Unapologetic Love Story

CHAPTER ONE

The receptionist had been expecting a neurotypical.

Agnes Merchant was an all-girls establishment, with a strict uniform code and fees that could get up to six figures, once you factored in donations to the new alumni hall.

This day was World Autism Day, and in a show of real inclusivity, the faculty had invited two speakers for a special assembly.

The first, a representative from a charity, had already arrived.

She was sitting in the green room – a slightly severe woman in her fifties who’d only met a handful of autistic people in her life, despite making them the sole focus of her career.

She cast suspicious looks at the students as they passed by.

The second guest stood before the receptionist.

‘Can I help you?’

The guest smiled. The date of birth she’d given when signing in set her age at twenty-eight but she looked younger. Her hair was long and blonde with streaks of pink, a soft cerise that happened to match the fluffy cowgirl boots she was wearing.

‘I’m Raina Lewis. The podcaster. You’re expecting me.’

The receptionist was stunned. That couldn’t possibly be true. She aggressively flipped through her logbook and pulled up a document on her geriatric computer.

‘I’m a speaker,’ the young woman added softly. ‘For today’s assembly?’

‘Let me call Miss Lamb,’ the receptionist squeaked, grabbing the phone. She punched in the extension number and slammed the earpiece to the side of her head, quivering as she waited for the other member of staff to pick up.

The young woman’s eyes were not visible through her dark sunglasses, but she smiled, amused by the scene before her.

‘Hi, Carol, yes,’ the receptionist gabbled into the phone. ‘I have a . . . a Miss Lewis here with me—’

Miss Lamb interrupted to say that she’d be right along and then hung up the phone. The receptionist listened to the dial tone for a few seconds before dazedly putting the receiver down.

‘She’ll be right along,’ she echoed faintly.

‘Good,’ said the young woman serenely. ‘Thank you. You did really well.’

The receptionist gaped, not sure whether to be grateful or offended by the teasing compliment.

Miss Lamb made her way down the long corridor from her office to reception. This was her fifth year teaching at the Agnes Merchant School for Girls and she was determined to see this assembly go ahead without a cough, sneeze, ‘please, Miss?’ or a strategic escape to the nurse.

The Year Nine girls were filing into the assembly hall, where teachers were poised with make-up wipes.

‘Katie has too much eyeliner on,’ Miss Lamb called to Mrs Perkins before she finally reached reception. ‘All right, Miss Lewis, it’s a pleasure to meet—’

Her words fell away as she laid eyes on the visitor, her outstretched hand frozen in the air like it belonged on a mannequin.

The whole assembly had been Miss Lamb’s idea.

She’d found the speakers. Granted, she’d not spent more than ten minutes doing so, but her choices had seemed sound and reasonable at the time.

Frances Horn, charity spokesperson, had arrived very early and was exactly what Miss Lamb had expected.

Serious and dull. Destined for an MBE in charity work.

Raina Lewis was entirely unexpected.

‘You’re Miss Lewis?’ Carol Lamb asked gingerly. ‘The speaker? The speaker on neurodiversity? That’s you? The autistic speaker?’

Raina popped her bubblegum and beamed sunnily. ‘Ding ding.’

Miss Lamb was flabbergasted. She’d hired this speaker from a website that advertised ‘actually autistic’ people. She’d skim-read the biography, admittedly, because it didn’t really matter. They just needed fifteen minutes of inspirational talk.

‘If you’ll please walk with me,’ she finally managed to say, gesturing towards the green room. ‘Do you have everything you need?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Raina answered calmly. ‘Absolutely everything.’

‘Good, good, good, good, good,’ Miss Lamb said, her voice firing the same word out like bullets from an overly concerned machine gun as they reached the green room. ‘If you’ll follow me then.’ She suddenly remembered Frances Horn was the reason for stopping by the green room. ‘Both of you.’

Raina Lewis followed the flustered teacher with an angelic smile.

She was entirely used to this kind of display.

When people decided that they wanted to book a speaker to talk about autism, they were always fooled by Raina’s rather competent biography.

No photograph, of course. Just a list of her credentials and her successful podcast – something they never researched or listened to.

They would always build up an imaginary version of her in their minds.

A grave, serious speaker with no sense of humour.

Someone who would come with a slideshow of misery, leaving people half-asleep but hopefully a little more informed.

The perfect ticked box, a job well done!

The reality of Raina would always leave them agitated. Autistic women, in the narrow corners of these people’s minds, weren’t supposed to be successful. They weren’t supposed to be attractive. They weren’t supposed to be colourful, or stylish, or someone who could draw attention and take up space.

Raina liked it that way. She liked upending whatever they thought. She liked shoving aside the fictional version in their head and taking her place.

As she sat in a plastic orange chair, looking out at two hundred girls who were all wearing a grim, maroon school uniform, Raina felt invigorated.

She adored talking to young people. She definitely loved it more than the charity worker who was speaking first. Frances Horn was glaring out at the students with a thinly veiled expression of deep distaste as she gave her sermon.

‘It’s important to remember when dealing with people who suffer with autism,’ the woman said, droningly, ‘that they have difficulty empathizing with you and with emotional situations.’

Raina laughed at that, crossing one leg over the other. The move must have perfectly showcased her fluffy pink boots, as some of the girls in the front row looked over and smiled curiously at the sight of them.

I feel very empathetic, Raina thought. I empathize with all of the teenagers in this room who are being forced to listen to you speak. You, a person with all the charisma of a toilet plunger.

‘People with autism also have enormous trouble holding down jobs and making friends. Desiring friendship is rare for them; they usually tend to be solitary sorts with little care for the feelings of others.’

Raina closed her eyes for a moment and wondered if any speech in the history of womankind had ever been this wrong or this long.

Peace treaties had been negotiated since this speech began.

Holes in the ocean had been plugged. An entire spiral of outrage had unfolded on social media.

A billionaire had done something dystopian. Someone had been made to resign.

‘They can’t normally have romantic relationships, nor do they want them. They don’t experience love the way other people do.’

Fuck you, lady.

That little slice of so-called wisdom from this speaker, so bubonic in its delivery, made the comfortable smile slip from Raina’s face.

She couldn’t find humour in it. Her eyes scanned the room full of girls and she felt a flicker of unease.

There were bound to be girls like her listening.

Girls who worked hard at processing a world that was sometimes not processable for them in the slightest. Girls whose interests were unique and all-encompassing.

Girls who felt things more deeply but perhaps had trouble communicating how.

Girls who felt that they were just the wrong kind of girl.

Who came close to scratching off their arms to see if the ‘right’ person was buried underneath their skin.

Frances Fucking Horn, you have no business telling these kids that people like me don’t feel love.

‘Relationships of any kind are difficult for people on the spectrum,’ Frances went on.

Raina decided to mentally ascend into a higher plane of existence. At least until the speech was over.

‘Females with autism will shun femininity.’

‘Never a good reason to use the word “females”,’ murmured Raina, shivering and tossing her hair.

Her topaz rings caught the stage lights and glittered.

Her rose-water scent filled the space she occupied.

Her lipstick matched the red of her nail polish.

She didn’t want to sit still any more. She felt the urge to fidget as Frances droned on.

‘But what I’d like you young ladies to remember is, people with autism are humans, too. Sometimes deeply capable humans. They deserve respect. A society that learns to be more tolerant of their differences is certainly something my charity and I strive for.’

She sat down with a satisfied smirk, which made Raina stare in astonishment. She was almost in admiration of Mrs Horn, for being pleased with herself after such a performance. While Raina was almost always civil at work events, she felt the spiky twists of mischief brewing.

‘All right, ladies,’ Miss Lamb said, while a reluctant smattering of applause echoed throughout the large hall. ‘That was . . . illuminating. I would now like to introduce you to our next speaker, Raina Lewis. She has very kindly agreed to give up her time for us today and I . . . uh . . .’

Whatever introduction Miss Lamb had been planning to give evaporated from the woman’s mind, so Raina smiled genially and stepped up towards the podium. There were whispers as the room full of students took in her boots, her slightly laddered tights and her long hair.

‘Thank you, Miss Lamb,’ Raina said, in a musical tone. ‘And thank you, Mrs Horn.’

She placed a little bit of emphasis on the surname of the previous speaker, which earned her a couple of titters from the audience.

‘So, you’ve heard from the zookeeper,’ Raina went on. ‘Now you’re going to hear from the tiger.’