“See ya.” The sensation of his brief touch traveled to my fingertips.
Naomi had the decency to wait until he left before announcing her thoughts. “Oh my God, he totally wants you! You are so lucky.”
ON WEDNESDAY, Naomi insisted on getting a pint of cookie dough ice cream after Justin dropped us off. I hated that he had work. All I’d wanted to do since Monday was make music with both of them.
Naomi kept trying to tickle me as we walked to the grocery store. It made me feel like crawling out of my skin.
“Stop!” I said finally.
Her hands went up. “God, you don’t have to freak out like that.”
“I really hate being tickled.”
She kicked a rock in front of her. “I feel like there’s something you aren’t telling me.”
My heart sped up a little. We got to the end of our street and rounded the corner. “What do you mean?”
She moved a little closer to me. “Well, if you ever want to talk about, you know, whatever, I’m here, okay? You can tell me anything.”
Right then, I wanted to tell her. But the thought of trying to explain everything I wasn’t made me cringe inside. All it would take was for her to hear the term autistic. And she’d think the worst, like that kid in my class last spring. What if she thought I was retarded? I couldn’t risk it.
Naomi decided she wanted rocky road when we walked into the ice cream aisle. She grabbed a pint, studied it, and then put it back. “Actually, cookie dough still sounds better. You like that, right?”
“It’s got chocolate chips in it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, what kind will you eat?”
“I like vanilla.”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “But what do you put on it? Granola? Strawberry sauce?”
“I just eat it plain.”
“Oh my God, no! That’s so boring. I’ll go crazy.”
“Then get whatever. I don’t need to eat it.”
She grabbed a vanilla pint out of the freezer and tossed it in the basket. “No way am I pigging out alone. I’ll just get some chocolate sauce to put on mine.”
I plucked it out. “You shouldn’t grab the first one.”
“Okay, why?”
This wouldn’t be easy to explain. It was just something I had to do. Somewhere along the line I’d convinced myself that the first package on every shelf was contaminated or damaged somehow. The SNRI the psychiatrist prescribed was supposed to help with my more obsessive behaviors, but antidepressants took weeks to start working. “This one was leaking,” I said, shoving it back in the freezer and reaching for the next pint.
She took it from me, shaking her head. “It looked just fine to me.”
“Wait.” I snatched the pint back and scanned it. “You should always check the date on food before you buy it.”
“Drea, it’s ice cream. It doesn’t expire.”
“Yes, it does. See? Right here.”
“Awesome, can we move on now before it melts?”
I nodded and tried to mimic one of her wide smiles. She didn’t grin back that time.
When we got back to my house, I made Naomi go downstairs. If Grandma saw us eating ice cream before dinner, she’d flip out. Not to mention, no food was allowed outside the kitchen.
I had about two spoonfuls before the nausea set in, and I sat against my headboard. The new adhd meds had yet to improve my appetite.
Naomi devoured another bite and squirted chocolate sauce in her mouth. “No wonder you’re so skinny. You never eat.” She sat on my bed and licked the remaining sludge from the spoon.
“I eat. I’m just not hungry right now.”
She took another bite, closing her eyes. I wished I knew what that felt like—to really enjoy something. Grandma’s cooking was horrid, but liking something meant I tolerated it. The texture or spices didn’t make me gag.
Naomi put the ice cream on the floor and scooted next to me, close enough so our shoulders touched. “Want to make out?” she asked with a smile.
“No.”
“Gee”—she leaned harder into me—“tell me how you really feel.”
I moved away so we had a few inches of space between us. “I just did.”
“I was only kidding. You don’t do it for me, either. Can we still be friends?” She giggled.
I looked at her. The sparkles on her eyelids matched her blue irises. “Of course. You want to, right? Be my friend?”
Her grin faded as she studied my face. “Duh. You’re real, you know?”
“Last time I checked.”
Naomi laughed and rested her head against my shoulder. It made me stiffen at first, but I relaxed as she spoke.
She told me about the cross-country roadtrip in her head. It involved a fast car with the top down. Didn’t matter what kind of car, just as long as it was black and fast. A guy with dark blue eyes and golden hair, not blond, would be driving. But he’d let her take the wheel at least half the time. They’d get lost in the mountains at least once and keep each other warm all night. And they’d take pictures of every cool moment. The trucker dives, the cheap motels, the scenery whizzing by—everything would be recorded forever.
“And when we fought,” she continued, “we’d have amazing make-up sex in the back seat.”
My body tensed at her words. That wasn’t something I wanted to picture.
“Then afterward,” she sighed, “we’d split a doobie and fall asleep under the stars—or on a rickety hotel bed. Whatever we could afford that night.”
“A doobie?”
“Yeah, yeah. No drugs for you, right?” She nudged me. “Little Miss Squeaky Clean.”
I looked away, clutching the cover underneath me. “Drugs don’t do for me what they do for you.”
“What’s your dream?” she asked.
“My dream?”
“Yeah, what is one thing you want to do before you die?”
I wanted to get through another day without being found out. I wanted Naomi and Justin to like me. I wanted to experience a real kiss and see those stars everyone talked about. “I’m pretty simple, really. I want to produce music and make it sound just the way I hear it. So many songs are missing that vibration, the kind that moves through my body and makes the world vivid. I want to see colors I never knew existed.”
She stared at me for a few seconds, running her finger along her mouth. “That’s exactly what I love about being high. I guess music is your drug of choice.”
I nodded and smiled. It was good to feel understood, even for just a moment.
After she left, I got back to work on my wah pedal. But my brain wouldn’t shut off enough to focus. I kept going over the whole afternoon with Naomi. How I could’ve acted cooler, more relaxed, like her. Words just flew out of her mouth. She didn’t have to think about what she said or make anything up. But I was constantly on edge, trying to cover my mistakes. I had to think about everything.
Keep my voice neutral. Sometimes people thought I was being snippy when I wasn’t. Remember to smile. Laugh when she laughs. Pretend to know about boys.
My entire body felt weak and my eyes scratchy. Trying to be normal was tiring. I sat in front of my computer and stared at the Google logo on my browser. I wondered what other people in my situation did.
I typed in the words and bit my lip. Asperger’s community. Maybe there was nobody who completely understood. But I had to find out.
I found a link to a message board that had many different sections, one being relationships. A thread called Friendship with an NT caught my eye, so I clicked on the heading and scanned the page. Apparently, NT stood for neurotypical, which was a term that referred to the so-called neurologically normal. I liked the second half of the word—typical. Some of the things people said about NTs made me nod and smile, especially when they talked about how an NT could be obsessive too. Why was it considered normal for a girl to live for fashion and makeup, but not car engines or bugs? And what about sports fanatics? My mom had a boyfriend who would flip out if he missed even a minute of a football game. Wouldn’t that be what doctors considered autistic behavior?