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emotion, focusing only on what my eyes could see when Marcus and I were eating breakfast.
    â€œCan you hear my thoughts, Mom?” I asked through a haze of cloudy vignettes of people sitting down and eating their breakfasts. I drew deeper into my memories until I could feel myself dematerialize as nothing more than a shadow in time. Seconds later Mon appeared next to me, still holding my hand.
    â€œI’m here now, Julie. Look around the restaurant; there has to be a clue somewhere.”
    We were limited by my memories of what happened in the moments before Travis Butler walked out of the McDonald’s and right into morning traffic. Using my Sight, the image of Marcus’s worried face appeared. He was carrying a small tray with our breakfast and he took a seat in front of me. Mom’s grip on my hand tightened as she shared my memories. Then my memories showed us the solitary figure of Willard Schubert as he stared out the window and into the parking lot.
    â€œWho is this boy?” Mom asked. “Why did you notice him even though Marcus was sitting right in front of you?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” I said, my voice echoed like we were talking inside a cavern. “Maybe because I feel sorry for him, I guess. His name is Willard Schubert.”
    â€œWhy do you feel sorry for him?”
    A tiny fluttering of pity coursed through me as my memory slowed to a standstill. I froze the moment in time from earlier in the day as I looked on Willard. He wasn’t a nice looking boy; in fact, his oily, acne-covered face and neck made me cringe.
    And I didn’t like that aspect of myself.
    I blinked a few times as I watched his movements in ultra-slow motion. He nibbled on a hash brown patty, and that’s when I noticed his eyes. They seemed to flash with anger as he gazed through his thick glasses at the falling snow. The restaurant had been busy with its usual morning rush, but I saw that the closest patrons to Willard were three tables to his right, and that’s when something clicked – I remembered that in our two classes together, he always sat alone and the closest student would be about two or three desks away, as if the empty desks were a barrier of some kind.
    â€œHe’s so freaking lonely, Mom,” I said with a note of sadness in my voice. “Look at him, he’s all by himself. He doesn’t have any friends at school and he gets picked on a lot.”
    â€œMore than Marcus?” she asked.
    â€œMore than anyone I know,” I replied. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for Willard; he’s never been given a chance by anyone.”
    I felt Mom’s hand squeezing mine. “You have it in your power to help this boy, Julie. You could become his friend if you chose to. You need to remember that loneliness is crippling. It can lead to envy and then to hatred, a perfect breeding ground for malice under the right circumstances.”
    â€œHe isn’t a practitioner,” I answered back. “But you’re right, I could become his friend.”
    â€œSo, why don’t you?”
    I didn’t answer right away. Willard Schubert was as far from being a magical threat to the world as I am at becoming a math professor. He was the bottom rung of the social ladder for a thousand reasons and there was nothing I could do to change that. It’s not like Marcus or I could elevate the kid’s social status. Not when Marcus himself winds up on the receiving end of bullshit from higher beings like Mike Olsen. Not when the popular girls at school whisper behind my back every time I pass by their chattering little cliques that gather in the main foyer at lunchtime.
    I was making excuses, though, because Mom was right. And it pained me to admit that while I could befriend Willard, I chose not to because I didn’t want what little social status I possessed to disappear. I didn’t want to find myself getting picked on. I didn’t