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Leaning against the wall, he closed his eyes There was no point in lying now or keeping secrets The dae was done All he could hope was that he could convince her not to go public with this

“I’n to his ears, and he barked a laugh “I’ainst her chest “An alien? Like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?” She laughed then, and it carried a sort of hysterical edge to it When the sound trickled off, her head snapped toward him “That’s why you like that dumb movie Cocoon so much This…this isn’t real It can’t be Oh my God, I’m crazy… Schizophrenia”

Dawson sed “You’re not crazy, Bethany I’m sorry You weren’t supposed to know, and I don’t even kno this happened”

“What? You don’t noret real aard, right?” She clapped her hand over herthe confusion in her voice tore through him, and he wanted to somehow make it better, but how? At least he didn’t sense any fear in her any

He took a tentative step forward, and when she didn’t move, he was reassured “Maybe it will help if I start over?”

She nodded slowly

Taking a deep breath, he sat before her and tilted his head back,her eyes What he was about to do was unheard of The rules he was about to break were astronoe of his brother and sister formed in his head, and his chest squeezed He knew if this went badly, it went badly for theo badly for Bethany

Chapter 11

All Bethany could do was stare at Dawson That was pretty ical part of her brain kept spewing things like, This is just a hallucination or a dream Or, This is the onset of a ain, that didn’twith him Unless her hallucinations were on such an epic level she believed she’d seen people—

“Bethany” His quiet voice intruded

Her heart turned over heavily “This is real, right?”

His face contorted as if he were in pain “Yes, it’s real”

Crazy people probably did things like this all the tiinary alien friends if they were real, and of course, they’d say yes

She placed her hands against her cheeks and then ran theled hair Did crazy people also make out with their hallucinations? Because that was probably the only upside to all of this