“So,” Aiden says, setting down a steaming cup of French Vanilla in front of me. “Fancy anything from the vending machine?”

“Nope. Not hungry.”

I pick up the cup and take a sip. It burns my tongue, but in this sterile environment every sensation is welcome. Aiden slips into the chair across the table from me and takes a sip from his coffee.

“You look a bit... undernourished,” he says. “If you don't mind me saying.”

“Don't say 'undernourished',” I correct him automatically. “Too big a word. Say 'skinny'. Or 'sick'.”

“Once a teacher, always a teacher.” He grins. “You don't look sick, though. As for skinny, it's hard to tell with your bulky clothes. It's just the face... the cheekbones.” His finger traces the outline of my face in the air. “Not that it looks bad or anything. Kind of suits you.”

“Heroin chic.”

“Is it a choice?”

“Lack of hamburgers, more like. You've seen the food around here. Can't get fat on that.”

“I think the meals have been planned to contain the exact number of calories a person needs a day. All the vitamins and stuff, too.”

“Yeah, if you manage to clean your plate, which is a challenge when the taste sucks.”

“Do you like hamburgers?”

I think of the afternoons spent with my friends in the mall or the arcade, all the junk food that we consumed. Hamburgers were the basis of our admittedly unhealthy diet. There was also my mother's cooking that I miss a lot, but I'm not going to share that with him. Like he said back in the classroom, there are things in my head that I prefer to keep to myself. With all their weird abilities, I don't think they can read thoughts, at least.

“I liked hamburgers,” I admit. “With French fries. Ketchup and mayo and the good stuff.”

“Sounds so very... artery-clogging.”

“Don't you ever eat that?” I seize the opportunity to fish for more information. “Do you even have access to such foods?”

“Let's talk about something else.” He shakes his head and looks at me as if apologizing for dodging the question.

I nod and look down at the table. His hand rests there, his long, elegant fingers touching the half-empty coffee cup. I momentarily imagine them on my skin, and shiver. I haven’t been touched in such a long time, not in a good way. I used to hate my little sister’s clinginess, and my mother’s hugs, but I wouldn’t mind them now.

“What do you want to talk about?” I say.

“You.”

I snort. “I have literally nothing to tell you. My whole life is on display here, in these three rooms.”

“And the corridor.”

“Oh yeah, the corridor.”

“Still, there must be things that you like or dislike or worry about. Isn't that what people do on dates—talk, to get to know each other better?”

“Oh, so this is a date simulation? You didn't make that clear.”

“Not a simulation. Just a date.” He looks a bit sheepish saying that. “I thought it was pretty obvious.”

“Not to me. I've never been on a date.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Never?”

“Why’re you surprised? I was sixteen when...” I catch myself before saying 'when you guys kidnapped me'. “Before I came here. I wasn't even out yet.”

“Out?”

“Didn't tell my friends that I fancied guys.” I had no intention of doing that, too. They were okay, and I knew some of them since I was, like, six, but that kind of information would only have made things weird between us. I intended to just keep it to myself until I left for college. “So, I can't teach you dating. Don't you have other people to teach you that?”

“I'd rather learn it from you.”

That gives me pause. Suddenly, I'm acutely aware that there are just the two of us in the empty cafeteria. I don't think that on a real date we could have been so alone. Outside, there are always people, everywhere.

“Sorry,” I say, “I can't teach you something that I don't know myself.”

“Maybe we could learn it together, then?”

I stare at him. In all my years here, this is the weirdest interaction I've ever had.

“Are you serious?”

“Wouldn't you like me to be your boyfriend?” He leans back in his chair, apparently quite aware of the effect his looks are having on me. His skin is slightly tanned, bringing out the color of his eyes, light brown with a touch of green. There's a sprinkle of freckles on the bridge of his nose and his cheeks. My eyes slide down to his arms again, as I wonder if he's muscular underneath his sweatshirt. He looks so damn like a real boy. Of course I would have liked to date a guy like this. But underneath the cute exterior, he's something else entirely.

Thing is, the chances that I will ever get to be with an actual nice guy with a cute smile and freckles are pretty much nil. I guess that’s why I'm not refusing outright. What do I have to lose, anyway? He's offering me something different, an experience that isn't what I've been doing every day for years. Also, perhaps I could fish out some new information from him, if we pretend to get close and personal.

“Well,” I say slowly, “people talk when they're on dates. They tell each other things about themselves. It won't work if you only ask me questions and never answer mine.”

“I see,” he says, equally slowly. It feels like we’re dancing now, circling around each other using words. “It kind of depends on what you ask. But we could try.”

“How about we play a game?” I offer. “We'll take turns asking each other questions, and each of us must try to answer honestly. How does that sound?”

His thoughtful expression dissipates into a childish, excited grin.