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taking a seat at my desk. “I mean, you met him. He sought you out, uprooted his life to break into yours. Stranger things have happened.”
    “She would’ve mentioned it if she knew him.”
    “Maybe it wasn’t even Adam in the painting. Maybe it was just someone who looked like him.”
    “And maybe my horse sculpture was a coincidence, too.”
    Ben takes my hand and pulls me close. “I’m only trying to be helpful.”
    “It was him ,” I say. “Aunt Alexia knew it, too. She knew the portrait had meaning to me. I mean, talk about strange things happening. It wasn’t so long ago that the biggest drama in my life was what color to paint my pottery bowl.”
    “And now you have me in your life, and everything’s completely—”
    “Better.”
    “Yeah, right.”
    I squeeze his hand, hoping he can sense that I’m telling the truth. “A whole lot better.”
    “Minus the abductions, the psychotic gifts, and all the other stalker stuff.”
    “I want you in my life,” I tell him.
    “And you want this touch power of yours, too?”
    “I don’t think I have any other choice.”
    “I don’t know.” He grips my hand harder. “Maybe if I went away, it would go away, too.”
    “It didn’t work that way the last time you left. And it didn’t work that way for Aunt Alexia. There was no magical boy who came along one day and turned her power on. According to her journal, it wasn’t until she was around my age that her power really started to develop.”
    “And now she’s in a mental hospital because of it.”
    “Because she didn’t know how to deal with it. She didn’t know what it was, or why she was hearing voices. Her doctors didn’t, either. They still don’t. But it won’t be that way with me.”
    “Are you sure?” he asks, perhaps feeling somehow responsible.
    “Whatever’s going on with my touch power has nothing to do with you. You didn’t do this to me.” I break his grip on my hand and run my fingers up the length of his arms, over his scar and then across his chest.
    Ben draws me closer. My knees graze his inner thighs.
    “So, let’s just say for the sake of argument that Adam really is in trouble,” he says. “What does the snail painting have to do with anything?”
    “You think I know?”
    “Why not?” He smiles. His fingers linger at the small of my back, beneath the hem of my sweater, sending tingles all over my skin. “You seem to have all the other answers.”
    I smile, too, flattered that he sees me that way, because I couldn’t feel more confused.
    The phone rings a second later, pulling the plug on what would otherwise be the beginning of a perfectly romantic make-up scene. I wait for my parents to answer, but they don’t.
    Mom and Dad have shut themselves up in their bedroom, no doubt also discussing the details of the trip.
    “Hello?” I say, finally answering the phone on the sixth ring.
    “Hey,” Adam says. “How are you?”
    Instead of responding, I lock eyes with Ben. Meanwhile, Adam chatters on about school and his apartment, about how his obnoxious roommate has finally moved out and how he’d love to get together some time.
    “Sounds good,” I say, knowing that we need to meet up soon.
    Ben remains staring at me, clearly suspecting that it’s Adam on the phone. After a few moments he gets up to put on his coat.
    Don’t go , I mouth to him.
    “Camelia?” Adam says.
    “Yeah,” I mutter into the phone. “I’m still here.”
    “So, what do you say? Coffee? Dinner and a movie? Dinner and/or a movie? A movie and then coffee afterward—”
    “Coffee,” I say, cutting him off. “And it won’t be a date.”
    “Of course not. This will just be a couple of old friends getting together over very civilized cups of java. We won’t even request any froth.”
    “Okay,” I agree, eager to get off the phone.
    We make plans to meet tomorrow after school, and then I hang up.
    Ben is waiting for me at the doorway.
    “That was Adam,” I say, as if he