“Who?” I shoot back. “What are you talking about? Why are you freaking out right now?”
“I’m not freaking out,” she says sharply.
“Clearly.” I roll my eyes.
“If you’re not seeing into my head,” she says, “how can you know what I’m feeling?”
“Because I’m a human being?”
“No.”
I raise my eyebrows. I can’t fight my smile. “You’re just”—I wave a hand—“rejecting my answer?”
“Why are you laughing at me?”
“I’m not laughing at you,” I say to her. “But I think it’s interesting that this is sending you into such a panic.”
“I’m not panicking,” she says, color rising in her face.
I blow out a breath. Really struggle to fight back that smile. Nope, I can’t help it. The laugh just leaves my body.
Thisreallypisses her off.
Happy cat is long gone.
“Um. Yeah, look,” I say. “Just because you say something, doesn’t make it true. You know that, right?” I gesticulate with my fork. “You can’t just say, look, I’m invisible, and suddenly it’s true.” Well, except for Kenji.
“I don’t like it when you laugh at me.”
“I know,” I say. “It makes you mad. You think I’m not taking you seriously.”
Her eyes widen. Stunned.Pow. Happy cat is back.
“Except, I do take you seriously,” I say to her. “You just think it requires, like, magic or something in order to see into someone’s head—”
“Not magic.” She cuts me off. “It’s extremely advanced science. Cutting-edge technology.”
“What is?”
“The Nexus.”
“Right, obviously,” I say, super calm, even though inside I’ve just burst a blood vessel, had a heart attack, and died.
What the hell is the Nexus?
Oh my God, Warner is going to flip. Right? Or wait, does he already know what the Nexus is? Shit, he probably already knows what the Nexus is.
Maybe this was not a big reveal.
I keep going: “But there are other ways to connect with people.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know,” I say,popping a piece of lettuce into my mouth. “Like, just paying attention. I pay attention to you.”
She turns pink. Almost all of her turns pink. It’s fucking adorable. I want to die.
“I pay attention to you, too,” she says quietly.
