Now that school had started once more, breakfast at the Trager house had become more hectic as everyone grabbed something to eat on the run. Jessi came to the table carrying a handful of computer printed pages and set them down while she got some orange juice.

"What's this?" Kyle asked. "Is it part of our storage project?"

"No," Jessi said. "Those are the notes I took about the football practice. I told Raymond that I would write down the mistakes I saw. This should help them play better."

"Who's Raymond?" Nicole asked. "And why the sudden interest in football?"

"He's the quarterback on the Beachwood football team," Jessi said. "He asked me to be his date for the dance on Friday after the football game. I went to the football practice after school yesterday to learn about the game of football."

"You didn't tell me you had a date," Nicole said.

Jessi looked worried, "Was I supposed to ask you first?"

"No, Jessi, it's fine. I was just surprised that you haven't talked about him before," Nicole said. "How long have you known him?"

"I just met him. He likes my Corvette," Jessi smiled. "He came up and talked to Lori and me when we got to school. Later, he met me in the hall and asked me to be his date for the dance. Lori had said that if he asked me on a date I should agree, so I did."

Everyone looked at Lori who looked defensive, "Hey, I just thought that it might be nice if Jessi had someone to date. She never gets to go out."

Nicole frowned, "Dating the high school quarterback is going to put her into a pretty complex social environment. I'm wondering if it's appropriate for Jessi's first dating experience."

"He asked me," Jessi frowned. "No one else has asked me on a date." She looked pointedly at Kyle who looked away.

Nicole caught the exchange, "I guess that's true. One of the problems that girls have in dating is that you can't always have the one you want ask you out." She looked at Jessi, "Do you like him?"

"He's been nice to me," Jessi shrugged. "We haven't spent much time talking so I really don't know much about him. Everyone thinks that being the quarterback is important." She looked at Kyle, "Kyle, why don't you play football? You would be better than any of the players, you could be quarterback." She thought for a moment and added, "I could do it, but they don't have girls on the football team."

"I don't think it is fair for us to compete with people in sports," Kyle said. "I think we would have an unfair advantage."

"You played basketball for a while," Stephen smiled, remembering. "You were amazing. You could sink shots from mid-court."

"That's the problem, I was too good. At the time I enjoyed being able to help the team, it made everyone happy, but I think that it was a mistake. I'm glad I stopped," Kyle said.

"You don't think we should use our abilities to compete with people?" Jessi asked.

"I've been thinking about that. I think that we can use our abilities to create things, to make the world a better place. I don't think that it's good for us to use them simply to beat someone at a competition. I don't think it's fair to them, they can't really compete with us."

"Everyone has different abilities," Jessi objected. "That's the point of a competition, to see who is the best."

"That's true," Kyle agreed. "But in our case we already know. All we would be doing is proving it to them, and making them unhappy. And we need to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to ourselves. Getting out on the field in front of hundreds of people and doing things that no one else is able to do would attract too much attention."

Stephen suggested, "You could scale back, limit yourself to just being good by normal standards."

"People with normal abilities lose games all the time. To fit in, I'd have to deliberately lose games that I was able to win," Kyle said. "How could I do that and feel part of a team? I'd be letting my teammates down."

Stephen frowned, "I guess you're right. I hadn't thought about it that way."

Nicole said, "I certainly agree with not wanting to attract attention." She looked at Jessi and smiled, "I'm glad he asked you. I'm sure you'll have a good time."

I had the feeling of loss that Jessi was slipping away from me. When she had jumped off the cliff at the dam I thought I had lost her forever, but this was different. Jessi was becoming interested in someone else. She had said she wanted to be with me and I had pushed her away because I loved Amanda. I should be happy that she was beginning to have someone of her own, like me with Amanda, but I wasn't.