Free Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson

again.
    I chose a table at the back of the cafeteria, where it was quieter, and looked over my new schedule. Dr. Minta had arranged for me to finish my eleventh-grade coursework, so I’d be spending three mornings a week in the education room under the supervision of the part-time teacher, Mr. Lamoreux. In the afternoons, I’d be attending four different kinds of group therapy, plus something called “Family Counseling” on Fridays—though there was a question mark beside that entry, and I hoped it would stay there forever. . . .
    “You have to be careful,” said a low, familiar voice from the aisle. Sanjay glanced around furtively, then set down his tray and slid into the seat across from me.
    “Careful about what?” I asked.
    “Them.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “They know you can see the mark, too. Don’t let them get you alone.”
    My throat went dry. I’d never said anything to Sanjay about the mark I’d seen on Tori’s arm. How did he know?
    “I can hear people’s thoughts sometimes,” he said seriously, as though I’d spoken out loud. “And I can see the future. That’s why the aliens want me. Because I know their plan.”
    I looked at him helplessly. He seemed so earnest, so convinced of what he was saying. But even though I knew how lonely it felt to have a story that nobody else believed, I couldn’t bring myself to agree with him just yet.
    For one thing, his evil alien conspiracy theory didn’t really hold together. One minute the aliens were trying to kill him because he knew too much, the next they wanted to capture him and use him in their experiments. First he claimed that the aliens disguised themselves as humans, but later he’d said they put their mark on humans and brainwashed them into doing their bidding. I’d heard him telling Roberto that the aliens came from a planet in the Horsehead Nebula, but I’d also heard him tell Cherie that they came from another dimension. There seemed to be some new variation on the story every time Sanjay told it, and if anybody pointed out the inconsistencies, he’d just ignore them.
    And yet when I’d passed Dr. Ward in the corridor earlier this morning, the one Sanjay had accused of carrying the aliens’ mark, my gaze had dropped to his arm before I could help myself. He’d been wearing a lab coat, of course, so I couldn’t see anything. But when I raised my eyes again, he was giving me such a cold, probing look that my heart skipped, and I’d scurried into the library just to get away from him.
    So maybe I wasn’t quite as much of a skeptic as I’d thought.

    . . .

    After breakfast I went to the Education room, as my schedule instructed. Somehow Mr. Lamoreux had got hold of all my textbooks from Champlain Secondary, so I could finish up the few assignments that remained before final exams. The implication that I’d be here long enough to do that bothered me a little, but it was a lot better than sitting in Red Ward doing nothing at all, so I took my physics textbook off the top of the pile.
    I was still there an hour later, trying to wrap my brain around the principles of electromagnetism, when the message came. The Consent and Capacity Board had agreed to hear my appeal in five days, and in just a couple of hours my lawyer would be coming to meet with me.
    So this was it. My chance to prove that I could control my behavior without therapy or drugs, that I had enough clarity of mind to decide whether I needed those things or not. And if I made my case well enough, they might even let me go home.
    Home
. Even whispered, the word spread like maple syrup over my dry tongue. I’d always been a little embarrassed by the old split-level house I’d grown up in, but now I missed it more than anything. I missed slipping into my father’s study and curling up in the armchair while he graded essays. I missed the taste of my mother’s pot roast, which always had the right shape to it even when everything else between us was wrong. I