In Their Heads

“Gwen! C’mon, we’re gonna be late!” my mother hollered, her voice bouncing off the walls.

As I glanced at my watch, it read 3:52 PM. “Coming!” I shouted back. More hurriedly now, I plopped down onto my bed, yanking on a shin guard for soccer practice. I shoved knee-high socks onto my feet and hopped off my bed.

In the mirror, I caught sight of my reflection. A girl with big, hazel eyes, a round face, and tan skin looked back at me. She also had cascading hair that she had somehow managed to tame into a mundane, messy high ponytail.

Next to her was a shelf filled with all of the trophies my soccer team and I have won throughout the years. It was never my decision, but I was always the one who got to keep these awards. On my reflection’s other side was a poster of the Chicago Bears football team.

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My favorite part about living in Chicago was supporting our sports teams. I loved them all. Football, basketball, hockey—you name it, I loved my city for it.

Next to the poster, there was a bulletin board. On it, there were pictures of my friends and me. Birthday parties, football games, school talent shows—anything we could capture with the click of a button on our phones, we would. After all, how else would we preserve the memories?

“Gwen! I need your help!” a shrill, enthusiastic voice called to me. I knew that could be no one else but my ten-year-old sister, Harper.

“What?” I asked, nearly tripping over my cleats. The truth was, I didn’t really need to ask what, for I already knew. As soon as I could see Harper, I immediately knew that Brooke, my sixteen-year-old sister, couldn’t get our dog Sona to come inside the house from the backyard. I also could tell that they needed my help.

But I asked anyway, because Harper didn’t realize that I already knew that.

I mean, how would she? Nobody knew that I could read minds.

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After I got Sona to come inside, Brooke said to me, “Hey, Gwen, I saw Mackenzie and her friends at the cafe the other day. She asked me to tell you that she, quote-unquote, ‘can’t wait to beat you at tomorrow’s soccer game.’”

I rolled my eyes and tried to imagine what Mackenzie’s smirk must have looked like as she talked to my sister. Mackenzie’s hated me for years now.

I know hate is a strong word, but trust me, it’s the right one. When we were little, we were on the same soccer team. At that time, Mackenzie and I weren’t best friends, but not exactly enemies. In third grade, we started to have to try out for a soccer team that matched our level. I managed to make the best team that you could for eight-year-old girls. Mackenzie, however, made the second-best team, or “B” team. Every year after that, I always made A team, and she always made the B team. And ever since that soccer season in third grade, that girl has absolutely despised me. I don’t even know why. It’s not my fault she didn’t make the best team. Plus, there were tons of other girls who beat her for her to be jealous of and hate. Why me?

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“I gotta go to practice,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

“Bye!” Harper and Brooke called as I closed the front door behind me.

I began to walk down the sidewalk, my soccer ball tucked under one arm. The field was just a few blocks away from my house, so I walked there, as I had done almost every day for the past five years, since I was eight years old.

So I walked, the late September breeze making my hair dance and sending a shiver through me. I thought about what had just happened, with me knowing what Harper needed before she said it. I’d been able to read minds for as long as I could remember. At first, I thought that everybody else could, too. I used to believe that it was just a part of being human. However, one frightening day in second grade proved me wrong.

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It was a chilly day in mid-October. The leaves on the trees rustled in the wind outside our classroom window. As we were all enjoying snack time, Mia, one of my

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classmates who was sitting across from me, started thinking about how excited she was for Halloween.

I can’t wait to eat my chocolate. I LOVE chocolate, she said to herself happily.

I laughed and popped an animal cracker into my mouth. “Chocolate’s my favorite, too. What are you going to dress up as for Halloween?” I asked Mia casually.

Mia frowned. “Hey. How’d you know I was thinking about Halloween and chocolate, Gwen?”

I giggled at what I thought was her fake anger. “What do you mean, how’d I know? Of course I knew. If anybody else was listening, then they knew, too.”

Her frown grew more significant, and she pushed her chair farther away from me as if I was contagious or something. “I’m serious, Gwen. Stop it. Stop messing with me. This isn’t funny anymore.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. What was I supposed to say? I was still convinced that Mia was the one messing with me. But if that were true, then why did she seem so genuinely angry with me?

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When I didn’t say anything for a couple minutes, Mia hopped out of her chair angrily and stormed off towards our teacher.

“Mrs. Christa! Gwen’s pulling a prank on me, or something! She’s lying! She’s making me upset!” Mia stomped her foot and pointed me out to our teacher.

Mrs. Christa looked at me with disappointment in her eyes. “Come with me, Gwen,” she said, sighing.

“But—”

But there was no point in arguing. Mrs. Christa raised an eyebrow at me, as if daring me to continue talking. Frowning, I stood up and followed her out of the classroom, through the hallway, and into the principal’s office.

Next thing I knew, I was sitting in between my parents and across from my principal, Mr. Jones.

“We have rules at this elementary school to make every child’s learning experience as positive as possible,” said Mr. Jones. “One of those rules is against purposely upsetting the other students. That includes pranks, bullying, and lying.”

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My father nodded. “Yes, we completely understand that.” He looked down at me. “Do you understand those rules, Gwen?”

“Yes,” I said sadly. I still wasn’t sure what I did wrong, but no one was willing to listen to me. “I understand.”

“Do you have anything else you’d like to say to your principal?” My mom asked me.

I looked at Mr. Jones, and he smiled warmly back at me. “I’m sorry,” I declared.

“Are you sure you mean it, honey, and you aren’t just pretending to be sorry?” My mother asked me, smiling a little. “We always joke that she’ll grow up to be an actress because she’s so good at faking her emotions!” she said to Mr. Jones, chuckling, in an attempt to lighten the conversation a little.

“No, I’m serious,” I said. “I’m sorry I broke the rules, and I promise I’ll apologize to Mia tomorrow.”

I didn’t consider this a flat-out lie; I was sorry for making Mia feel bad. But at the same time, I wasn’t sorry for what I did, because I did nothing wrong!

That day, when I got home, a massive wave of realization hit me like a sack of bricks—that is, painfully

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and unexpected. Now that I thought of it, I had never actually heard anybody even imply that they could read other people’s minds, even in their own thoughts. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

It occurred to me that maybe I was the only one who could read people’s minds. I vividly remembered being in a state of complete shock. I had so many questions. Did everybody have their own unique power? Or were they all just like me, only without the mind-reading thing?

Over the six years since that day, I learned through observation of the world around me that my second theory was correct: I was the odd one out.

Being able to read minds had its pros and cons. I mean, knowing what everybody else was thinking was just as cool as it sounds. Although I wasn’t considered a ‘popular’ kid, I knew personal things about everyone at school. I knew what everybody thought of me. If I wanted to, I could cheat on tests. I didn’t, though; my conscience would kill me if I did.

I often noticed that my powers made me more empathetic at times. Being able to read other people’s minds sometimes caused me to feel the emotions that they

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were feeling in that moment, even if they couldn’t express those emotions out loud. Some things brought on such strong emotions that humans simply cannot express them in words. Inside our heads, yes, but out loud, no.

Now, the cons.

In my world, silence was a rare thing to come by. The way my powers worked is that I had to physically look at a person to be able to read their mind. If I could see them, I would read their mind whether I wanted to or not. So, for most of my life, I didn’t get even a minute of silence. Everybody’s thoughts were always shooting in and out of my brain like spears. Really, the only time it wasn’t like this was when I was sleeping.

I always wished that I could tell somebody; seriously, anybody at all would do. But if I did, they would think I was crazy. Or some sort of alien. Or both. I couldn’t risk the world knowing that I was different. What would they think of me? How would they react? God only knows.

But if I could have made one wish, it would be that everybody knew about my power and accepted me anyways.

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After about fifteen minutes of strolling down the sidewalks in my neighborhood, I reached the soccer field.

“Hey, Gwen!” my coach greeted me with a smile and a cheerful high-five. “Nice work in our last game! Think you can keep it up?”

I nodded confidently. Soccer always was my best and favorite sport. I loved everything about it. The excitement and tension in the air throughout the game, the rush you feel when your team scores a goal—But most of all, I liked that I was a part of a team. It made me feel like I couldn’t be judged. No matter if we won or lost, we did it as a team.

As I walked over to greet my teammates, their thoughts immediately began to shoot into my head. To my right was a girl named Hailey. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and was always kind to everybody.

I have to score some goals in practice today. I gotta show Coach why I’m on the A team, and why I don’t belong anywhere else. Hailey’s thought entered my head as soon as I looked at her, and they came as effortlessly to me as if they were my own.

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On my other side was a girl named Sophia. She had red hair, freckles, and wore black, thick-rimmed glasses.

I shouldn’t be here right now. I need to study! I am going to fail my history test tomorrow, I just know it! Sophia was about to cry from stress, but you didn’t need to have my powers to see that. Her lip was trembling, and even a fool could see the anxiety in her eyes. I wanted to comfort her, tell her that she was going to do just fine on the test, but I couldn’t. If that day in second-grade with Mia had taught me anything, it’s that I could never confront or ask people about their thoughts. I couldn’t risk my secret being revealed.

As I was about to strike the soccer ball so that it would strategically go right into the net, my eyes caught sight of our goalkeeper, a girl named Chloe. Chloe was tall, lean, and a fantastic goalie. As I kicked the ball, her thoughts soared into my brain as fast as the ball did into the net.

Hailey did so bad last game, she thought. That goal was totally her fault, not mine! It took all my willpower to not visibly roll my eyes.

Living life having my power, I’ve learned not to judge people by their thoughts. After all, they did say it in their

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heads, just to themselves (or so they thought). That being said, I completely disagreed; that goal was definitely Chloe’s fault.

Throughout my life, I learned how to ignore some of the thoughts in other people’s heads and not waste time overthinking them. Sometimes, people thought up some fascinating stuff. Other times, they had incredibly dull thoughts. However, no matter how much I ignored, I still heard them.

I always heard them.

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