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Damiano tilts his head. “What's that?”

“I'm different.” I shrug.

“Different how?”

I look down at my book, running my thumb carefully over one of the wrinkled pages. “Mom says me and Dex have superpowers. Dex has all this energy and creativity and I…” I stop, trying to remember exactly how she explained it. “I feel everything. And sometimes I get lost in my head. She says one day I'll help people with my superpowers.”

Damiano smiles.

“That's perfect.”

I look at him. “Why?”

“Because my mom tells me I'm always making people laugh.” His crooked smile gets even bigger. “If you ask me, that would make for a perfect group of superheroes.”

I stare at him.

“You think?”

“I mean it. I'm looking for a best friend and you're perfect for it.”

My heart does something funny inside my chest.

“Why?”

He shrugs like the answer is obvious.

“Because I like your superpowers.”

For a few seconds, I don't know what to say. Nobody outside my family has ever made being different sound like something they actually like about me, and this boy I've never even spoken to before is standing in front of me telling me he wants me to be his best friend because of it.

Maybe Mom is right.

Maybe different isn't bad.

I look down at my ruined book one more time before looking back at him.

“Want to go to my treehouse after school?”

Damiano's eyes grow huge.

“You have a treehouse? Woooow.”

I smile.

“Yeah.”

“Can we go now?”

“We're at school.”

“So?”

I laugh again, and somehow, sitting behind that broken slide with a ruined book in my hands and a strange Italian boy already planning how we're going to escape school to get to my treehouse, my day doesn't feel quite so shitty anymore.

Jude

Seven years later