Everyone crowds around the screen, trying to get a better look at what Jessiee is up against. I push to the edge of the pile but go no further. I can already tell how this is going to play out, and I have no part in it.

In front of Jessiee, a boy with chocolate brown hair and deep green eyes bends down onto one knee and extends his hands, revealing a velvet box with something shiny inside. A ring. Most of the emotions around me squeal with delight or excitement or whatever.

I just roll my eyes and flop backwards onto a bean bag to watch the drama unfold.

Excitement, Delight, Happy, Fear, and Uncertainty all step forward and press their hands to the screen one at a time. I can feel the emotional charges pulsating around as they do, growing in momentum as they speed to Jessiee’s conscious. It makes me sick, feeling the brief waves of emotion that are not my own.

I rub the bridge of my nose with my forefinger and my thumb and look back up at the screen just in time to see Jessiee lunge at the boy, Thomas, and scream “Yes! Yes! Yes, a thousand times yes!”

As I pretend to hurl over the side of my bean bag chair, I think I actually die a little inside.