Page 126 of Unapologetic Love Story

‘I have to pass on a message but I’m not telling you who it’s from because you’ll get mad.’

Raina felt her mood darken. ‘Sol—’

‘I promised I’d say it. I don’t know what it means, but I swore I’d pass it on.’

Raina waited. Then, ‘Fine. What?’

‘No more Clark Kent.’

Raina froze. ‘Excuse me.’

‘That’s all it said. Tell Raina, “No more Clark Kent.”’

Across town, Tom Branimir pressed SEND.

CHAPTER THIRTY

As the awards got underway, broken up by the odd musical act, Raina went into some strange kind of auto-pilot. She clapped when appropriate; she laughed when the crowd did. Yet every inch of her body was alive in a way she hadn’t been expecting.

The mask was gone. At some point in the evening, it had started to slip away and was now forgotten. Perhaps in a twirl of the dress. A flash of a camera. Or the words of a smiling producer with a horrible idea.

Or perhaps a message from the one person she wanted more than anything.

It was gone. She was raw. If Clark Kent’s signature glasses did represent autistic masking, they’d been discarded. She was her full, unmasked, alien self.

‘Now, Best New Host. Here to present this award—’

‘This is the last one,’ Solana breathed. They’d lost the first category to a True Crime show. Now, with her hands grasped, she stared up at the stage.

The winner from the previous year was giving a short speech before the lights dimmed fully and faces and names appeared up on the screen at the back of the stage.

‘Raina Lewis for The Disability Track. Judges’ comments say this unapologetic young trailblazer is an important new voice in entertainment.’

Solana and Pepper applauded all the louder when her name was mentioned, and Raina could hear enthusiastic cheers from the balcony, which surprised her. She certainly wasn’t the most famous nominee in the list.

‘And the winner is . . .’

Tinnitus. Piercing and insistent. Sharp memories pushed their way out of the vault she kept them locked in as the energy in the room shifted and a lifetime thundered into Raina’s body like a train veering off its track.

They don’t feel love the way other people do. They don’t have imagination. They don’t, they can’t, they will never. Why are you so sensitive? No one else has a problem with public transport. None of us like those environments, we just get on with it. Why do you roll your eyes all the time? No, you do. I can see you doing it. Just eat it, who cares about the texture? Don’t cover your ears, it’s not that loud. Stop moving your hands like that, people will think you have something wrong with you. You’re talking too loudly. Too much, too much. Just stop. Why the prim and proper words, just talk normally! Talk like everyone else does. It’s all for attention, just an excuse, they just want attention. And why did you do it that way and not like everyone else? You know exactly what I meant, don’t play dumb.

They don’t feel love. They don’t get it. They’re like little aliens. They’re numb. They’re not like us.

‘Rai? Raina!’

They will never be like us.

‘Raina!’

No more Clark Kent. No more appeasement. Her body felt like it had been electrocuted as the enormity of her career suddenly hit her. She’d made it out. Out of being a statistic. Away from all of their low expectations. The circus of it all looked so small to her now; it had come to mean so little. They’d never been right – it was just that there had been so many of them. But she’d looked straight into the mouth of the beast they’d all called ugly and unlovable and decided to see its beauty.

She was free.

She fell back into the sudden noise of the room and saw that heads had turned to look at her, while her sister and Pepper leapt to their feet, pulling her up with them. She felt Pepper kiss her ear and Solana shout something.

‘You won!’ Pepper shrieked when Raina was up but not moving.

She stared at the screen, where a black-and-white still of her own face was projected. The voiceover was reading out a list of facts about her show. People were shouting encouraging things, and the presenter was holding out the award and beckoning to her.