Chapter 1 #2
Logically, that’s not true. The grades exist even if you don’t look at them.
Just like a tree does still make a sound when it falls in a forest because sound is just airwaves and those exist regardless of whether there’s a person there to observe them.
But I don’t think saying that would be considered helpful right now.
The problem is I don’t know what else would be helpful to say.
Thankfully, he continues before I have to come up with something.
“I know I still need to check them because if I failed, then I’m going to have to re-take the course.
And I tried. But I sat down at my laptop, and I couldn’t even get myself to log in.
I froze, and I was all alone in the apartment.
Then the thoughts started spiraling, and I saw a smudge on my laptop screen, and… ”
“You got stuck in a loop?” I finish for him.
“Yeah,” he says with a sigh.
“Would you like me to sit with you while you check them?”
“You wouldn’t mind?” he asks.
“I wouldn’t have offered if I minded,” I say matter-of-factly.
Finally, his body unfurls, the tension dissipating. He lets out a heavy sigh, as if he’s been holding it this entire time. “Thank you.”
“Where’s your laptop?” I ask, looking around for it.
It’s not on the counter where I last remember seeing it, and now that I look around the living area, it’s completely clutter-free.
The books that usually live stacked on the side table have been neatly tucked into the built-in shelves framing the television, and the Lego project I was in the middle of at the coffee table has been corralled onto a tray, the unused pieces sorted into neat little rows.
His eyes follow mine, and he winces. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to touch your stuff, I just—”
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “The way you organized the pieces will probably make it easier to finish, so thank you.”
He flashes a tentative smile, and it settles something deep in my chest.
“Laptop?” I prompt again.
“I put it in my room,” he says, although he makes no move to retrieve it.
“Do you want me to get it?”
He shakes his head and slips his hands out of mine, though he seems reluctant to. “No, I’ll do it.”
Once he’s out of the room, I can take a moment to ground myself.
The smell of cleaning supplies is still burning in my nose, and the prickly feeling that my damp socks and the knees of my jeans are leaving on my skin has officially gotten to the point I can’t ignore it.
I don’t have time to change, but I can at least take care of the sock problem.
I peel them off and dash to my room to toss them in just as Parker comes out of his room with his sticker-covered computer tucked under his arm.
“Oh,” he exclaims, stopping short of bumping into me.
“I, uh, wet socks,” I say, gesturing awkwardly into my room.
He frowns. “Shit, sorry, I—”
“No, don’t apologize. It’s okay,” I tell him.
He nods, and we head back down to the kitchen island. He sits, and I stand behind him as he pulls up his student portal, logs in, and navigates to the section where his final grades are posted. However, he doesn’t click on it. The cursor just hovers over the menu option.
“You can do this.”
I was aiming for reassuring, but clearly, I missed the mark because he violently shakes his head.
“It’s okay. You can take your time,” I tell him.
“I can’t,” he says, his voice cracking.
Without consciously deciding to, my hand finds his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. In a flash, he covers it with his own, like he’s anchoring it there.
He looks back up at me. “Can you do it?”
“You want me to look at your grades for you?” I ask, needing to clarify.
He trusts me to do this for him? I wouldn’t trust myself to be the person giving important news, especially if it’s bad.
Not that I think it will be bad news, but if it is, I’m not confident I’d be able to deliver it gently.
But he looks up at me over his shoulder and gives me a small, pleading nod.
So I take a quick breath to steady my secondhand nerves and sit next to him.
He slides the computer over, then pivots in his seat to face me.
I click on the menu option for grades, hyperaware of Parker’s eyes on me.
The screen loads, and I scan over the letters next to each course, a wave of relief passing over me with each grade.
He passed—better than passed. He got straight A’s.
I knew he could do it; he worked so hard the entire semester.
There was hardly a moment when he didn’t have a textbook on his lap while we watched TV together in the evenings, which may annoy some people, but I’m content to exist in a room with someone without actually interacting with them.
But despite my confidence in him, I wasn’t able to help getting swept up in the pure anxiety radiating off of him when I came into the apartment.
But he did it, and I couldn’t be prouder.
“Well?”
When I look up, he’s chewing on his bottom lip. But before I can tell him to stop before he makes himself bleed again, he continues.
“Did I pass?”
“If you consider straight A’s passing,” I say, unable to stop myself from being a little sarcastic. Usually my sarcasm amuses him, which I figure he might need at the moment.
He doesn’t laugh, though. Or even roll his eyes. He just looks at me in shock. “Are you serious? I got straight A’s?”
I nod and gesture at the laptop. “Do you want to see for yourself?”
He leans toward me, nearly out of his seat, so he can see the evidence of his hard work himself. At least, that’s what I assume until his arms are around me.
I guess I sort of opened the door for physical contact when I held his hands.
But handholding is easier; there’s only one point of contact.
Hugs are too overwhelming. I can sometimes tolerate an awkward side hug from my parents when saying hello or goodbye, but full hugs like Parker is giving me—one arm wrapped around my back while the other is around my shoulders—those usually make every muscle in my body tense.
And at first, that’s exactly what happens.
I think Parker can even sense it and realizes his mistake because he starts to pull away almost immediately.
But then, something that I can’t remember ever happening happens. I find my body relaxing, my arms wrapping around Parker to mirror his.
He takes it as a green light and hugs me tighter, at least as much as he can with us both sitting on bar stools.
Our knees knock together, which should be awkward, but I can’t find it in me to care.
I’m too stuck on why this isn’t overwhelming me.
It’s been far longer than a few seconds. I should be overstimulated by now.
Shit, it’s been longer than a few seconds. That’s how long friendly hugs are supposed to last, right? I’ve never been in this situation before. I don’t know what friend-hug protocol is.
I pull back so quickly that Parker gives me a vaguely confused look. “Sorry,” I blurt out. “I didn’t mean to linger like that. I just…”
“No, it’s okay,” he says quickly. “I think I should be the one apologizing. I know you don’t do well with unsolicited physical contact.”
“I thought so, too. But I…” I trail off, trying to find the right words. But I don’t think there is a non-offputting way to say, “I didn’t want to claw my skin off, and I’d really like to figure out why that is,” so I settle on, “It was nice.”
“Really?” he asks.
All I can do is nod, feeling just as confused as he seems to be right now.
“Well, would I be pushing it if I asked for another hug, then?” Parker asks, smiling uncertainly. “Because I think after the past couple of weeks I’ve had, I could kind of use it.”
“Umm,” I say, buying time. Would it be pushing it?
My instinct says yes. But the part of my brain that always wants to figure out how things work wants to test this new boundary.
I also want to keep helping Parker feel better if I can.
I take a deep breath, then nod. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be okay.”
Parker stands and holds his arms out, so I follow suit, letting him fold me into another hug. It’s less awkward now that our knees aren’t knocking together, but there’s also a lot more points of contact between us. Which, again, should be making me feel like crawling out of my skin.
It doesn’t.
With him being a couple of inches taller than me, my face is right at his neck.
I’m overcome with a desire to tuck my face into the crook where it meets his shoulder.
He smells like cleaning supplies, which makes sense given how he clearly spent his day, but underneath it is a faint hint of sandalwood body wash.
I inhale slowly, letting the soft, woody scent wash over me.
I don’t find many scents comforting, except for hot chocolate and my grandmother’s freshly baked sourdough bread.
But I guess sandalwood can go on that list now.
After a few seconds, I feel the last bit of tension leaving Parker’s body, which feels like a win—or at least it should.
Knowing I could help him feel better should feel good.
And part of me does. I also feel strangely safe, standing here in Parker’s arms. It’s almost like when I use my weighted blanket.
But there’s also a slow sinking feeling developing in the middle of my chest.
I tighten my arms around him and bury my face further into his neck, hoping it might push that feeling away
He squeezes back just as hard, and the pressure helps a little, but the sinking feeling remains.
“Hey,” he says, his voice muffled a little, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, which is the truth. Nothing is wrong. Parker is the one who had a bad day, not me.
He stays close for another beat before pulling back to look me in the face. I immediately miss the embrace, but he keeps one hand on my shoulder. The warmth of his palm seeps through my cardigan, which helps a little.
“If something’s wrong, you can tell me,” he says, his face terribly sincere.
“Nothing is wrong,” I say, although I don’t even convince myself. “At least, I think nothing is wrong.”
“Did something happen at work today?”
I shake my head. “I felt fine when I came in, then you hugged me and it was nice, which normally isn’t the case. But it also made me feel a little…” I trail off, unsure how to put it into words.
“Sad?” he supplies.
I turn the word over in my brain. It’s probably the closest thing to describing this sinking feeling, but it also makes no sense. How can something simultaneously make me feel nice and sad?
I say as much out loud, and Parker squeezes my shoulder. “It sounds like you might be a little touch-starved,” he says.
“Touch-starved?” I ask.
“Yeah. Humans need physical affection. It’s kind of a basic need. It reduces stress, calms the nervous system,” he explains.
“But I hate when people touch me,” I argue.
“I hate going out in the sun because I burn so easily, but that doesn’t mean my body doesn’t still need vitamin D.” The corner of his mouth ticks up in a smirk, and I’m so relieved that he’s coming back to himself that I let out a soft chuckle.
His reasoning makes sense. However, needing physical touch doesn’t stop me from getting overwhelmed at the thought of even shaking someone’s hand. “Okay, so then what do I do about it?”
“You were okay with hugging me.”
“So?”
“So I can help. I’ve been told I’m an excellent cuddler,” he says as if it’s the simplest and most normal thing in the world to offer.
Except everything I’ve learned over the past twenty-seven years of my life about how friendship is supposed to work tells me it is absolutely not a normal suggestion—especially for a friendship between two guys.
Friends don’t cuddle each other. That’s something reserved for relationships—not that I have experience with that firsthand.
I’ve never been in a relationship, at least not an adult relationship.
After getting my autism diagnosis at eighteen, the prospect of dating and finding someone I could feel safe actively unmasking around became way too intimidating.
Although if I were ever to be in a relationship, it would be with a man.
That man just wouldn’t be Parker, even if he is the first guy I’ve felt comfortable being my unfiltered self around in a long time. He’s straight.
My face must be betraying my confusion because Parker squeezes my arm again. “What are you thinking?”
I take a deep breath and blow it out, letting the pressure of his long fingers wrapping around my arm ground me. “Cuddling is for people in relationships,” I say, deciding to leave out the stuff about my lack of dating.
“Not necessarily,” he says, and I can’t help frowning. He chuckles, then continues. “Platonic cuddling is allowed if we want.”
“Do you want it to be?”
“If you do, then sure, why not?” he says with a shrug.
Do I want it to be? I don’t know. I think… maybe?
As for why not? There are probably a dozen reasons not to. But it’s becoming harder to ignore the sensory overstimulation of my damp jeans or the confusion over why Parker seems to be the exception to my discomfort with physical touch.
“Can I think about it?” I ask. I need more time to process everything.
He nods and lets his hand fall away from my shoulder. “Yeah, of course. Take all the time you need.”