Tears are now free-falling down her face. I reach out to hug her, but she pushes me away. “You weren’t supposed to know.”
I’m not sure why she’s upset with me. “Was it a secret?”
“Yes, it was a secret. It’s always meant to be a secret!”
“Why?” I ask again.
“Because people don’t like autistic people. They make fun of them.”
My heart nearly breaks on the spot. Poor Finley. She must have been the recipient of some nasty treatment. “My sister is on the spectrum,” I tell her. “Vivie is talented, funny, personable, and smart.”
“Your sister?” She’s staring at me like I just told her my sister was an alien.
“Yes,” I assure her. “Which is probably why I recognized the signs in you. You have some similarities.”
“Like what?”
“Vivie is also very creative and extremely touch oriented. She’s not interested in soft things though. She likes rough textures. Rocks, wood chips, sandpaper …”
“Sandpaper?” Finley asks in horror, making it perfectly clear she’s into soft and only soft. “Is your sister, you know …” she starts to ask but doesn’t finish the question.
“Is she what?”
“Slower than normal,” she finally says.
“As in running?”
“No, Thomas. I mean, does she have learning problems.” She turns her head and focuses on the other side of the room.
“Vivie pretty much learns like everyone else, but some things take longer. For instance, math has always been a demon for her.”
Spinning around so she’s looking at me again, Finley shouts, “I’m horrible at math! It’s the reason I was diagnosed.” She hurries to add, “I failed geometry in high school.”
I think the age of her diagnosis might be part of reason she’s so upset about me learning she’s autistic. “Finding out in high school had to be hard,” I tell her. “Vivie was diagnosed in the second grade.”
Finley walks toward a photo set at the back of the room. She sits down on a bed and picks up the furry throw lying across it. Petting it repeatedly, she confirms, “It was terrible. Not only did I flunk math, but everyone started treating me like I was mentally disabled.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. Are these people who had known you your whole life?”
Her head bobs up and down. “We lived in a small town. Almost everyone was normal.” She squints her eyes briefly before saying, “Except Tucker Fox. He has fourteen fingers and six toes.”
I sit down next to her and share, “Vivie had a special learning plan all along, but she was mainstreamed. Her classmates got used to the fact that she needed special things.”
“Like what?”
“Noise cancelling headphones for tests,” I tell her. “She was allowed to get up and walk around the school when she felt pent up. She only took two math classes in high school.”
“Did people make fun of her?”
“Kids are kids,” I say with a shrug. “There are always mean ones who like to prey on people’s differences, but there are also nice ones. It doesn’t matter if you’re autistic, bad at sports, or you can’t sing. There’s always someone gunning for you.”
“What were you bad at?” The skeptical look on her face suggests she thinks I’m blowing smoke.
“I couldn’t get a basketball in a hoop to save my life,” I tell her. “And before you say that’s no big deal, then you’ve never been part of a friend group that played varsity basketball.”
The first smile in a long while comes to Finley’s mouth. “I actually have,” she says. “I played varsity basketball. I played in college too.”
“Are you serious?” When she nods her head, I tell her. “That’s way more impressive than being good in math. WAY more.”
