The Outlier

Anita sat with her legs draping off the table as Vincent tested her vitals and reflexes.

“Any headaches so far?” he asked.

She shook her head. “None.”

“Incredible! It’s never gone this well!”

“Really?” Anita asked. “Never?”

Vincent looked at the teen, confused. “Did you just-”

“-read your mind? Yes. But it’s never worked like this?”

“No, never. You walking away with zero side-effects.”

“Not like May…”

“May? She’s the one that went well, right? What kind of side effects did she have?”

The young doctor gave her a disappointed look. “You don’t need to know about her.”

“Was it bad?”

Vincent let go of the teen’s wrist and took a step back from the table. “I just said that you don’t need to know about her. Now stay out of my head long enough for me to complete the exam.”

Anita felt her heart sink. Never before had Dr. Walsh snapped at her like that. The man was usually so level-headed, but the topic of his past patients really seemed to bother him.

“Dr. Walsh?” Louise asked, poking her head into the procedure room. “Her parents want to see her.”

Vincent nodded. “Yeah, let them in, Louise.”

Caden and Marsha came into the room, looking shaken.

“What happened? Is she okay?”

“Mrs. Nash, you don’t need to worry about your daughter, she’s fine. The procedure was a success.”

“What did I even watch? What did he do to my baby?”

Anita tapped Vincent on the shoulder, who promptly turned around. “Maybe you should explain to my parents what actually happened.”

“Right, you’re right. Thank you, Anita.”

Vincent turned back to her parents, who were giving the two of them odd looks.

“So, what we found out is that Anita has an anomaly in her brain that causes her to hear the voices-”

“Yes, Dr. Walsh, we already knew that.”

“Marsha, let the man speak.”

The young doctor gestured to Caden as a token of thanks. “The voices were not from her head, though. She was hearing snippets of thoughts from other people around her. She could read minds, to some extent. So we isolated the exact section of brain that was allowing her to do this, stimulated it with an electrical current, and if we were to scan it right now, it would be just as active as any other part of her brain. Therefore, she can know hear everyone’s thoughts as clearly as her own.”

“This man is insane!”

“He’s not insane, mom!”

Marsha looked at her daughter, a look of fear slowly spreading across her face. “How did you know-”

“He just told you I can read minds. You didn’t think I would hear that?”

“What else can you hear?” Caden asked, almost excitedly.

Anita shrugged. “Pretty much everything. Think of something that you know I wouldn’t be able to just guess.”

“Banana stew would be an awful entree.”

“Yes it would be,” she answered her father. “But why did banana stew pop in your head?”

Caden broke into a smile. “It was literally the most ridiculous thing I could come up with! But you can read minds! It’s a real thing!”

The teen nodded, getting excited that her parents were finally taking her seriously. “Isn’t it the craziest! I’m so pumped!”

“Anita,” Vincent said calmly, placing a hand on her shoulder. “We still need to run some tests to make sure it’s not going to go away on it’s own. We also need to know to what extent you can control it and use it.”

“Wait,” she replied, grabbing the doctor’s wrist as he pulled away. “This might only be temporary? I could lose it?”

“We’re not sure,” he replied honestly. “May, the other successful patient has most of the capacity that she left this procedure room with, but it has significantly faded.”

“But I’m different from her. You said so.”

“I did, but we just have to see how different.”

“What would happen if her abilities faded?” Caden asked. “Would anything bad happen to her?”

“Most likely not,” Vincent answered honestly. “But we’re going to have to keep an eye on her just to make sure.”

Anita sighed and hung her head. “Damn, and I was so ready to go home.”