When Karen Smith told you she could “feel people’s thoughts,” you thought she was just being her usual, wonderfully strange self. After all, Karen said things like that all the time. But this time… she was serious.

You’d known her for months—since you transferred to North Shore High—and somehow, despite her reputation as the “pretty but clueless” one, Karen had always been the kindest to you. She wasn’t fake. She wasn’t cruel. She was just honest, in a way that made people underestimate her.

But that afternoon in her bedroom, everything changed.

She’d been staring at the mirror for a while, her brows scrunched in concentration. Then, without touching it, the hairbrush resting on her vanity slid forward—just a few inches, but enough to make your heart skip.

“Karen… did you just—”

“I know!” she squealed, half excited, half terrified. “I’ve been doing it all week! Sometimes when I get emotional, stuff just… moves! Like it feels me or something!”

That was how it started. You became her secret trainer, her partner in this strange new world. Every afternoon after school, the two of you met in her room, curtains drawn, experimenting with what she could do.

At first, she could only move small things—pens, hair ties, bits of paper. Then she started predicting things before they happened: Gretchen’s texts, Regina’s next insult, the exact moment the bell would ring.

One day, you set out three objects on the carpet: a candle, a glass of water, and a book. “Okay,” you said, sitting cross-legged across from her. “Focus on the water. Try to make it ripple.”

Karen closed her eyes, inhaled, and the surface shivered instantly. She gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh my god. I did it! I’m like… Professor X! But, you know, with better hair.”

You couldn’t help laughing. “You’re actually amazing at this.”

Her grin softened. “Only because you’re helping me. You make me… calm. Like I can actually control it when you’re here.”