, it makes the sounds clearer. Sharper.
I must be having a breakdown. Stress-induced psychosis. That's the only logical explanation.
By the time my alarm goes off at 6:30, I've convinced myself that a few energy drinks and some solid calculus problems will fix whatever's wrong with my brain. Science has never let me down before.
But then I walk into first period and Scarlett Jackson is sitting in the seat next to mine.
"Morning, Danny," she says, like we're friends. Like I didn't tell her to leave me alone two days ago.
I slide into my chair, hyperaware of the space between us. She smells like... I don't know how to describe it. Like rain and something wild. Something that makes my chest tight.
"What are you doing here?" I whisper as Mr. Peterson starts writing equations on the board.
"Taking calculus," she says. "Same as you."
"You weren't in this class yesterday."
"I switched out of AP Art History." She uncaps a pen with her teeth, and I catch myself staring at her mouth. "Turns out I'm more interested in numbers than I thought."
This is impossible. Scarlett Jackson doesn't switch classes to sit next to nobodies.
"Is this still about the dare?" I ask.
"What dare?"
"Whatever bet you made with your friends. How long you can pretend to be interested in the school loser before you get bored."
She turns to look at me fully, and when our eyes meet, something electric shoots down my spine. My pencil snaps in half.
"I'm not pretending anything," she says quietly.
I stare at the broken pencil in my hand. The wood is completely crushed, splinters digging into my palm. When did I get strong enough to do that?
"Mr. Walter," Peterson calls out. "Care to share your solution to problem seven?"
I look up at the board, my vision somehow sharper than it's ever been. The numbers practically glow against the white surface. "X equals negative four point seven-three, repeating."
Peterson raises an eyebrow. "Correct. Though I'm curious how you solved it so quickly without showing your work."
Because I didn't need to show my work. The answer just... appeared in my head, like someone had written it there in glowing letters.
What the hell is wrong with me?
At lunch, I'm sitting at my usual table with Ollie, trying to convince myself that yesterday's weird strength surge was a fluke, when Scarlett appears with a tray.
"Mind if I sit?" she asks, but she's already lowering herself into the chair across from me.
Ollie's mouth falls open. "Uh, Danny? The queen of the school is sitting at our table."
"I noticed," I mutter.
Scarlett ignores him, focusing on me with an intensity that makes my skin crawl. "I've been thinking about what you said yesterday. About games and dares."
"Yeah?"
"You're right. I do play games sometimes. But not with you."
"Why not?" The question slips out before I can stop it.
"Because you're not a game to me." She leans forward, and I catch that wild scent again. "You're... important."
"Important how?"
"That's complicated."
Ollie clears his throat. "Sorry, but did we slip into an alternate dimension? Because last I checked, Danny here was invisible to anyone with a Y chromosome and a social life."
"Shut up, Ollie," I snap, then immediately feel guilty. He's just trying to protect me from what he thinks is inevitable humiliation.
"I'm not trying to humiliate you," Scarlett says, like she read my mind. "I'm trying to understand you."
"Understand what?"
"How you think. How you see the world." She picks at her sandwich. "Like, what's your take on... unexplained phenomena?"
"Such as?"
"Things that don't fit into neat scientific categories."
I almost laugh. "You mean like ESP? Telekinesis? Bigfoot?"
"Something like that."
"I think people see what they want to see. Our brains are pattern-recognition machines—we're wired to find meaning even in random data. That's why we see faces in clouds and think we hear voices in static."
Scarlett's expression falls slightly. "So you don't believe in anything... beyond the physical world?"
"I believe in what I can measure and test. Everything else is just wishful thinking."
"What about intuition? Gut feelings?"
"Subconscious processing of available information. Your brain picks up on cues you're not consciously aware of and presents the conclusion as a 'feeling.'"
"And fate? Destiny?"
"Confirmation bias. We remember the coincidences that support our beliefs and forget the ones that don't."
She's quiet for a long moment, staring at her untouched food. When she looks up, there's something almost desperate in her eyes. "What if I told you I've been having dreams about you?"
My heart stops. "What kind of dreams?"
"Running through forests. Standing under starlight. You're... different in them. Stronger. More confident."
"That's..." I swallow hard. "That's just your brain processing random memories and emotions. Dreams don't mean anything."
"Then why have I been having the same dream every night for a week?"
Because I've been having them too. But I don't tell her that.
"Repetitive dreams usually indicate unresolved stress or anxiety," I say instead. "Maybe you should talk to the school counselor."
The light in her eyes dies completely. She stands up, grabbing her tray. "Right. Of course. Thanks for the advice."
"Scarlett, wait..."
But she's already walking away, her shoulders rigid with something that looks like defeat.
"Dude," Ollie says, staring after her. "I think you just broke the hottest girl in school."
"She'll get over it," I mutter, but my chest feels hollow.
Later, in chemistry class, I'm trying to focus on molecular structures when Scarlett slides into the lab station next to mine. Again.
"Partner up for today's experiment," Mrs. Rodriguez announces. "We're testing the effects of different catalysts on reaction rates."
Great. Now I'm stuck with her for the next hour.
"Look," I say as we set up our equipment, "about lunch..."
"Forget it." She measures out chemicals with practiced precision. "I get it. You think I'm crazy."
"I don't think you're crazy. I think you're... complicated."
"Complicated how?"
I watch her hands as she works, noting how steady they are despite the tension in her shoulders. "You're dating the star quarterback, but you sit with the school's biggest nerds. You transfer into advanced math even though you're already taking a full course load. You ask me about dreams and destiny like they're real things."
"Maybe they are real things."
"And maybe the Easter Bunny is real too, but that doesn't make it true."
She adds a drop of catalyst to our solution, and it immediately begins to bubble and change color. "What if I could prove it to you?"
"Prove what?"
"That there's more to the world than what you can see in a microscope."
I laugh, but it comes out shaky. "How?"
"Do you believe in the supernatural?"
The question hits me like a physical blow. Images flash through my mind—running through silver forests, howling at the moon, feeling power coursing through my veins like liquid fire.
"No," I say firmly. "No offense, but I believe in physics, not fantasies. I'm a stats guy. Numbers don't lie."
"Numbers can't explain everything."
"They can explain enough." I write down our results, my handwriting shakier than usual. "Look, Scarlett, I appreciate whatever this is, but we're just too different. You believe in magic and fate and happy endings. I believe in data and evidence and logical conclusions."
"And what does your data tell you about us?"
"That we don't make sense. Statistical anomalies happen, but they're not sustainable. Eventually, everything reverts to the mean."
She stares at me for a long moment, then starts cleaning up our station. "Right. Of course. Thanks for the lesson in probability theory."
The bell rings, and she's gone before I can say anything else.
I sit there for a moment, staring at our lab results. The chemical reaction was perfect—textbook rates, predictable outcomes, everything exactly as the equations said it should be.
So why do I feel like I just made the biggest mistake of my life?
I pack up my things slowly, trying to ignore the way my hands are shaking. As I head for the door, I catch sight of Scarlett in the hallway through the window. She's walking away, her shoulders slumped, looking smaller than I've ever seen her.
And despite everything I just said about logic and evidence, every instinct I have is screaming at me to go after her.
I rub my fingers together, remembering the brief moment when our hands touched while reaching for the same beaker. The skin still tingles, like I touched a live wire.