Pulse

needed.
    “Another time,” Dylan said. “I understand what you know.”
    “How’d I do? A-plus, right?” Faith said.
    “You’re about half right. And the half you got wrong has a lot to do with why you can pick up a glass with your mind and shatter it on the ground.”
    “Sorry about that, by the way. Was it expensive?”
    Dylan smiled and shook his head. “No, not expensive. I found them in the back room of the Target just down the street.”
    Dylan put his hand out across the table, reaching toward her.
    “Can I touch your wrist? It will help me explain.”
    “We’re all done with the history lesson, and now you want to hold hands with the teacher?”
    “My turn to teach you, if you’ll trust me.”
    Faith’s heart danced nervously inside her chest. There was something mystifying and dark about Dylan that made him very attractive. But the mysterious, good-looking type had been recently banned from Faith’s life. Wade had set her on edge, and she wasn’t going to let another jerk get under her skin.
    Faith looked at her spoon, which hadn’t been used, and thought about having it do something other than sit there. The spoon moved slowly up in the air, then settled in Dylan’s hand.
    “So no hand, just a spoon?” Dylan asked. He didn’t get an answer, just another shrug of Faith’s shoulders.
    “I have trust issues.”
    Dylan looked off toward the Western State glowing in the distance.
    “A lot more happened in those years behind closed doors than Hotspur Chance let on. I’m not going to tell you everything right now; it’s not my place to do that. But I can tell you a little. Hopefully it will be enough, for now.”
    “Sounds fair,” Faith said. Faith felt herself gently moving. It started in her feet, which lifted off the roof as light as a feather. She felt weightless and soft, but an energy was building deep inside her. It was a feeling she’d never had before, and something about it made her grab hold of the chair she sat in.
    “What’s happening? What are you doing to me?”
    “Better if you don’t hold on to anything,” Dylan said. He backed away from the table and stood up. “You’ll have to drop it eventually.”
    The feeling inside Faith’s body magnified like a ripple on the water, growing larger and larger, until Dylan gave her a funny look and her whole world changed in an instant. Like a rocket, she shot straight up in the air, taking on speed as she went. She forced her eyes open and saw that Dylan was right in front of her, rising up in the air as she was. It was dark and cold; and looking down, Faith realized she was sitting in the chair, her white knuckles a grip of steel around the bottom edge.
    “You really should let that thing go,” Dylan said as they came to a stop.
    Faith was so terrified she couldn’t speak. Her breath kept catching in her throat as she alternately glanced down and shut her eyes in terror. If she could have seen herself, she might have laughed at the silliness of a girl who was floating a few hundred feet off the roof of a building holding on to a chair.
    “This will all get easier, I promise,” Dylan said. He reached down and touched the back of her hand, and she flinched, letting one side of the chair slip from her fingers. She tried to hold on with her other hand but couldn’t, and a second later the chair fell out of the sky. There had been something about sitting in a chair that had felt safe, like she wasn’t really this far off the ground with nothing to hold her up. As she heard the chair smash into pieces below, Faith finally lost it. She grabbed for Dylan, turning him around like they were floating in water, then she pulled him close and wrapped her arms and legs around his broad back. He didn’t say a word, just let her calm down and hold him that way as he stared off into the distance. He put his hands on hers where they were gripping his T-shirt in two fists.
    “You’re not doing this; I am,” he said. “And I’m really good at it. There’s nothing to worry about.”
    “Easy for you to say,” Faith whispered. She was still shaking—maybe he’d gone too fast.
    “I’m just going to start talking,” Dylan said. “You don’t have to do anything. Don’t think about where we are or what we’re doing. I’ve got you, and I’m not going to let you fall. It took me a long time to find you, much longer than I thought it would. Like I said before, you’re a special person. I’m guessing that’s obvious by