Only We Know

Part I

Luna Broderick is a telepath, born with the ability to read the deepest, innermost thoughts of everyone she meets. So why can't she read Lysander?

Prologue

I can't remember a time when I didn't hear people's thoughts. My father tells me that I was two.

He prayed that I wouldn't retain his gift and wished a normal life for his only daughter but he wasn't surprised when he sang my favorite lullaby in his head and I laughed along the entire time.

Telepathy is hereditary, or so he tells me.

My father has always tried to protect me but dealing with the gift at such a young age appropriately is practically impossible. There are many rules and techniques that people with telepathy are expected to learn and live by; the most important rule being that we must never under any circumstances share our gift with the modern world. They just don't understand.

I learned that lesson the hard way.

My mother wasn't like us. She was one of the lucky ones who could live her life under the false pretense that everyone in this world is created equally. At five years old I couldn't understand that her blind eye was a precious thing. If I had, she would probably still be here. She would probably still love me.

She left us when I was five and it was my fault. I can still remember the day because it left a hole in my heart that still burdens me, stinging silently whenever her name is brought up. Father has tried to help me overcome the guilt but no matter what he says I know that the blame is mine and mine alone and I carry that blame with me every day.

I can remember my mother's thoughts from that day. She was thinking about my birthday and the doll house she had seen at the store. I remember that I could feel her excitement as she thought about how much I would love it.

Excitedly I repeated, word for word, the secret thoughts in her head and I can still remember her face as it twisted in horror.

My father tells me that he tried to reason with her. He tried to explain our gifts to her the best he could and even showed her his telepathy for the first time; a forbidden act. My mother was too close-minded. In her world, people like us just couldn't exist. The truth around her clashed with her own convenient truths in an impact greater than her own sanity could handle. She left without saying goodbye. I don't know where she is today but I do hope that wherever she is, she is happy.

I didn't understand why life decided to be so cruel to me then. Now I realize it was to teach me the importance of keeping my gift a secret.

'Gift' is the word my father uses to describe our telepathy. I prefer to think of it as a curse but he has always been so admimant on teaching me to embrace and protect it. It makes me who I am, he says. He also cherishes the gift because it allows us to see people for who they really are. That is where I feel it has cursed me the most.

I try to use my telepathy as little as possible and my father has taught me to 'tune out', as he calls it. Tuning out is a gift in itself and after years of practice I've finally mastered the technique completely. Tuning out gives me the ability to practically shut my telepathy off, allowing me to focus only on the thoughts that I wish to hear- if any. It's almost like I can pretend I'm just like everyone else; almost.

I've also learned to block my thoughts. Blocking is something we do to keep other telepaths out of our minds and father says that it is the ultimate protection but it's really only useful for when I'm thinking things that I don't want my father to hear. It would be a whole lot more useful though if there were any other telepaths to speak of. I'm being a little dramatic though- according to my father there are over nine thousand telepaths in the world that are accounted for through some secret extensive database put together by centuries of telepaths with too much time on their hands.

In a world of seven billion people though, telepathy is hard to come by these days; so rare in fact that telepathy is still a carefully shrouded secret.

World leaders and public icons who think they know everything haven't even scratched the surface. Never has it been studied by world-renowned neurologists or questioned by skeptics and philosophers. The world of telepathy is apparently a very paranoid one and father says that it is a heavily kept secret because many believe that if the government ever caught wind of our abilities we would all be rounded up and tested on. Maybe it is better this way. The world seems to constantly ruin new and exciting things.

My father will make sure that this world doesn't ruin me if it's the last thing he does. Ever since before I can remember he has protected me fiercely.

Father has worked from home for as long as I can remember for a company in a big city in New Jersey. His job has allowed him to home school to protect me from the cruel thoughts of other children my age. As much as I enjoy not having to trudge to some rundown brick building every morning for school my father's coddling has sheltered me my entire life and as a result I've never had a single friend. Sure, there have been kids my age come to the Southern California beach where we live on vacation. They would stay for a few days and follow me around, searching for tide pools and hermit crabs but when the vacation ended they would go back home and I'd stay here. I do love it here though. It's all I've ever known.

We've lived here by the ocean my whole life but now my vacation is ending. My father got a promotion from the company in New Jersey.

The promotion is great but the catch is that we must pack up our life here and move across country so that he can be closer to the city and work in the office. Since accepting the promotion my father has swapped our beach front house for a quaint two bedroom in a landlocked town called Amoris. He'll working long days at his new job, forcing me to start my senior year at a public high school.

Why life or his job couldn't wait one more year to change my life so drastically I do not know. I am not a believer in destiny but I try to keep my mind open. In truth, I am dreading it every single day.

I've never really interacted with other kids my age in an environment like high school and from what I have seen on TV it's not a very pleasant place to be. I don't dress like a normal teenager, I don't walk or talk like a normal teenager, and I certainly don't think like a normal teenager either.

My father keeps trying to tell me that I'm a normal girl and that I will be just fine in highschool but the point is plain to see and simple as any.

I am not a normal girl.

A/N: This story is a spin-off from my CastielxOC fanfiction What You Do To Me- which means characters from that fanfaction will be back in this story, but I believe you will still be able to follow without many questions if you never read it.

Disclaimer: My Candy Love is owned by Beemov Games Network and ChiNoMiko, not me. I'm jealous, yes, but I am NOT taking credit for their incredible characters. No copyright infringement is intended whatsoever. I do however own Luna and Brooke and I work super dooper hard to perfectly develop my characters and plot line so please, no duplicating, plagerism, or copying. Thanks!