I turn and poke my finger at Ben. “Are you ready for me to kick your ass?”
The asshole winks and says, “You can do whatever you want to my ass, Red.”
Thirty minutes later, I’ve lost miserably at beer pong.
For the next twelve years, Benoit Bardot does not let me forget about him, but he never once mentions our pact.
December, 12 years later
How muchDatelineis too muchDateline? I feel like I should worry about the amount of murder I’m ingesting, but it’s just so damn addicting.
Want me to watch a scary movie? Absolutely not.
Give me aDatelineepisode about a man who murdered his wife, and I’m all ears.
My love for true crime is actually part of the reason I decided to go ahead and get my masters in psychology. It was a surpriseto everyone when I announced I was leaving my prestigious engineering job to pursue this degree.
But to me, people are puzzles to be solved much like an engineering problem.
In one, I might be trying to figure out how to support infrastructure that was never meant to hold the number of people using it, and in the other I’m evaluating someone’s need for validation in an increasingly invalidating world.
A puzzle to be solved… some might say people are more volatile, but isn’t that what keeps things exciting?
My entire life I spent insane amounts of time trying to figure out why people make the decisions they do. I couldn’t understand why my parents got divorced. It was always hard for me to make friends because the trivial problems of girlhood didn’t ever resonate. And I certainly never understood why…
Never mind.
I’ve been back in Sassafras now for six months, and I forgot how fucking cold it gets here in the winter. Part of me misses the moderate California climate that kept me company for over a decade. I had only just gotten used to not having seasons when I got the acceptance letter to Hawthorne’s psychology program.
So, here I am. Needing to purchase a new winter coat because the one that’s been shoved in the back of my closet since I left Massachusetts no longer fits. It’s my only option though, so I simply opt not to fasten it around the tits that only appeared after undergrad. I most likely have post-grad stress-eating to thank for that.
Once my episode ofDatelineis over, I look in the mirror, admiring how good my aforementioned tits look in this sweater. I’m going on a date this morning. The first one I’ve been on in… years.
Brody is in my program at Hawthorne. He’s the only other student that didn’t immediately jump into their masters degreeafter undergrad, so he’s a bit closer to my age, though I’m not sure exactly how close.
I was definitely surprised when he asked me out for coffee. I’m still not great at reading signals when it comes to my personal relationships. Looking at a psychological problem from an outside perspective—I’m great at that. Not so much when it comes to what’s right in front of me. Something I’ve worked on with my own therapist since getting my autism diagnosis in college.
Honestly, it was a relief when I first found out. Finally, a word for all of the things that didn’t quite make sense in my brain. Well, they made sense to me, but they didn’t make sense to everyone else. Now I have tools to help when I need it, and I love the strengths that come with being autistic. I’ve gained a confidence I didn’t have when I was in high school, even with all of the accomplishments and accolades that were under my belt. My exploration of myself and the world around me looked a bit like a check list, but it worked for me. I actuallylikewho I am today. Mostly.
Looking myself over once more in the mirror, I grab my bag from the hook and give my dog, Ernest, a few scratches under his chin.
“Be a good boy, okay? Maybe I’ll bring someone home for you to meet later…” I pump my eyebrows at Ernest who licks my nose in response. It’s been years since I’ve been on a date and also quite a while since I’ve had sex.
Sexual intimacy is not typically something I feel a need for, something else I learned about myself in college, but recently there’s been a bit of an itch that needs to be scratched, and the vibrator isn’t really cutting it.
Brody is handsome… not my usual type, if I even have one, but he’s age appropriate and, you know,here. And though I don’t typically crave physical intimacy with a new partner, Ihave had the help of…viewing materialsto learn some things about what I like, and currently Brody is the best candidate for exploring that. With the holidays coming up, I know I’ll need something to take the edge off—being low-contact with my parents makes this time of year especially lonely.
Several minutes later, I’ve parked and am walking into The Coffee Shop—a truly uninspired name for a literal coffee shop—to meet my date. Spotting Brody through the window, he looks objectively attractive. Blond hair slicked back, a bit of scruff, bright blue eyes.
He looks a bit like a Ken doll.
When I walk in, I see that he’s already gotten a coffee for himself. “Hi!” I greet, setting my bag down in the chair across from him. “I’m going to grab a drink. Need anything else?”
“Hey, Cole!” He stands, giving me an awkward side hug. “Good to see you. Sorry for not getting you something. I wasn’t sure what your order was.”
I wave him off. “No worries. I’ll be right back.”
At the counter, I order what I know will be a subpar double espresso from the college student currently working. I watch as she fiddles with the espresso machine and wonder if it’s her first day on the job. I’m so focused on how much she’s fucking up my drink, it takes me by complete surprise when someone walks out of the broom closet and straight into me.
