Covet (Clann)

she’d just taken a bite of food and found a hair in it. She said a single word that looked like, “What?”
    I tried again, repeating myself a little louder so she could hear me. But she spoke so fast I couldn’t make out the words. Panicking, I tried again, loudly saying, “I would really like to choose my own desk please.”
    Her face turned white, and from everyone’s shocked thoughts, I gathered that I’d just yelled at her. Crap.

CHAPTER 17
    Whispering fast, I said, “I’m so sorry. I’m actually a little deaf right now from…from running music for Charmers practice last period.”
    She searched my face, the color slowly returning to her cheeks. Taking a long, slow breath, she pointed at the empty desk and said, “Go. Sit. Down. Now.”
    I didn’t look at the other students as I sat down in the dreaded seat, my skin prickling all over with awareness of how close Tristan was. I could tell from everyone’s thoughts exactly how crazy I looked. My fingernails bit into my palms as I sat as close to the edge of my seat away from Tristan as I could.
    Inside my head, everyone’s voices grew louder and louder.
    Oh man, those two can’t even look at each other!
    Whoa. The veins in his neck are bulging. He looks mad enough to kill Savannah! What did she do to him last year?
    Perfect shot! These pics are gonna get the gossips going on Facebook for sure.
    I turned and caught some girl at the back of the room playing with her phone under her desk.
    Drugs. She’s definitely dealing drugs to have all that money all of a sudden. Unless maybe that grandma of hers left a bundle of insurance money and she blew it all on clothing. Typical white trash, she should’ve used it for college instead.
    I was starting to miss the Brat Twins’ daily insults. At least they said it all to my face.
    Isn’t she Anne’s best friend? Yeah, I remember her sitting at their table every day. I wonder if she’s seen Anne yet.
    Relieved to have heard one halfway nice thing about me, I latched on to that person’s train of thought, wondering who it came from. Then I snuck a peek at the desk to my left between me and the door. Ah, of course. Ron Abernathy, Anne’s one and only ex.
    Listening in on Ron’s thoughts felt like an invasion of his privacy. But until I could figure out how to turn the ESP off, I was already invading everyone’s privacy as it was. And at least listening to Ron was better than focusing on the seething pain Tristan was projecting at my other side. Maybe if I concentrated on hearing only one person at a time, I could manage not to go crazy today.
    Interestingly enough, it seemed the strength of each person’s “signal” was based on how strongly they felt about whatever they were thinking. Ron was pretty steady in his emotions when he thought about Anne, but since he wasn’t obsessively thinking about her nonstop, I couldn’t pick up every thought. Only the ones about Anne were loud enough for me to hear.
    By the end of class, I was really starting to wonder what secrets Anne was keeping. It was obvious that Ron was still very much in love with her, and that Anne had been the one who had broken them up. Maybe it had something to do with Ron’s weird obsession about black cats? He thought about them almost as much as he thought about her.
    In an effort to avoid as much of the foot traffic as possible, I was the first one out of my seat when the lunch bell rang. I gave in to the urge to walk at least human-fast down the main hall, slowing only after I was out the doors and on the cement, metal awning-covered catwalk that spanned the valley between the two hills the main building and math building rested on. I walked even slower down the ramp that led from the side of the catwalk to the valley floor where the cafeteria building was located. It was nice and quiet out here away from everyone’s thoughts, and I was tempted to just stay. But my friends were waiting for me.
    As soon as I opened the cafeteria doors, the tidal wave of thoughts hit me so hard that I actually stumbled back a couple of steps.
    Whoa. If this ESP crap continued at this level, the gossips wouldn’t have to lie about my going nuts in English class, because I really would go stark raving mad.
    I staggered to my friends’ usual table, grateful for a change that we sat right beside the center aisle that cut across the cylinder-shaped brick building. The girls must have gotten out a little early from second period; their stuff was