I’m lucky. Knowing he’ll answer is something I’ve never had to doubt.
She’s the epitome of devastating next to a golden backdrop—hair a little messy, clothes comfortable. Exactly how I pictured her at night now that she’s living here.
Summer has achieved the impossible. Madehere—Harrison Boulevard and my childhood home—my new favorite place. There’s only one thing it’s missing.
“Chris Stapleton? Seriously?”
There’s a playful flicker in her eyes and a cocky swivel to her hips as she brushes by me in a T-shirt I thought she made up.Nope.The smug smirk tells me she knew how much this would affect me.
“We go way back.” Her eyes are trained on me as she runs her fingertips over the full blooms of a snowball bush at the edge of the patio.
“Bet he hasn’t experienced what Rhett Dawson did last night.”
She fights a laugh and sits down in the lounge chair next to mine. “Your mom has impeccable taste.”
I track her gaze to the limbs of a tree budding with pink blossoms.
“Her favorite book isThe Secret Garden. She took her love for it quite literally. Doesn’t have any peonies though,” I comment.
“So, the woman isn’t perfect. There’s beauty in flaws.”
I don’t feel like we’re talking about flowers anymore. Especially when her attention abandons the yard to look at me.
“What other wisdom do you have to offer?”Because I seek advice now, apparently.
She gathers her hair in a fist and drapes it over one shoulder. “Peonies are usually covered in ants. It helps them fend off other bugs.” She looks away and smiles. “Henry taught me that. He has autism and is the smartest person I know.”
I wondered. That was a diagnosis my therapists consideredfor me before I was old enough to be tested for APD. Sometimes the two have overlapping struggles. I think it’s why I like Henry so much. We have things in common I don’t share with many people.
“I have a lot to learn from that kid,” I say.
“Keep watchingBrave Wildernesswith him, and you’ll catch right up.”
I scratch the back of my head as if those ants made a nest in my hair. “I’d rather burn in hell.”
She snorts.
“Did she go down okay?” I stare beyond the sliding glass door where the baby monitor is perched on the edge of the counter.
“Yeah. But she missed you. Can I ask what happened out there today?”
Shame is the first emotion I feel. Somehow it manages to bring a fresh wave of sadness with it too.
How do I describe a disability to someone who hasn’t lived it? Some things you have to experience to know.
It’s not like a cold where for two weeks—at most—you deal with the miserable consequences, then life resumes as if you never had it all. There is no break from words processing in a scrambled format. But I try for her, because the way she’s looking at me right now, she really wants to understand.
“I’ve never told anyone I have it. Not my manager, my closest friend, not even El. I’ve always been embarrassed of it. Tried to hide it. It doesn’t mean people are oblivious. When Blake called Quinn stupid today, it brought back all the labels kids used to slap me with. It’s the last thing I ever wanted to give her.”
Summer reaches for my arm. “You don’t know she has it yet. And even if she does, it doesn’t mean she got it from you. I read?—”
“Wait. You… researched it?”
When?Why?
“I wanted to understand.”
It’s the most intimate thing anyone has ever done for me. Something I’ve been too afraid to do myself.
