Free Falling From Grace by S. L. Naeole

and the…er…tantrum.”
    Nothing.
    “I do want to know where we are, though.   I want to know why you picked me up.   I want to know how you knew what I was going to ask before I asked it.   And…I want to know why me.   Why me of all people?”   I rambled.
    His smile returned.   This looked promising.   “So many questions from someone who couldn’t even say hello.   Well let’s see if I can answer all of them to your liking.   We’re at the Bellegarde family retreat, I picked you up because you shouldn’t be walking alone, I read your mind, and because you’re different.   Very different.”
    Did he just say he read my mind?   “Wait a minute.   You read my mind - ” saying it out loud didn’t make it any more believable “ - you actually read my mind?”   Didn’t convince me that second time either.   “And what do you mean, I’m ‘ different ’?”
    “ Very different,” he corrected.
    “I heard you the first time,” I snapped.   “What exactly do you mean by that?   And answer me about the mind reading thing!”   I was glaring at him, annoyed that he had me sounding like a parrot.   I didn’t like these up and down emotions that he was causing in me, either.   One minute I was ready to melt into a puddle at his feet.   The next, I wanted to rip his eyes out of their sockets.   This wasn’t me at all, and I didn’t like it.
    He started walking towards a bench, motioning for me to follow, and then sat down.   “I can hear your thoughts just as clearly as if you spoke them aloud, Grace.   And,” he paused for effect, “you are very different.   You’re not like the other girls in school at all.   Actually, you’re not like any girl, period.”
    Well that was no surprise.   “Everyone knows that I’m not like the other girls in school.   It’s called being ostracized, Robert.”   How weird that felt — saying his name so casually, like we had been friends for ages…it came out so naturally, I felt giddy and embarrassed all at once.    I turned my face away as I sat down, not wanting to see the reaction to my use of his name.   Of course I feared the likely rejection of my assumed familiarity, but more than that, I feared that I might see the opposite…and hated myself for even thinking such a possibility could exist.  
    I continued talking while staring at my shoes, “How can you hear my thoughts?   Can you hear what I’m thinking right now?”
    I looked at him and focused, my eyebrows drawing together with deep concentration.   Is this coming in loud and clear to you, breaker-breaker?
    He laughed.   It was a very rich sound—vibrant and multi-faceted, like an audible prism — I marveled at the way it seemed to fill my head with its resonant tone.   “I hear you loud and clear,” he replied to my silent question.
    Gape mouthed, I stared at him.
    What’s four plus four?
    “Eight.”
    Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?
    “Frances Scott Key.”
    Why did the rooster cross the road?
    “Because it was stuck in the chicken.”
    How are you doing this?
    “I was born with this ability.”
    My mouth was gaping so widely, I felt like an open back door.   You were born with it?
    He nodded.   And then I heard a voice inside my head.   It sounded tinny…strange…faint.   Slowly it grew louder.   Stronger, until it was, as Robert had described, as clear as it if were spoken aloud.
    And now, Grace, you can hear my thoughts.
    I fell off the bench.   A loud “umph” came out of my mouth as I landed on the hard ground in complete shock.   He laughed at me again, only this time I heard it twice, like an echo both outside and inside of my mind.
    “You…you’re in m-my-my head!” I gasped.
    So I am.
    “Stop it!” I shouted.   I grabbed my ears with my hands, as though that would work to keep him out, as if he were merely throwing his voice, rather than his thoughts.   And then, just to make sure, I started la-la-la-ing.   It wasn’t my