Chapter 17 #2
Those words sent a shock from the base of his spine straight up to his skull.
It was the world’s biggest dopamine rush.
Nothing he had ever experienced before. Her hero?
He had sure never been anyone’s hero. He was a villain through and through.
At least, that was how the people in town had always treated him.
It was how he had encouraged the town to treat him.
He couldn’t even blame them for it.
But Cassidy Wilder was saying that he was her hero. That was really something.
They finally got the massive tree down the mountain, and up the front steps of the porch.
He had to cut another half a foot off before bringing it inside and mounting it in the tree stand.
He was sweating by the time he was done. It was definitely not an easy task, but he didn’t want Cassidy to think it had taken any physical exertion. No. He wanted to continue to be her hero.
Even if it was due to something as stupid as a giant Christmas tree.
The house was warm and smelled of cider, and while he was fussing with the tree, Cassidy started baking cookies.
He heard a fair amount of cursing from the kitchen, and she brought him a bowl of dough just as he sat down on the couch. “Does this look right to you?”
“Yes,” he said. “It looks great.”
“Did you actually look at it?”
He did. It looked like cookie dough.
“Looks good.”
“Okay.”
He reached up to stop her from leaving, grabbed a piece of the dough, and popped it into his mouth. “You forgot something.”
“I did?”
“Yes. It’s not sweet.”
She winced. “Sugar.”
“Yeah. You kind of need that.”
“I always forget something. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe you’re not any better at paying attention than I am.”
She scowled. “I can add it now.”
“Yeah. You can. While we start over. I’ll help you. I’ll read you the ingredients, and we can check them off. Believe me, I have a whole lot of tricks to make sure that I pay attention when I’m doing critical things like making food for myself.”
“My mind wanders when I cook.”
“My mind wanders all the time,” he said. “And the only good thing about that is I know how to cope with the problem.”
“Why do you think you can’t do things?” she asked as he followed her back into the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway and frowned.
“What?”
“You know what I mean. You act like you aren’t doing enough, but you’re this rich rancher building a custom house, working on his family’s show, teaching a virgin how to have sex …”
“That is not an official task that I’m engaging in.”
“It feels official to me.” She set the bowl on the counter, and he grabbed it, then scooped the dough into the trash. “Let’s start over.”
“All right,” she said.
He began to methodically place all the measuring utensils and ingredients in a row. “You have a system,” she said.
“I have to.”
“Again,” she said, “you’re working harder than anyone else I’ve ever seen. And doing things better than most people.”
He had never told anyone this. Because he didn’t really know how to talk about it.
He didn’t want to sound weird and whiny.
“I had … When I did the full evaluation for my diagnosis, they did an IQ test as part of it. I didn’t want it.
Because I knew it was going to come back and tell me I was stupid.
That’s what I’ve been told my whole life. That I’m stupid.”
“West, that’s not even remotely true. You’re not stupid.”
“Well, everything I ever tried … I couldn’t do it the way people wanted me to, or in the time frame they wanted me to do it in.
And if everybody around you can accomplish something you can’t, what are you supposed to think about yourself?
My parents just didn’t see the value in school, so they didn’t help me.
They didn’t … They were so committed to being this whole other thing, this whole counterculture thing, that they didn’t pay attention to me even when I was going off the deep end.
I don’t know if it was just because they didn’t see it or … or what.”
“Nobody helped you,” she said.
He shook his head. “No. My parents couldn’t figure out how to work in that system, so they just decided it was stupid, but I rebelled against it. And you don’t do that if you don’t care.”
“The IQ test.”
“Yes. The IQ test. When my score came back, it was high. Except in one area. It was normal there. And the psychologist said to me it was like I had this whole library in my head, and only one tiny door to get the information out. Just one book at a time, slowly and labor-intensive.”
She was silent for a moment. “Some people only have one shelf that’s open all the time. And it probably shouldn’t be.”
He laughed. “Well. That’s true. But it’s just …
I’ve always had trouble demonstrating that I’m smart.
At least in a way that people can recognize.
My IQ score was validating in some ways.
To have some kind of measurement that shows I’m not stupid like people said I was.
But the feeling doesn’t go away. And it doesn’t …
I still feel like I can’t do everything I want to. ”
“You expect yourself to be perfect.”
“I feel I have to be. Because if I’m not perfect, then what am I?”