Chapter 4
Nicholas
I plop myself down onto the couch next to my computer and run a hand over my bare chest. It’s hot as fuck in this apartment and it isn’t even May yet. The air conditioner doesn’t work and the living room windows are jammed shut, refusing to budge. We’re going to melt like popsicles in this apartment once summer really sets in.
The entire apartment needs work. Half of the electrical outlets don’t work, there’s a huge crack in the wall above the front door. Don’t get me started on the bucket collecting water under the leaky bathroom sink. And whatever architect thought it was a good idea to put the washer and dryer outlets right in front of the fire escape in the kitchen deserves to get his license taken away and his ass kicked.
This place is a dump.
I sigh in frustration and shove a hand into my pocket, pulling out the small plastic bottle. I’ve been here for nearly a week and I’m still feeling out of sorts. I’ve never been a big fan of change but I figured that hitting the reset button and coming out here to Reyfield would have been a good move for me. Maybe I was wrong because my anxiety has flared up hard-core since I’ve been here. I roll the small plastic bottle back and forth in my palm. Dozens of tiny blue pills sneer at me, taunting me.
I probably should be back on my meds but the side effects just kill me. So instead, I crane my neck from side to side as Miyasaki's Dwarf Warriors loads on the screen. I shove the pills back into my pocket and take a swig of my beer. It's good to take a load off after spending the day on autopilot, upgrading software on the town hall computer servers.
This new job of mine is far from my long-term plan. It's definitely temporary. But I find it oddly calming and at least my mind isn't racing all the time. Eventually, I'll get back to the Valley and I'll build another piece of important software that will change lives. But for now I just need to take it easy, sleep eight hours a night, catch up on my manga cartoons, be a regular person.
A regular person who sits on the couch and consumes mind-numbing entertainment after a day of pointless busywork at the office. A regular person who gets home early in the hopes of catching a glimpse of his ridiculously hot roommate before she locks herself in the bedroom for the night.
God, Blakely…
The girl is so insanely gorgeous.
She has bright green eyes and thick, fiery red curls bouncing down her back. She tries to make herself small but it's impossible for her to hide with that hair. And those curves. I want to run my tongue along those curves, that freckled skin. I’m in love with the shape of her body. But she's painfully shy. She won't even hang around in the same room as me for more than a few minutes.
I know that she works a lot and she's in school, too, and I know that I'm not too great at reading body language, but if I didn't know any better, I'd say that she's been deliberately trying to avoid me. Why exactly? I haven't figured that part out yet. But all of my attempts to make conversation with her have fallen flat, resulting in her scurrying off into her bedroom and shutting me out.
I can’t help but wonder what exactly goes on in that pretty little head on the rare occasion that she allows herself to look at me.
I've never been interested in deciphering women and their unspoken intentions. My brain is hopelessly mis-wired when it comes to solving the cryptic puzzle that is female non-verbal communication. But for the first time, I care. I want to know what she thinks of me. I want her to like me. But I plan on keeping that thought to myself because I don't want this living situation to get awkward. (And boy do I have a talent for making things awkward.) Although the apartment itself is shit, I like sharing this space with Blakely.
Just as the opening credits begin to roll, my FaceTime app starts ringing. I hit ‘answer’ and Emily's pale, little face appears on my computer screen.
"Well, hello stranger." She smiles so hard that her eyes half close. Ha! She misses me, I think.
"Hey," I say, maximizing my FaceTime window so that it covers the whole screen.
"How's life out in the middle of nowhere?" she asks, turning up her nose.
I shrug one shoulder and bring my beer to my lips. "The Internet connection could be faster but other than that, I'm not complaining."
She laughs. "Serves you right for abandoning me and moving across the country. I give you one week until you're going stir-crazy out there without a stimulating project to work on and you're dying to get back to the Valley."
I'm a cerebral type. I'm used to having projects that stimulate my mind, problems that need solving. Yes, I’m definitely a project junkie. Expound. Execute. Exit. That’s been my motto for a long time. And yes, life in Reyfield is pretty idyllic. No complex enigmas to solve. But I'm sure that I'll survive.
"I'm doing just fine, Em."
"And how's your hot, little roomie? Please tell me that the two of you are hooking up." Her eyes squint with mischief.
I scoff. "Emily..."
"What? She's pretty and from the digging around I've done, I can tell she doesn't have a boyfriend. And you really need to get laid, Tight-Ass."
I sigh. "It really isn't like that between Blakely and me. Honestly, I don't think that we've spent more than five minutes in the same room in the time that I've been here. And I have no intention of pursuing her.”
Emily is quiet for a while and then she says in a small, hesitant voice. "Is it because you're scared to tell her about...” – she tilts her head suggestively to the side – “…y'know?"
Ugh! Not this conversation again. "It's not like we're over here painting each other's toenails and chumming it up. I hardly see the girl. She's always at work or in class and on the rare occasion that she's home, she locks herself up in her bedroom like she thinks I'm going to attack her with a chainsaw or something,” I growl defensively, “So, why would I share my most personal information with her, anyway?"
"Uh, how about the fact that the two of you share five hundred square feet? I know that you're good-looking and girls interpret your aloofness and overall strangeness as charming but eventually, your roommate’s going to have questions about your behavior.”
"Okay, let's get one thing clear. I'm not ashamed that I have Asperger’s. I just don't see a reason to broadcast it to people who don't need to know."
When I tell people about Conquer: For Aspies, they think that it’s just another cool app and that I’m a genius for having designed the concept. They rarely ever guess that it’s my own personal struggle with the illness that was my motivation.
Aside from a few minor quirks, I no longer display the classic signs of the disorder on a regular basis. The long-winded, one-sided monologues on obscure topics regular people have never heard of. The heightened sensitivity to loud noises and bright lights. The inability to censor my thoughts before they come gushing out of my mouth. The rigid, unyielding adherence to order and routines. I have all of that under control now.
For the most part.
Yes, I still have difficulty communicating and understanding things from other people’s perspective, and sometimes humor just goes straight over my head, but it’s no longer debilitating.
Growing up, my mother spent every dollar she could get her hands on doing whatever it took to suppress the symptoms of my Asperger’s (and all the related conditions). That meant weekly sessions with my legion of therapists and hundreds of hours of cognitive treatment and every medication she could convince a doctor to write a prescription for. As far as she’s concerned, she lost two husbands over my weirdness and she wasn’t willing to lose any more. She’d say that my treatment was money well spent.
My stepsister huffs. "Wow! Oversensitive, much? You must really like this girl.”
“Would you stop it?!”
“I hate how you hide behind that stupid diagnosis to avoid getting close with anybody," she rattles on, completely ignoring me. “If you want to be happy, you’re gonna have to let go of your labels.”
I hate when she does that. She thinks she knows me better than I know myself.
I’ve opened up to Emily about my illness and my feelings toward it. But it’s not something we speak directly about these days. We tiptoe around it but she knows that it’s always lingering in the back of my mind. A person doesn’t just get over the fact that his father left because he was too weird to deal with.
"Emily, you’re not listening to me," I grind out. I think I'm getting a headache.
"I just don't want to see you hurting yourself anymore. Just tell Blakely the truth. Give her a chance to understand you, to get to know you."
"It's none of her business!" I shout. I hate losing control like this but Emily pushes me there every time. She's so nosy and she never takes ‘no’ for an answer.
Her shoulders drop and so does her smile. I think I've hurt her feelings. But it's not like she didn't deserve to be yelled at. I wish she would stop pressing my buttons.
I lift my glasses and massage the bridge of my nose to ease my irritation. “Look, Em,” I say softly, “Blakely isn’t interested in me, okay? So, there’s no reason to tell her about my condition.”
She sighs, defeated. “Fine. I’ll drop it.”
“Thank you.” I feel the tension melt out of my shoulders.
"I'll see you next month when I come out there to take you to your new doctor," she says quietly after a drawn-out silence.
"You don't have to fly all the way across the country to take me to a doctor's appointment. That's ridiculous." I try to shrug it off like it’s no big deal, but I know why she’s doing this. I’ve been seeing the same healthcare professionals for years. I’m not looking forward to opening up to someone new. Change has always been a big sticking point for me.
"No, that’s not ridiculous,” she says gently, “that's love. Now, stop trying to fight me. I'll see you next month."
I exhale roughly. “Bye, Emily.”
“Bye, Nicholas.” My screen goes blank.
I grab the pills out of my pocket and stare down at them again. I hate to admit it but Emily's right. A part of me is scared that a gorgeous girl like Blakely would want nothing to do with me if she knew just how broken I am. Thanks to years of cognitive therapy and social training, I've learned sophisticated ways of managing my illness. My app has certainly helped – I'm better at reading social cues now and I generally respond more appropriately in social situations – but I'm not perfect. I'm not normal. And every so often, my mask slips and reveals all the weird little pieces of me that could never fit. I don't want to risk Blakely's rejection. So I'll just keep my distance.
That's my final decision. I've resolved to keep my distance.
But twenty minutes later when the front door swings open and she steps inside with those wide green eyes avoiding all contact with mine and those soft cheeks instantly turning red, just for a moment, I second guess that decision.
And I wish I could be good for her.