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but I’m definitely not an adult.
    And these are adult problems that are happening to me, things that I shouldn’t have to be dealing with.
    I shake my head, about to tell her that I can’t. But before I can, she reaches over and takes my hand. “Honey, please,” she says. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
    I want to believe her. I want to believe her so bad . I want to believe that if I tell her the crazy stuff that’s going on, she’ll have some explanation for it. Maybe she knows something she’s not telling me. Maybe she’s encountered something like this in the past.
    She’s older than me, she has more experience, she’s my mom for God’s sake. She’s supposed to protect me.
    “It’s hard to talk about.” My fingers twist the napkin I’m holding.
    “You can tell me,” she says. “Whatever it is, Natalia, we can deal with it.” I don’t say anything, wondering where to even start. “Does it have to do with Cam?” she asks gently.
    I shake my head. “It doesn’t,” I say. “I promise.”
    “Is Derek bothering you again?”
    I shake my head again. “I wish that were it.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “It’s these girls at school,” I say, deciding to frame it in a way that she can hopefully understand. “This one girl Raine in particular.”
    “Okay,” my mom says, nodding. There’s a slight look of relief on her face, and I know what she’s thinking -- that if it’s just girls at school, then it’s nothing she can’t handle. Her lawyer brain is probably already formulating a strategy, coming up with a plan of action – letters to the superintendent, phone calls to parents, emails to members of the media to put pressure on the school district. “She’s been giving you problems?”
    I nod.
    “Okay,” my mom says. She pushes her shoulders back resolutely. “We’ll take care of it. As soon as I get home, I’ll start making calls. We can get –”
    “Mom, no,” I say, “it’s not going to help.”
    “Of course it will,” she says, with the kind of confidence that only lawyers can have about situations like this. “We’ll sue them if we have to.”
    I shake my head. “Mom, this isn’t…Raine isn’t…” I try to find the words to explain what’s really going on, the words to tell her exactly what it is that’s happening.
    “What is it, Natalia?” she says. Her voice sounds a little angry now. “Just tell me!”
    “Mom, Raine……she has…she’s powerful.”
    My mom snorts. “Some sixteen-year-old little brat is not powerful.”
    “No.” I shake my head. “I don’t mean that girls at school are afraid of her. I mean, yes, the girls at school are afraid of her, but that’s not what I’m talking about. She has powers. Like, actual powers.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I mean she can make people do things with her mind.” I think about adding that I can do it, too, but I stop myself because I can see the look on my mom’s face slowly changing from one of confusion to one of fear.
    “Natalia,” she says, sounding deliberate. “What are you talking about?”
    “Never mind,” I say, turning back and looking out the window. It was stupid to think she could do something, stupid to think she could help. No one can help me. No one even knows what’s going on except for Cam.
    My mom pulls the car out of the rest stop and back onto the highway. I pretend to be asleep, sliding my seat all the way back, keeping my eyes closed. At one point, I do doze off, and in my dreams, Raine is chasing me down a long hallway at school, yelling that she’s going to call the police on Cam, that I can’t have him, that she’s keeping him for herself. When we finally pull into the driveway, it’s a relief, mostly because now I can retreat to my room and get away from my mom.
    But when I open the door to get out, she stops me. “Natalia,” she says.
    “Yeah?” I turn around, my door open, my feet on the driveway.
    She’s not looking at me. “I’m