Free Don't Expect Magic by Kathy McCullough

been too busy to pay attention to my body. A bowl of cereal, a mini-bag of pretzels and a kindergartner’s lunch is not enough calories to fuel the day
I’ve
had so far. I need food right now. Comfort food.
    I’m already at the diner door when Hank says, “Good idea. Let’s get something to eat,” like it was his idea, but whatever. I’m too weak from hunger to correct him.
    Of course, the diner turns out to be nothing like the ripped-vinyl, cracked-linoleum places back in New Jersey. The booths here are eye-popping purple. The waitresses are TV-star pretty and Cadie Perez–friendly, and the tiny individual jukeboxes are plastic facades covering speakers that spray identical fifties tunes out over each table.
    At least the food is familiar. I order my favorite: grilled cheese and tomato with mayo and a side of fries. But once the food comes, my stomach clenches up. I stuff the fries down one by one, but they just lie there in greasy lumps in my chest. It would be nice if I could let go of my rage for five minutes so I could enjoy one meal today, but this is impossible, since the cause of the rage is sitting across from me, calmly eating his fruit salad as if my entire understanding of how the world works hasn’t just been shattered into a million mismatched pieces.
    Hank stabs a piece of pineapple, pops it in his mouth and then points the fork toward a revolving display case of sliced pie. “You
do
have cherry,” a man who’d been studying the pies says a second later. In the booth across from us, a lady shakes her almost-empty ketchup bottle andHank waves the fork her way, refilling it. The lady blinks in surprise as ketchup pours out.
    “Stop
doing
that.” He’s not “showing me” anymore, he’s showing
off
.
    “I’m glad you’re finally talking to me.” Hank smiles and spears a tangerine slice. I don’t answer. Instead I stuff in another fry and try not to gag. “You shouldn’t feel bad that the ability didn’t pass down to you, Delaney. You’re better off.”
    “Who said I feel bad?” I’m relieved. I am. Why would I want to be a freak like Hank? Still, it’s one more thing I can’t have. One more thing I don’t get a choice about.
    “It doesn’t surprise me, really,” he says. “The DNA’s been so diluted over the centuries—we had to die out eventually.”
    “You mean there aren’t any others? You’re it?”
    “As far as I know. Although I’ve wondered sometimes about people who are overly empathetic. The ones who are always rescuing dogs and feeding the homeless. I suspect they might be distant descendants.”
    “That’s what Mom wanted to protect me from, right? Being one too.”
    Hank sets down his fork and leans back. “I warned her early on that you might have inherited the powers, but since she believed it was something I chose to do, not
had
to do, she didn’t want me giving you ‘ideas.’ She made me promise not to tell you.”
    “That’s why you never asked me to come visit. Becauseyou decided it was better for me to think you hated me than for you to tell me the truth.”
    Hank meets my eyes, which is brave, because if I could shoot laser beams out of them, he’d be ashes. “I wish now I’d fought harder to tell you, Delaney. I always imagined that on my next trip to see you I
would
tell you, no matter what. But it never seemed like the right time, so I kept putting it off.…” My laser-beam stare must get to him, because he looks away.
    My whole life, I’ve had all these questions. I wish somebody had told me before I asked them that I wouldn’t like
any
of the answers.

     
    In bed that night, I can’t get to sleep. I’ve got way too much to digest, food-wise
and
thought-wise. I stare up at the earrings I’ve dangled through the little eyelet holes in the lace canopy. I don’t wear earrings. They’re Mom’s. Something easy to bring with me. They twinkle in the light from the Snow White lamp, and it feels like Mom is smiling down at me, but from