Seeing Double - 1. Chapter 1

The weather greeted us in the usual October manner, heavy drizzle endlessly falling onto the already saturated ground.
We could see everyone else moving towards a nearby building and with a nod we got out of the car.
After only seconds of being outside of the shelter of the car the rain was already trying to invade my waterproof. I scowled.

“Oh come on Matthew just a few minutes and you will be back in the warm.” My mum said with a smile.
I managed a weak smile in reply, but she could see the nerves behind the smile.

“It’s easy for you to say dad you’ve always been able to speak with people first time round.” I replied annoyed that this had come up yet again, mere minutes before I would leave them for more than a week for the first time in my life.

They could tell they wouldn’t get anywhere so they dropped the subject mercifully.
I went to the boot of the car to collect my belongings when a stab of pain erupted from inside my mind.

“Not...now...” I cried.

From across the quad, the large crowd that were queuing to get into the building for the welcome speech suddenly cried out with me, and in that moment I could sense every emotion and everyone of their thoughts; the general sense of anxiety permeated my mind and did nothing but to strengthen my own feeling of it as well.
My parents, wearing the charms I had constructed, were protected from the backlash but I didn’t need my powers to read their emotions and thoughts; the look of worry was plastered over every inch of both of them.

Slowly I regained my composure and soothed the thoughts of the crowd with a command of my own and they went back to chatting as before.
“I thought you had that under control?” My mum asked; a touch of accusation in her voice.

“Nearly all the time mum, sometimes it just appears out of the blue; I’ll ask Ailarha next time we meet.”

“Make sure you do. Where are you going to perform the Release?”

“I’ve seen a park not too far away from here that I could use in the small hours. If not, the lake is deep enough.”

“Underwater?”

“Remember Portugal? When I was away that night? Well there was nowhere on land that I could be safe enough with so I tried it underwater. It’s more difficult but it’s possible.”

My mum just looked at me incredulously.

“We almost had to tell the rest of family what you do that night.” Dad interjected due to my mum’s inability to speak at that moment.

“Well you know that I can’t let it fester. Anyway we need to make our way inside.”

They took my hint and we set off quietly towards the rest of the crowd giving me time to reflect on what has actually happened to me in the last few months and it sounds quite unbelievable to me as well.

The first thing is I have magical powers if magic can be believed. They manifested almost a year ago and I have been learning to control them ever since; only my mind remained intact during the process. What people see is a shell. I will save that story for later though.
The other big turning point in my life was that I came out as gay a few weeks after I turned 18. In truth I wasn’t ready but a backlash not too dissimilar to the one earlier coursed through my friends and family, as well as receiving some of their thoughts, this time one big secret was exchanged and in that split second I was out.

Fortunately my parents were great about it, my grandparents, more specifically my granddad not so. Many of my friends supported me as well, but they are all up in my hometown.

I shook myself out of my reverie as we stepped through the large doors to be met with a wave of warm dry air that was met with a chorus of “That’s better” by us.

A chuckle came to us and we turned to face the noise. I immediately blushed, for all my powers meeting new people, especially the hot new guy that just chuckled himself into my life, makes me incredibly nervous. Too nervous. In fact I totally shut down when meeting new people. I think this is the reason I can’t make friends easily. I just go into emotionless freak mode.

“I’m Daniel, or Dan.” Dan said, his green eyes showed genuine interest in saying hello and then he held out his hand and I paled. Physical contact is one the surest ways of a psychic connection that I haven’t truly mastered.
Fuck it I thought, a rare moment of daring rearing its head. I grasped his hand and replied “Matthew, or Matt”. We ended the handshake and my hand was tingling from his touch, then a wonderful thought crossed my mind. No backlash!

Once the greeting was out of the way I tried to look at him properly; he was taller than me by a good few inches which put him at about 6’ 1”. He had light brown hair which brought out his sparkling green eyes that shone with intrigue.

My eyes briefly looked down and saw a defined but not overly muscular physique. My mouth was going dry and I quickly looked up to see him still smiling; if it wasn’t so cute it would be infuriating right now!
To save me further embarrassment he said “Well here’s your welcome pack and hope to see around during fresher’s Matt.”

“Um, yeah” was about as articulate as I could be in front of the first guy to make me blush. He then went to greet another arrival.

“Well... he was nice.” Mum said knowingly.

“Shut up.” I said half playfully.

“He must be a 2^ndyear at least.” Mum said half to herself.

“Uh huh.” I replied as we went into the lecture theatre.

Somehow I could see things being more complicated than I would have liked this year.