CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Guest: Alicia Akintola, neurodivergent fashion designer
RAINA: Neurodivergent women almost learn to mask without realizing it. Can you speak to that at all?
ALICIA: This might seem flippant to some, and I don’t mean it to be. But, to me, masking is like wearing Louboutins. You’re smiling, Raina. Listeners, she’s smiling because she’s partial to the red bottoms!
RAINA: It’s true.
ALICIA: Now, wearing them makes it easier to stand tall. It makes you walk differently. You have a confidence and an ease that makes people respect you. But what happens after a few hours?
RAINA: Yup.
ALICIA: You’re in pain. More than a few hours, it’s agony. Even if you’re used to wearing them. If you never take them off, knee and hip pain. So yeah. Masking saves you in the short term. But the long term? It’s not sustainable. Your brain needs to slip its flats on for a bit.
‘You’re so beautiful.’
Raina laughed, both enchanted and flustered by the softly spoken words.
She and Tom were shopping in a supermarket, hardly a romantic place.
He was always touching her. In public, in private.
He sometimes seemed surprised to find that his hands had slipped onto her hips as they stood in line for a bagel.
Raina noticed that he wasn’t a man who sought physical touch in any other aspect of his life.
While Raina was sensory-seeking, always touching things with textures that soothed her stimulated hands, Tom avoided shaking hands with people and hated to be crowded by others.
He had no problem pulling Raina into little London side streets though. If the Underground was mobbed, he would find a seat and she would sit on him. He was always holding her hand. Sensually stroking her palm.
Sometimes, if she were discussing sex or romance with a guest on the show, Raina would remember something he’d done to her the night before, or earlier that day, and she would feel herself blush on camera.
The stoic, icy and dry-witted man who rolled his eyes on television could turn into the warmest, most carnal man she’d ever gone to bed with, and both sides intrigued her.
Now they were in the Co-Op, where Raina was doing her weekly shop.
She often found supermarkets overwhelming, with their fluorescent lights, loud cohabitors and jangling trollies.
Raina’s ears picked up little sounds that neurotypical people’s did not, and so, in order to avoid being a nuisance, she would shop late at night, just before they closed.
Tom, to her surprise, had wanted to come with her.
It seemed a boring and mundane exercise, and yet, here he was, carrying her basket and following her up and down the aisles.
‘Why do you do that?’
‘What?’ asked Raina scattily, bending down to pick up some cans of soup.
‘Laugh whenever I say you’re beautiful.’
‘It’s not some “she doesn’t know she’s beautiful” schtick, if that’s what you’re hoping for. I just never expect the grumpiest man in Scotland to get so sappy.’
Raina’s words were light-hearted and her tone was sunny, but something was continually knocking her off balance.
While the supermarket was quiet and relatively empty, she still felt her attention being pulled in too many directions.
Somewhere, something was flickering. Perhaps a fridge light.
It made her head twinge and her eyes blink a little more rapidly.
‘Hey,’ Tom said softly. ‘You okay? Your colour’s a little off.’
Raina was shocked he’d noticed. No one ever did. Not even Solana and Pepper. It suddenly felt like her stomach was full of nails and she could taste something acidic in her mouth.
‘I just need to concentrate for a second,’ she said distractedly, holding on to the shelf filled with soup tins just so she could steady herself a little.
She could feel his energy shift behind her.
Concern and worry started to fill the air, and she hated it.
She hated these moments. When it slowly became apparent to them that she did actually have difficulty doing certain things.
A stray fire alarm, siren or high-pitched shriek could cause a neurotypical person to startle and grumble, while it reduced some autistic people to violent shakes.
Sometimes a shutdown could seemingly be triggered by nothing at all.
Just the final drop of water on the head after a thousand tiny ones.
Raina had heart palpitations along with a sickly feeling all over.
She closed her eyes and gripped the shelf with both hands, trying to fight off the urge to sit on the floor of the supermarket and put her head down.
It was what she’d done as a child, but that had quickly been scolded out of her.
Meggie had always preferred a bad one in private to anything untoward happening in public.
Raina disagreed, but old habits were hard to unlearn. Especially when they’d been forged in disapproval and childhood fear.
The hum and buzz of the supermarket noises, which had been only just bearable a few moments ago, now felt too loud and intrusive.
However, it wasn’t until Tom’s words became a blocked-out sound and her teeth started to feel as though they were going to fall out that Raina finally succumbed and sat down on the floor.
‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’
Tom was next to her, sounding worried, which was a word she never would have attached to him.
His voice felt like someone tossing her a rope in a storm.
His aura and his nearness made her feel a sense of comfort which was unusual.
Usually, during shutdowns, she couldn’t bear to have anyone close to her.
‘M’fine,’ she heard herself say.
When she felt too overwhelmed, everything around her and people’s voices all turned into a strange mass of sound that couldn’t be easily distinguished. It was like hearing things underwater. But not him. His voice infiltrated.
‘You look really unwell; we should go,’ she heard him say, the words ebbing in and out of the mass of noise. ‘Sweetheart?’
‘Just need a minute,’ she forced out, staring ahead of her and trying to find breath again.
As soon as she’d released the words, she felt everything start to shut down. Tom’s voice was raised, and another person appeared in her periphery, a flash of green before she was completely out.
‘Raina?’
Tom watched her disappear right in front of him, just as a shop employee arrived in the aisle.
He pulled her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her, cocooning her with an unspoken promise.
He wasn’t going anywhere and there was nothing he needed from her.
The employee made a noise of disapproval at the sight.
‘You can’t sit on the floor here,’ he said. He looked exhausted himself, Tom had to acknowledge. He was about to snap at the stranger to help when recognition flooded the other man’s face.
‘She having a shutdown?’ he asked.
‘Maybe,’ Tom bit out, a little more harshly than the other man deserved.
‘I’ve listened to her show after seeing her in here a few times,’ the man said. He was a little sheepish about it. Tom couldn’t explain why, but hearing that this other man knew Raina made him feel a touch more possessive. ‘She always buys the same things.’
‘Can you give her space and make sure no one comes down this aisle for a bit?’ Tom said tersely. ‘Or do we need to call an ambulance.’
‘No fucking way,’ Raina suddenly groaned. She attempted to move but Tom’s arms tightened and she relaxed into them.
‘I’m calling a car; time to go home,’ Tom said. ‘We don’t have to move until it gets here. We don’t have to do anything.’
As he pulled her in close, the supermarket employee returned from making sure no one was going to come storming down the aisle with a squeaky trolley. He threw Tom and Raina a curious look.
‘You her boyfriend?’
Tom glared. ‘Yes. What’s it to you?’
Why are you like this? Tom asked himself. Why do you act like this? Not everyone is coming to take her from you. You don’t have to fight. She’s okay. She’s strong.
He checked the progress of the Uber and laid a hand on Raina’s forehead. She tried once more to get up, but he steadied her.
‘Car’s almost here,’ he said, trying to reassure.
This wasn’t something he’d anticipated. He’d heard words like ‘shutdown’ and ‘burnout’ in passing while researching her backlist of podcast episodes.
It was incredibly physical and he could hear how challenging it was for Raina to communicate. It even sounded like breathing was difficult. He got to his feet a little precariously and helped her to stand when the car pulled up outside.
Raina was trying to gather enough strength to push away from him and move on her own before finally giving in and gripping the arm of his coat with blunt, chewed nails.
‘Too much to drink?’ asked the driver as they slipped into the back of the car.
‘Just go,’ Tom barked, causing everyone else in the vehicle to jump.
‘Bleeding hell, all right,’ muttered the driver, while Raina winced.
It wasn’t a long drive to the house in Barnes, the address Tom had automatically entered into the app without a second thought. He felt more at peace there than he did in his little coffin of a flat, full of notes he didn’t know what to do with yet.
‘Can I get your keys?’ he asked her gently as they stood on the stoop.
‘Left pocket,’ she told him.
Once inside, she moved in a rickety fashion into the front room before collapsing on the sofa. Tom poured some water from the jug in the fridge and watched over her. Her eyes were closed, but she sensed him there.
‘Sorry.’
The word was uttered with a million sad little things. Disappointment. Embarrassment. Fear. Shame. Tom could hear all of them and he found it staggering. He sat on the living-room floor, stretching his legs out in front of him. ‘You’ve nothing to say sorry for.’