The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(86)

“And?” I ask. “Because you seem worried, Dad, you honestly do. And worried, as you know, is not actually the best for me.”

“I’m not worried, but I am concerned. And I want to be honest with you now—as honest as I possibly can be.”

“Okay, but if this is you trying to calm me down—it’s not working.”

“Well, as you know, there were only the three Outliers that were among the first group of participants—actually two and then you. Of course, you weren’t a part of the actual study. And I suspected right away that it was likely the phenomenon was somehow tied to age. You were all younger than the other participants.”

“Yeah, Dr. Simons—or whoever he was—said it was all an age thing and those three—or two, and me, I guess—were all under eighteen.”

“Well, that’s not exactly true. Eighteen wouldn’t be some bright-line cutoff in any case—changes with age are fluid and individual specific. Perhaps it’s something related to brain structure or connectivity. Both are so dynamic in the teenage years. And it could be that whatever aspect of the brain is enabling this nonvisual, nonauditory emotional perception disappears in adulthood because it has been allowed to lie fallow.”

“‘Lie fallow’? You’re beginning to lose me.”

“It atrophies, dries up, dies,” he says. “From lack of use. This is all just speculation at this point. I don’t know what’s causing the phenomenon, only that it exists. There is so much work left to do. But I think there is a chance, if the Outliers could learn to use these heightened perceptive abilities, to cultivate them as a legitimate skill, then perhaps they could subsist into adulthood. And could possibly become even stronger and broader. That it could lead to a genuine, scientifically verifiable intuition of some kind.”

“Right, well, that sounds good,” I say. “So back to that concerning part?”

“I’ll need to do proper, full-scale trials, with a much more substantial study group. And as I said, we don’t know the cause. It could be something other than brain structures—genetics, for instance. She never wanted to be tested, but your mother had heightened emotional intelligence. And then there’s your grandmother …”

“You think she—”

“I don’t know,” he says firmly, realizing probably that he never should have brought her up in the first place. It’s not like my grandmother’s story has a happy ending. “Socialization could be the central factor. Or there could even be some kind of viral mutation at play, I suppose, though that would not seem to account for everything in this circumstance. Also, we haven’t included sexual orientation or gender identity as a factor, and as I said, the sample size is far too small in any case to draw any definitive conclus—”

“Dad, stop,” I say. “Please. Spit it out. What is it? Because whatever is freaking you out, I can tell you are circling around it.”

“There appears to be a significant gender disparity, Wylie.”

“English, please?” I ask.

“The Outliers—so far they are all girls,” he says. “Even in the subsequent trials.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Sounds good. Score one for the ladies.”

“But if this skill really does belong exclusively to women, men—all men—will be left standing on the sidelines.”

“Then that will suck for them,” I say, and I am not trying to blow this thing off. But I still don’t see what he is getting at, or maybe I don’t want to. But it’s that look on my dad’s face that’s gnawing at me. The fear. I just want him to stop looking so worried. “It’s not like all those men get to decide what’s true.”

“You’d be surprised what some people think they have the right to decide,” he says. “For generations, men claimed what made women different also made them inferior. And now I’m going to give them ammunition?”

“We are weaker because we can do something extra that they can’t?” I ask. “That makes no sense.”

“So much of what people believe makes no sense, Wylie.” He shakes his head. “That’s what can make the world such a terrifyingly tragic place.”

Tragic. Not an accident. It pops into my head. I’ve been trying to write Quentin’s talk of my mom’s accident off as yet another one of his lies, but now it’s all I can think about.

“Dr. Caton and fake Dr. Simons said that what happened to Mom wasn’t an accident.” I clasp my hands together in my lap so I don’t have to watch them start to tremble. “They lied about so many things, so I’m not sure that …”

But already my dad’s eyes are glassy. “If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I would have said it was definitely an accident. Now, I’m not so sure.” He smiles, but it’s such a terrible smile. And for the first time actual tears make it out of his eyes. “She was driving my car that night. Maybe someone even thought she was me.”

“Who? Dr. Caton?” I ask.

He shakes his head and wipes at his face. “I don’t think so. Only because there were things that Dr. Caton still wanted, that he would have needed to know from me.”

“Then who?”

He looks at me, uncomfortable. Like this is the very last thing he wants to tell me. “I honestly don’t know.”