Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
Colin
18 Years Old
The cool leather of the chair felt good against Colin’s fingertips, but he lost sight of that a moment later when he met Dr. Thomlinson’s eyes and counted.
One… two.
“That’s uncomfortable for you, is it not?” Thomlinson questioned, clipboard perched in his lap as it had been for several months of sessions.
“What is?” Colin asked.
“Eye contact. You tend to not make it unless you have to or feel like you have to. When you greet me, you make eye contact. If it’s been a while since you’ve looked at me, you make eye contact. If you’re having an emotional session with me or an off day, you never make eye contact because you forget to. Sometimes you overcompensate and make too much. I’ve told you a few times that you don’t have to follow social norms in this office if it’s hard for you.”
Colin swallowed and looked down at his fingers that once again felt like they were too there, and he could feel the fibers in his brain holding everything together and thrumming under the weight of pressure. “I count when I look at people. In middle school I took a record of when people looked at others and how long they looked and taught myself to do it.”
“Masking,” Thomlinson said, the exact word Colin feared he would, because after all of Colin’s research, his behavior seemed to fit that word, and he didn’t want it to mean anything. “I imagine you’re very tired at the end of a day with a lot of socializing?”
“Yes, but isn’t everyone? I’m an introvert. Sometimes I do the eye contact thing purely out of habit, not because I’m forcing myself. If it comes somewhat naturally to remember to do it, is it really masking? It’s the same way with food textures and fabrics and smells. If I can handle it, doesn’t that mean it doesn’t really bother me that much?” Colin knew his voice was too hopeful and pleading, grasping at straws.
“Is it always uncomfortable for you?” Thomlinson raised his eyebrows. “Does it get easier to make eye contact or eat certain foods, or does it get easier to remember that you have to tolerate it?”
Colin wanted to throw up or toss out a new argument he didn’t have as he replied curtly, “I tolerate it.”
“It’s taken me a long time to finish this assessment because you were so good at masking that I occasionally thought I might be wrong. Especially given your history when you were younger and another doctor with my same qualifications denying you a diagnosis. But you are so intelligent and so aware of your surroundings, I imagine even at five years old, desperate to fit in, you did some masking then, too.”
“So you’re going to tell me I have autism?” Colin ground out.
“It is my professional opinion that you have level one Autism Spectrum Disorder, yes. Meaning you require some support, but you don’t have significant impairments to your cognitive or verbal skills.”
Colin’s head swam as the verbiage dipped in and out of his consciousness. “No. My parents would have noticed,” he finally said.
“Your parents were wonderful people, but they weren’t infallible, Colin. They weren’t medical professionals, and a lot of parents don’t consider this likelihood because your autism becomes simply a personality trait, not a hurdle you constantly have to try to get over. Most people enjoy certain textures and don’t like other ones, but for you it’s more extreme, and often people don’t catch that. You said your mom would volunteer on all your class field trips and pack you the right foods for a weekend so you wouldn’t go hungry if you declined what the class was eating, yes?”
“She said I was a picky eater, but not like other kids because it wasn’t like I needed to eat chicken nuggets every day simply because my parents didn’t make me eat vegetables when I was little,” Colin answered. “I like vegetables, they just have to be the right texture.”
“Your dad dove headfirst into all of your hyperfixations on knowledge with you. Is it possible he didn’t consider that your research was leaning toward obsessive because he loved you and wanted you to enjoy the things you were studying? I think your parents made a bunch of tiny little mistakes that added up under their nose. It wasn’t intentional, and they trusted the medical system to do what it was supposed to.”
“Or they just had to put up with me, so they did,” Colin spat. His body was so stiff now, a numbness taking over. “I’ve read the statistics, and parents with autistic children have a higher rate of divorce. I was probably a strain on their marriage and a strain on my entire family.”
“I don’t believe that,” Thomlinson said. “There are also plenty of studies that say there isn’t a higher rate of divorce between parents with autistic kids and parents without. The divorce rate is always high regardless.” Colin frowned and gripped the armrests of his chair. “I can see that you’re angry, and I want you to know that that’s normal. It’s okay to feel that with such big news. It’s normal to feel betrayed. It’s normal to feel hurt. People with ASD can have emotional dysregulation as well, so it can even feel like nothing for a long time and then an explosion all at once like a delay timer.”
Colin replayed the time he had broken down at the lookout and his prom night, when he had felt irrationally angry enough to punch Harden in the face. “I’m fine,” he said, dread seeping into his chest. “What about Scarlett? What are the statistics on that? How often do people with autism last in relationships? How long is it going to take before she realizes that she hates me?”
“I have not seen any statistics on that that I’d deem relevant. You have a very highly charged emotional relationship with Scarlett. Typically when someone with ASD is grieving, they need to lean on others a little bit more, but since your entire family was grieving the same loss, it makes sense to me that you found someone to help you through it.”
“So I used her?” Colin breathed, already knowing the answer.
“That’s not the word choice I would use, but in a manner of speaking. You are allowed to have help, Colin,” Thomslinson said. “It is good that she is a bright spot in a dark time for you.”
“Is it good if I’m hindering her life?” Colin shouted. For what it was worth, Thomlinson didn’t flinch, just sat calmly while Colin continued his rant. “If I’m making her cry with the things I say and not realizing when I’ve stepped over boundaries, how the fuck is that okay? How can that possibly be good? How can any of my relationships be good when I don’t know how anyone is feeling ever? I don’t understand when someone is laughing at me, and I don’t know when I’ve said something offensive.”
“You do what you always do. You ask,” Thomlinson said simply. “I’ve known you for months now, and I can see you have your parents’ kind heart, Colin. You are not a robot without empathy. You just don’t know how to react with your empathy because you don’t know when people need it. You want to do right by Scarlett. You make sure she enjoys sex. You ask her what’s wrong when she doesn’t. You worry when she cries.”
“But if I’m the one making her cry, then what’s the fucking point? I have a fantastic ability to fix what I already broke? What good does that do?” He scoffed morbidly. “That’s just great.”
“You bring more to the table than just your ability to fix and learn from your mistakes.”
“Not enough. Scarlett is my only friend other than direct family members. What few options I have in friendship, I hurt without knowing it. I’m a fucking burden to people. Someone they have to put up with just because I exist.” A tear slowly rolled down Colin’s face.
“I think you need to call someone.” Thomlinson leaned forward, his hand touching Colin’s chair. “I think the most important thing right now would be to take a few days, to not make any big decisions, and to surround yourself with people who love you.”
“And who would that be?” Colin laughed.
“You know people love you, Colin. They tell you to your face. They can’t all be lying, now, can they?”
But his mind was already made up. Pity wasn’t the same thing as love. Tolerance wasn’t the same thing as love. Close proximity wasn’t the same thing as love. And as far as Scarlett was concerned, not even good sex was the same thing as love.