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"Sure thing. You’re a cheap date."
"Is this a date?" she asks immediately.
I back away from her, still looking into her eyes. "I thought I was the one with the questions."
"Seems kind of unfair," she replies, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear. There’s a glint of a silver ear-cuff chain earring when she does, something bending and swirling behind the shell of her ear. "How about we make it a game?"
"You like games?"
She laughs. "You’re already playing," she says. "I ask you a question. You answer, and you get to ask me a question. If you don’t answer, you don’t get to ask."
"And if you don’t answer?"
"No risk of that," she says. "The odds are greatly stacked against you."
"Hm, I don’t know," I reply. "Seems kind of unfair."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"Did we already start?"
She laughs. "No. We’re starting now. I’ll go first," she says. "Where are you from?"
"I was born in Seattle, but I was raised everywhere. You?"
"A place called Jonesville," she says. "Central Florida. Don’t go there, it sucks."
"I wasn’t planning on it. Does that count as my question?"
"No, but don't do that again. I won’t be so lenient next time," she says, cocking her head. "So what is your question?"
I guess I should start with a softball. "Does that happen often? What happened at the restaurant."
She narrows her eyes, shaking her head. I think she’s going to ask me to clarify, but she doesn’t. "It’s only happened once before," she says. "And I thought I just hadn’t slept well that night or I’d imagined it. It was so minor, honestly. Bryony and I share an apartment, and we’d gone out to eat, and halfway to the restaurant, I told her she needed to turn back because I was sure she’d left her iron on."
"Her iron?" I ask.
"Her curling iron," she says. "It’s vintage, so it doesn’t turn off by itself. When we got home, it was still on and the plug was sparking, and the actual iron had almost burned a hole through the bathroom counter."
"Oh, wow."
"Right," she says. "But I mean, there’s every chance I noticed it before we left."
"Why did you make her turn back? Was it just a feeling, or was it more than that?"
I watch her throat work as she swallows, her shoulders squaring. "It was more than just anxiety," she says. "When I closed my eyes, I could see our building up in flames. And it wasn’t just our apartment, it was…you know, it was everyone’s. I was sure some of our neighbors were seriously hurt."
"But nothing happened."
"Right. Nothing happened," she says, looking away from me. This is the first time through this entire night she’s really had a hard time meeting my gaze. I’m ninety percent sure she was just flirting before. "I’m glad I went back, but I hadn’t thought about it at all until we met at the restaurant, and then…"
"I mean, you saved that girl. That must feel good."
She shrugs her shoulders. "I guess," she says. "Now it’s my turn to ask you something. Do you think there’s something wrong with me?"
"What do you mean?" I ask. She sounds genuinely concerned and I don’t want to worry her, but I don’t necessarily think her experience is typical.
"This never happened before the exorcism," she says. "If anything, my perception of things has always been kind of poor. I’m not the most aware person."
