(song: "Dark Star" - Jaymes Young)

Marcel and I stood by my car outside of the Willowbrook post-office. The skies were filled with blue-grey clouds overhead that managed to make the tall trees look deep shades of evergreen. I could hear the sounds of the flag flapping against the pole in the wind.

We were leaned against the side of the car and watching our feet. The talk I had with my mother weighed heavily on my mind.

"Well, we sent it. I guess all that's left to do now is to wait," I said just to make conversation.

Marcel's mouth twitched nervously and he tucked his hands into his jean pockets. "I feel kind of scared."

"Scared of the results being that it's an alien egg incubator?" I teased.

He humored me with a smile and nudged my arm with his elbow. "Scared that it's going to be just a rock your Nana kept."

I tapped my teeth together soundly. "Why would that be a bad thing?"

"I know that you don't believe, but if the answer is the impossible, it would actually give me comfort. It'd explain why I'm so different. But if it's just a rock, and just a spot on the ground that doesn't grow plants and a bunch of coincidental circumstances then there's no explanation for why I am able to do the things I can do."

My head lowered a bit, but my eyes stayed on him. I don't know why, but I thought it was kind of cute. It reminded me of when I was in middle-school asking my parents why I had to be so different and why the other children picked on me.

"Marcel, the things you've shown me as evidence of your abilities are totally explainable. Sometimes I feel like I know what you're thinking or feeling. Some people we can feel highly intuitive around. And as for the fish thing? When I visited the boardwalks where they let you feed the fish in the water, they all came up to me too."

Marcel leaned in my direction and kept his voice smooth and low, "If you can read me, then what am I thinking right now?"

I felt like the air had been sucked right out of my lungs. He was close and I didn't dislike it. I wasn't pulling away from him. My eyelids blinked rapidly a few times with the quickening of my pulse.

"Don't put me on the spot. I said sometimes I know what you're thinking, not all the time," I told him while completely flustered.

He bit his lower lip thoughtfully and withdrew back just enough to give us some space. "There's more things I can do besides those things, Lily."

"Like what? I'm going to need something that I can't possible find a plausible explanation for." I gave him a challenge.

"If I show you, I need you to promise me that you won't be afraid and avoid me."

There was nothing Marcel could show me—short of him flying around like superman —that would make me believe he was anything other than an odd eighteen-year-old.

A sweet smile formed on my lips and I made a motion of crossing my heart. "I promise. Now—dazzle me. . ."

Marcel took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes. His body became rigid with not a single movement. He was like a store mannequin, tranquil and still. I really wasn't sure what to expect. Was he trying to do some sort of seance or call a spirit into his body?

His eyes snapped open and his face took on an intimidating fierceness. His fingertips curled and pressed firmly against the surface of my car and he smacked the surface of it so sudden that I jumped.

My car alarm started to go off and I felt relieved.

"That's it? If you hit a car that's armed the alarm is going to get set off," I informed him while I rummaged through my purse for my keys.

Marcel wasn't saying a word. I started to hear an alarm go off from the car beside mine, and then the one beside that. The alarms kept going in a domino effect from one to the other in a sequence of blaring horns and flashing lights. It continued well past the post-office and towards the local grocery store, sending all the vehicles there into a frenzy of sound. People frantically rushed out of the shop in confusion as they turned their car alarms off and then resumed their usual activities.

All I could do was gawk at him in both horror and astonishment.

I had no explanation for what I saw.

"Anything electronic or that gives off some kind of electrical current sometimes is affected by me. Sometimes it's really dangerous. It's why I avoid large cities, trains and airplanes, because I can't always control it." Marcel leaned back tiredly against the car. He looked like he could stumble over at any given minute. "It doesn't always happen, but it can happen. Afterwards it leaves me feeling drained and exhausted, it feels like I ran a mile."

The human mind is an amazing thing, it tries to rationalize the impossible. I knew that cars with really loud sub-woofers could set off car alarms in passing. I knew that earthquakes also could set them off. None of these facts fit what I had witnessed.

"Lily?" Marcel's voice sounded a little worried. "You're really quiet. . ."

I pointed to the cars and then back to him. "Marcel how—I mean what just happened here?"

He shrugged his shoulders weakly. "I have no idea. It's not like they teach you how to deal with this kind of thing in school."

I was not scared of Marcel, even after what I saw, I still wasn't scared. My logical mind simply refused to accept what I'd seen. There had to be some reason for why Marcel was this way, because the alternative was absurd.

Marcel rubbed at at the side of his head and tried to keep his balance, but I could tell that he genuinely had no energy left. I slipped my arm under his and pressed against his side to help hold him up. I felt him lean his weight against both me and the vehicle.

The few times I'd had physical contact with Marcel I could feel some sort of strange current beneath our skins. However, in his drained state, it felt like the kind of contact I'd have with anyone.

I helped him into the car and quickly joined him from the driver's side. My hands rested against the steering wheel and viewed some of the cars that still had their alarms screaming like sirens.

Marcel rolled his head back against the seat rest and fought the urge to sleep. "I think I might not be safe to be around."

"Why?" I asked without looking at him. "You set off some car alarms, that hardly makes you the hulk."

"I think—I mean I suspect that I caused the cancer that killed my mother, the dementia that affects my grandmother and the heart attack that killed your grandmother. I think long term exposure to me in close quarters over-time affects people's physical and mental health." Marcel's voice was drenched in guilt.

My hand released the wheel to instead touch the back of his shoulder. "You are just speculating that. You can't blame every bad thing on yourself just because you feel like there's something different about you. People get sick every day and it's not something any of us has control over or should be blamed for."

Slowly, I could feel that current building back up. It emanated from him and passed through my fingers into my arm.

"I suspect it because ten years ago, I hurt someone. I really didn't mean to, but I was really young and I wasn't able to control it. There was a girl I used to play with. I liked her a lot, she kind of became my first crush. I gave her a gift and confessed my feelings for her. I gave her something that my grandmother told me to always keep safe and protect—the piece of meteorite. This girl rejected my gift and said it was just an ugly rock. I can't fault her, after all, we were only eight-years-old." Marcel's dark eyes fixed to mine.

A lump formed in my throat, I knew who he was talking about.

"I was so hurt and upset from the rejection. I just reached out to touch you, and it was like a defibrillator. Just one touch shocked you and for a minute—just one minute—you weren't breathing. I cried, I tried to shake you awake. Your Nana came outside and tried to get you breathing again. You finally woke up, but you didn't remember anything. After that, your grandmother didn't want you anywhere even close to me." He looked pained by the memories, as if they were still fresh for him.

"Haven't you ever wondered why you haven't been back here in ten years? Well, the reason for that. . .is me. . ."