CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN #3
‘Hey, Raina?’ Ottie called, one final blow ready and waiting before the match was over. She snatched up a small plastic case of toothpicks from the makeshift bar and threw them all across the floor. Raina stared at the little wooden strips and her breath deserted her.
‘Count them!’ Ottie drawled. ‘How many are there? Aren’t people like you meant to be good for that?’
Raina looked into the other woman’s face. She saw the pain beneath the hatred. But she’d been seeing that expression since birth. The frightened, intimidated neurotypical. Afraid of what they couldn’t understand.
She always forgave them. She always compromised. She always humoured them.
Everything was always for them. The whole world belonged to them.
Not this time.
‘Count them yourself, you boring posh prick. You spoiled, vapid, selfish, jealous pig.’
A few people made noises of surprise and Tom looked proud for a split second, before casting a truly violent look towards Seb and Ottie.
‘Raina. Let’s go. Let’s get you home—’
‘Save it!’ Pepper hissed at Tom as she bundled her friend up and headed towards the glass doors leading out to the enormous grounds.
She turned to issue one order at the staff before they were gone from view.
‘I want him and his two lackeys off my property by the time I’m back or I’ll call the police. ’
Raina’s body felt a little relief as the cool evening air hit her.
She felt the heavy pressure of other people’s gazes and their assumptions lessen as she and Pepper dashed down the stone steps towards the small rose garden Pepper’s mother had cultivated.
The scent of the flowers made Raina feel a little more grounded, as she fell to her knees on the grass and tried to focus on breathing deeply.
Clattering heels could be heard on the steps, followed by Solana’s voice. ‘Here, some water.’
Raina gulped it down gratefully. She could start to make out people’s faces again. Pepper looked ready to go to war and Solana was trying not to cry. The sight of it made Raina immediately want to console her little sister.
‘It’s okay,’ she croaked. ‘Don’t, it’s all right.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Solana wept, tears starting to fall down her young face. ‘That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. But Raina, it’s them. Not Tom. He’s so worried about you. And I should tell you—’
‘They’ll pay,’ Pepper breathed, helping Raina get down the last of the water. ‘I’ll see to it.’
‘No, enough,’ Raina gasped, pushing away from the two of them and all talk of revenge. ‘I can’t do this any more, any of this. I need to leave.’
‘I’ll get the car,’ Solana said, jumping into action.
Raina sat on the grass and gently caressed a yellow rose that was close to her face.
The petal so soft against her overstimulated fingers which desperately wished to flex and grab hold of something.
She moved slowly down to the stem, carefully pressing her thumb to the thorn until it punctured her skin.
Rose-tinted lens. A romantic view on life.
She’d been wrong. It was so much worse to feel the thorns, despite the beauty of the flower. So much worse to fall from the edge of the cliff by surprise.
He might make a cynic of her yet.
‘Raina?’
His voice broke her of her reverie, and she hated the hope and love that welled up inside of her, before remembering what he’d done. What he was doing.
‘If you come near her,’ Pepper said vigilantly, brandishing the empty water tumbler. ‘I’ll glass you. No one would convict me.’
‘Pepper, I know you love her. I do, too. Please let me talk to her.’
‘You don’t love her. You have your story, you can go. Get to stepping. Got a deadline to meet?’
Raina got to her feet while they argued. She walked away from the scene. Her fingers brushed across the many roses as she moved away from the person who’d turned into her sun.
She needed to be her own light. As she’d been before.
Her body felt broken. Not just her heart.
As an autistic woman, it was hard to let people into her house. It was hard to watch them touching her things and existing in her private space.
It was even harder to let them into her heart.
But he’d made it all so easy. For the first time.
‘Raina?’
She heard Pepper swear and then some hurried footsteps on the grass. Tom caught up to her and grabbed her hand, which she instinctively snatched away. Not only on principle, but because his touch was too much.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said once again. ‘She’s awful. That was awful. But I never should have made the ammunition. Or let her get near it. I’m so sorry, Raina.’
Raina stared blankly at her lightly bleeding finger. ‘Thing is,’ she finally whispered, ‘it won’t hurt so much when you publish. Nothing can feel worse than what just happened in there.’
‘I’ll never publish. Never. There’s nothing to publish. I won’t put any of that in a single thing I write, Raina. Never. None of it is what it seems. I can explain, sweetheart. Please.’
‘Tonight has’ – she staggered forward another step – ‘devastated me.’
‘I know,’ he pushed out, and his voice broke slightly upon the admission. ‘But I’ve never had ulterior motives. None of this has been pretend, Raina. Not a moment of it. It’s been twisted.’
The thing was, she believed him. He wasn’t a liar. But his horrible friends had humiliated her, and she couldn’t bear to see the pain in his face.
‘I’m getting security,’ Pepper yelled, turning to run back to the house.
Tom paid her no attention.
‘You need the answer to that one question,’ Raina said flatly, raising her eyes to look at him. ‘Right?’
He said her name in a broken voice and tried to hold her face with both of his hands, but she pushed them away. His touch was still too much for her.
‘You need that last little piece of me, Tom. Well, here it is. Why did I start the podcast? I started it because from the moment I knew what it was, I wanted to fall in love. I wanted to get all of the things neurotypical girls had. Girls like me don’t get that kind of escapism.
Neurotypical people have everything, including fantasy and escape.
How many times have you seen a love story with a girl like me?
Probably never. You’d have to search like a fucking explorer.
I wanted to find that. I searched everywhere.
I made a space for people like me. Where we could say these things without being ridiculed.
Without the majority being disgusted. Where we could bolster each other.
Where things could be how they should be, not how they are.
We could be ourselves. Not the narrow, pitiful paintings of us that people like to make.
We could be women. Not inspiration porn.
Not cute little memes. Not burdens. Not any of the shit people think because they don’t know any better.
I wanted to be part of the whole fucking world, not just a small, sad part of it. ’
She felt a solitary tear fall.
‘I made it to escape. To find a home somewhere that wasn’t where all of you are.
Write that down. Because, right now, I’m realizing I should never have left that place.
This shit follows me everywhere. A jealous friend with toothpicks.
A snotty reporter. Teachers that ask you to come and be inspiring for their students.
Then they tell you, “Oh, you’re far too articulate to be autistic, I think”.
It follows you wherever you go. It’s fucking endless.
And I was done. Fucking done. So I tried to make something beautiful.
Knowing you’d all come along and try to rip it up anyway. ’
Solana suddenly drove up on the gravelled driveway, at the other end of the grounds. She tooted the horn and waved agitatedly. Raina wiped her eyes and started walking towards the car.
‘Please,’ Tom called, and he sounded as close to breaking as she was. ‘Raina, I—’
‘I’m not the imposter here, Tom – you are,’ she said.
‘This isn’t about some story you were or were not writing.
You let those people who you think are your friends act like you’re the same as them, when you’re not.
You’re better. You’re a small-town boy from a poor family who climbed his way up through effort and talent.
And I love that boy. I’ll probably always love him.
But you’re pretending. For all of them. For your agent.
Your editors. None of them know, do they?
And you like it that way. See, until now, I thought you were better than all of them.
The best of them. I never believed any of the shit some people throw your way. Now . . .’
She picked up her shoes and started to run towards the car, all of the sobs in her stomach just waiting to burst free. He followed her.
‘Raina, you’re right. About everything. I wanted to write about how different you are, in the best way. You’re the antidote. Don’t you see, you’re my antidote. To all the poison. I need you. I can’t be without you. I fucking can’t. You’re in me now, that’s it.’
Raina felt her chin tremble as she tried not to sob. Every instinct wanted her to go to him. He looked completely unmoored.
‘I love you, Raina,’ he said brokenly. ‘Please don’t leave. Please. I won’t let you leave me because some jealous arsehole tried to fuck up the one good thing in my life.’
‘You said you’d do anything for a story. I just didn’t know that meant me.’
He moved towards her but withdrew when she flinched away. ‘I know you must think this is just like all of the other times you’ve been let down—’
‘No,’ Raina interjected brokenly. ‘This is so much worse, Tom. I just had your Cambridge drinking buddy read out the ugliest things people think and say about people like me, in front of a room full of strangers. Because she got it from you. Did you all have a laugh about it together? I can take the world laughing at me – it’s why my circle is so small. But I let you into that circle.’
He was the circle. And that tore her apart.
‘I had no idea she was going to do this. I didn’t even know she’d found my notes. Fuck! They’re not even notes; they’re threads. Bits of nothing.
‘She spoke about my family,’ Raina said, sounding like she was losing her voice. ‘How could you write that?’
‘It was a stupid note to follow up on something Solana said.’
‘Don’t blame my sister.’
‘I’m not. It’s just . . . It’s hard to explain how I work. How I live. I put everything onto that board, every thought and every feeling. It’s my head written out and it’s totally fucking private. Don’t punish me for the inside of my head, Raina. You know what that’s like.’
‘That’s why it was always my place?’
‘I know how bad this looks. I was writing about you but then I stopped. I stopped when we slept together. I would never write anything about you unless I thought you would love it. You’re too important to me, Raina. That’s why you’re up there!’
‘I didn’t want to love your work, Tom; I wanted to love you.’
His face crumpled and she knew it was because no one had ever done that. Not outside of his family. He was tolerated by so many, only because of his writing. They wanted the crowd that followed him. They wanted his cutting tongue.
They didn’t want his soul. Not the way she did.
They were the same. Both unmasked and miserable because their little bubble had been burst.
Raina glanced back at the house. The lights. The rose garden. A beautiful night that had been marred by the same old, familiar ugliness.
‘It somehow always ends like this,’ she said softly. ‘But I never learn.’
He reached out again to take her face in his hands. This time, she allowed it. But she couldn’t look at him. His thumbs stroked her tear-stained cheeks and he pressed his forehead to hers.
‘I love you,’ he breathed. ‘I’ve loved you since that crazy vase in the rain.
If my heart is a fucking compass, then you’re my due north.
You always will be, no matter what I do.
I’m so fucking sorry for all of it but you can’t go, Raina.
I can’t ever unlove you, it’s never going to happen.
I will spend the next fifty thousand years making it up to you, and you can hate me and take it all out on me, but you can’t go. ’
She stared into his handsome face. His desperate eyes. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and it hurt like hell. When she spoke, her voice sounded hollow.
‘I’m pretty sure I love you, too, but I can suppress that. I can lock it away, along with all of the other glorious things people like me aren’t supposed to have.’
But I’ll never get over you, she thought sadly. What a waste. But, in the maelstrom of a potential meltdown, she wanted safe lighting. Safe foods. Safe textures. Safe fabrics. Safe routines.
And a love like theirs was anything but safe.
She closed her eyes. Another tear dropped to the corner of her mouth and she could taste the salt. ‘Goodbye, Tom.’
She broke away from him and climbed into the passenger seat of the car, and Solana took off. Neither of them looked back at the mansion house, or the overcome writer standing by the rose garden at the front of it. Both sisters stared ahead, bleary-eyed.
Only when they were out of view did Raina double over and sob. She howled until she had no voice left, while her finger left a small red stain on the flapper dress someone else had put on her.