1 Hallways

Loud. So horribly, deafeningly loud. The school hallway was Ivy Chamberlain's least favorite place on earth. On top of the usual buzz of students talking to each other as they scrambled to get to class, Ivy had another problem to deal with.

'Dylan Pines is so cute in his soccer uniform, I wonder if he'd accept me asking him to the girl's choice dance…'

'I really hope my mom doesn't make us have frozen pizza for dinner again.'

'Did I remember to write down the chemistry homework?'

'Ugh, I need to go to the bathroom but if I go will I make it to class in time?'

Unfortunately, Ivy was born with the curse of telepathy. You might think, oh, that's so cool! Like a superhero! Reality was far from the comics. When she was little she threw horrible tantrums on the ground in public—screaming and writhing on the ground because it was too loud. Her parents thought she might be autistic and got her tested to no avail. There was no test for telepathy. It was way too far-fetched. So Ivy learned to adapt.

Her parents bought her noise cancelling headphones that she usually wore in public but they weren't allowed at school so she spent great effort channeling others' thoughts into mere background noise over the first few years of elementary school.

The other kids thought she was super weird and did their best to avoid her as she learned more about her powers. Half the time she accidentally responded to what people were thinking instead of what they were saying. It didn't take long to get into the habit of not saying a word unless she was 100% sure she saw people's lips moving. Little Ivy thanked her lucky stars when her dad got a job out of state—just in time for her to start fourth grade with her powers relatively in check.

Ivy was friendly but purposely didn't get too close to anyone. She made the mistake of trying to tell someone the truth once. Never again. So she usually did her own thing. People were boring, anyway. After so many years of hearing people's innermost thoughts they were all predictable.

"Guess who!" a voice trilled as a pair of hands covered Ivy's blue eyes.

"Lydia," she said flatly.

Ivy knew she was sneaking up behind her but it would be too suspicious to dodge. She did this all the time.

"You're no fun," Lydia pouted as she released her hands, bouncing into Ivy's line of sight.

The tiny, freckled redhead had been following Ivy around like a lost puppy all through middle school after she warned the other girl about a nasty prank some boys had planned for her. Ivy may be paranoid about her secret getting out but she wasn't heartless.

Lydia was new to the school at the time. What new student would be able to make a good impression after having soda dumped all over them in front of everyone? She had been grateful ever since.

"What are you talking about, I'm the life of the party," Ivy deadpanned, not in the mood to hold a conversation while so many other people's thoughts swirled around in her head.

Her range was about 100 yards but after much practice she was usually able to drown out noise from other classrooms when the door was shut. Concentrating in class against twenty something students was far easier than in the hallway against a hundred.

Lydia pouted. "Whatever. Do you want to come to the mall with me this weekend? They're having a sale at my favorite store."

Ivy tolerated Lydia's presence outside of school because was a fairly straightforward person. Her thoughts almost always matched up with her words. Like right now.

'Oooh how much allowance do I have saved? Enough for two skirts? No, more like two shirts and a pair of jeans…or two shirts, some earrings, and a new lip gloss! Forget it, I'll have to see what's at the store before I decide anything…'

"Sure, sounds fun."

The mall wasn't much better than the high school's hallways but at least she might be able to get a soft pretzel out of it.

"Awesome! I'll text you later to finalize the details. Are you going to ask anyone to the dance? I was thinking about asking a boy in my math class. He's really cute and goes over his notes with me because I suck at math," Lydia said with sparkling eyes.

Her inner thoughts were gushing about him. She must really like this guy.

"Nah, I'm not interested in anyone right now," Ivy said nonchalantly.

How could she be interested in a guy when she knew what they were really like? Starting in middle school she had been pounded with other students' lecherous thoughts all day.

If it wasn't perverted it was usually about sports or video games. She doubted there was a single guy with original thoughts out there and had no problem keeping her distance.

It's not like anyone was interested in her anyway. She had a plain, forgettable face usually hidden behind her straight, brittle white blonde hair. She knew what kind of impression she left on people—she could hear it when she met them.

It was no skin off her nose, really. Ivy had accepted her place in the universe as the only telepath out there. She knew how to blend in with people but didn't truly belong.

"Aww, I was hoping we could double," Lydia said disappointedly. "It's not too late to change your mind, the dance is still a few weeks away!"

With a wave she disappeared around a bend in the hallway and headed to her next class.

Ivy slumped behind her desk in relief. Students were still filing in through the open door but the sound was already lessening. At time like this she wished she had tested positive as autistic. Then she could get away with wearing her headphones in class like a few other students who wandered through the halls of the school.

Once the door was shut and the bell rang the usual cacophony of inner voices quieted slightly. The teacher coughed to get everyone's attention.

"Alright class, we're having a pop quiz today to test your understanding of the material before I set up the study guide for the test."

A chorus of grumbling could be heard by everyone but Ivy also got a nice earful of students cussing as they panicked. She grinned to herself. Pop quizzes were never a problem because she could pick the correct answers out of the smart students' heads with no one the wiser. Why bother expending effort herself? She had so many better things to do than study.

With the quiz paper on her desk Ivy leisurely twirled her pencil and waited for Carson Summers—the highest scoring student in the class—to start circling answers. The only hard part was picking his voice out from the others.

'A? I think it's A…or maybe it's B.'

'I have a twenty-five percent chance of getting this right even if I guess. I'll just pick C.'

'I know I studied this! But is it Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus who did that? Why are all these Roman names so similar?'

Carson breezed through it without putting in much effort. His thoughts were a simple sequence of letter options to circle as opposed to the other students who had to really think about it. Ivy made sure to purposely get one or two wrong so she wouldn't attract any attention.

One of these days she ought to find a way to thank him somehow. He had been in at least one of her classes every year since the 6th grade and she clung to his test taking answers more than any other individual's.

On her way out the door after class she gave him a dazzling smile as she passed him and told him to have a nice day.

Bewildered, he thought, 'What's up with her today? Oh, what's her name…Ivy! Yeah, we've had some other classes together but she's never talked to me before…She's actually kinda cute when she smiles like that.'

All the way down the hall, Ivy heard him and smiled even wider.