The thought in my mind weighdown my head.

[Andrew Kennedy]

Andy liked library's. They were so quiet and almost always empty. He could just sit there in silence, and not hear or feel anything. He could read books and feel emotions of other people, but this time with the ability to shut the books, turn off the tide. He sometimes didn't even read. Instead he just sat and enjoyed the quiet, enjoyed the break.

He was having one of these breaks today. His first day at Hammel. He wasn't sure how he felt about it. The school was so large and with so many people and thoughts and feelings spilling out; piling through windows and filling the building to the rouf; bursting through, threatening to swallowing him. He didn't have even half this many people at his old school. He wasn't sure how putting him in some place infinately bigger would help. He wasn't sure any one could help. Part of him still believed that he was probably just insane. Though he wasn't sure what type of insanity he had. He looked through several psychiatric dictionary's and text book's for anything that sounded like him and while Bipolar and a few others seemed like it was similitude to him it didn't quiet fit in the details.

Andy fingered his black eye he had. His dad had given it to him as a short of a going away present. He was use to it and the weird thing is he couldn't be mad at his dad cause while be did feel the anger and hate that his dad had on the surface of his heart but he also felt that sadness and emptiness. Underneath the anger there was sadness and under that sadness, there was a void. A pain beyond words and thought. A longing that caused such deep acheing. And he couldn't blame his mother, whose own sadness and fear was made all the more potent by the amount of love in her heart for a man she had no good reason to love. So instead Andy tried to silently protect his mother. To calm his father. To help those who needed helping. But it never worked for him. It often ended with him being bruised.

His eyes stared blankly at the page, thinking instead of his family, rather then the words on the page.

[Adaryn Breslin]

Quiet, and pain free. That was what Adaryn looked for in a safe spot. Empathy had it's perks, in a sense. Adaryn could always see when a someone was irritated, so it helped her stray clear of their path. But it also had it's lows. Especially when, even after all these years of being at Hammel, it still controlled her emotions.

Differentiating between her emotion's, and those of a crowd, was something that she wasn't too good at. That was typically the reason she stayed away from them. That, and she usually had panic attacks because she hated having people on all sides of her. Her blue eyes scanned the library for seats. As introverted as she was, she immediately started walking towards an empty table, but a wall of pain seemed to hit her in the face.

Adaryn turned to the side, wincing as if it physically pained her to be able to sense the emotional pain someone was having. And it did, just in a way that nobody could understand. Her stomach flipped, her throat tightened. It hurt. She could walk past it, but she also had a heart. If the person was alone, she'd walk over, possibly see if they were okay, and then leave. But if they weren't, well, she'd be on her way.

But she found him. It was a male, looking to be her age, with blue radiating off of him in intense waves. She bit her lip softly and moved a strand of brown hair out of her face. It was a male. She was awkward around people in general, but men? That was an entirely different story.

She stared for a second, Divergent clutched to her chest, and decided that ultimately, she couldn't leave him alone. His pain would follow her no matter where she went, now that she had felt it. She stepped closer quietly, and stood by the table where the boy sat.

"Ehm, Do you mind if I sit here?" Nervousness prickled through her as she stood there, her hands nearly going red due to holding her book too tightly.

[Andrew Kennedy]

Andy looked up, and saw a girl about his age. She seemed nervous, which didn't help the fact that by gender alone she made him nervous. He didn't keep eye contact, instead looking at a knot in the wooden table. He counted the rings, trying to not intrude on her feelings. He played with his ear and tapped his fingers. on the wood.

"Oh...um...not at all. I mean...if you want to." He said not looking again. He tried not to worry or scare people with his power. Besides she probably didn't want to hear him talk. She came here to read and that was all. There was no need for her to be distracted by him. He wasn't much to be distracted by. He would just be quiet. Yes, that was the best option for him right now. He tried not to look at the girl because staring was rude. Besides she didn't want to see his black eye. Instead he would let her read that book and he would pretend to read his and ignore the roar of emotion he heard when ever some one was near him.

[Adaryn Breslin]

Adaryn was far from being a social butterfly, but she could feel his own nervousness start overlapping with her fear, and it almost made her nauseous. Her heart rate picked up. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea? But as she looked at him, she noticed he sported a black eye, and her heart fell. So he was hurt as well. Adaryn couldn't leave now, he looked like he needed someone. Not that she was a good conversationalist. But she would try, no matter how badly she wanted to run.

Adaryn sat down slowly, and put her book out in front of her. Was this the point where she introduced herself? Maybe. "I'm Adaryn, but you can call me Addie if you'd like." She tried to sound normal, but normal for her was soft, very shy. "And you are?"

She hoped he'd answer. She felt incredibly stupid already, since small talk was not her forte. She calculated her next questions carefully. 'What are you reading?' and 'What is your power,' and things close to that. Asking him if he was alright was something she couldn't do, being that most people didn't enjoy their space being invaded. Plus, that would somewhat hint her to being an Empath. And that could just get awkward.

[Andrew Kennedy]

Andy looked up to her for a second. How long was to long to look at someone? He wasn't sure, esspecially girls. Girls were different. They had this power to make him think he had done something horribly insulting or that he was guilty of something. He looked down at the knot again. It was swirly and dark. He wondered how old this tree was before it got chopped down, how the carpenter sanded it down and painted it with a light finish. Hours working alone. Sounded like heaven.

Then she talked again and Andy's finger nail scratched at the surface of the table absently. Should he give her his full name or nick names. Aren't nick names for only friends and family? He wouldn't know really, he never really had any friends. "I'm Andrew Kennedy, but every one calls me Andy...It's good to meet you Addie." He finally said, haltingly, shyly. "I'm new here...I'm reading Looking for Alaska." He said. He was a quiet speaker, more and more afraid he would say the wrong thing. "They say I'm something called an Empath..."

[Adaryn Breslin]

Her eyes lit up at the sound of the book, her mouth open slightly. John Green! Oh my god, she had read every single one of his works, but couldn't leave one of his books without sobbing for at least two days. That was the thing, Empathy caused emotions to be amplified. That included the reactions too what people would call 'feels'. And did Adaryn feel after John's books? Of course she did. Especially 'The Fault in Our Stars'. "I love John Green," She smiled.

So his name was Andrew? Or Andy. Maybe to make him comfortable, she should call him Andrew? Or should she call him Andy? Adaryn couldn't tell which he preferred, considering she couldn't read his mind. And then he answered her next un-asked question, which made her blink a few times. Empath. Did he just say Empath?

This encounter was turning out to be incredibly interesting, to say the least. She was actually acting like a decent conversationalist, or at least she thought so. Addie hadn't been stumbling over her words like she thought she would. Instead, she was actually being... talkative.

"My power is... well... Do you mind if I show you, Andy? I promise, it won't negatively effect you at all." Adaryn asked, hoping that didn't scare him away.