Chapter 51
Fifty-One
Colin
23 Years Old
Most of the time, Colin’s analytical brain worked in his favor, but when it didn’t, it really didn’t. When he was eighteen, his thoughts could go so easily from researching rock types and tectonic plates to calculating what the easiest, least messy, and least burdensome way to die was. The way that would cause everyone he loved the least amount of guilt and pain. He hadn’t contemplated an obvious suicide. His mind was more crafty about it. It would be an accident like his parents. No one would be to blame. No one would know he had wanted it to happen. Everyone would be free of him. No more enduring his presence or humoring him.
Now, with his head resting on Scarlett’s chest, he knew better. There was a reason Cooper was furious with him, and it wasn’t because he didn’t miss his oldest brother at all. There was a reason Walker and Talia called him every single Friday when he was away and painstakingly tried to make conversation with him, even forced him into FaceTime games of Monopoly. There was a reason Piper had an entire binder of ideas for his apartment at the ready with all his favorite textures and elements worked into each design. There was a reason Pearl had forgiven him so easily and Carter never questioned any of his peculiarities, just adapted to them with a smile on his face. There was a reason Theo kept painting his favorite things. There was a reason it took so long for Scarlett to know that he still loved her. He had broken her heart, and in order to break it, she had to have given it to him in the first place.
People could love him. They could, and they did . And Scarlett out of anyone deserved to know just how broken he was to be the kind of person who left her in her room crying that day. So he closed his eyes and whispered the words aloud.
“I wanted to die, Scarlett.” Her arms wrapped around him tighter, and he could hear how hard she was breathing. “I had had thoughts like that before to a milder extent, but that day was different. People with ASD, myself included, often have dysregulated emotions. I remember how sad and pissed off I was that my parents didn’t catch it sooner. And then I spiraled from there. My therapist said not to make any drastic choices and to call someone I loved. Instead, I dug myself so far into a hole of believing that I was hurting you and everyone else that the guilt ate at me till I ignored his advice entirely.
“The only way I felt I could get out of the hole was to end things with you and find a way to die by accident so I wouldn’t hurt anyone else. I hyperfixated on it after I left your house. I left my car in your driveway, and I thought about Piper drinking a bunch and walking on the side of the road when Harden left her stranded at that party, and I thought that might be a good idea because then when someone inevitably hit me, it would be a clear accident, and Walker and everyone else wouldn’t feel guilty about my suicide because they simply wouldn’t know that I had begged for it to happen. But then I thought about whoever the driver might be and worried that they’d have lifelong trauma for carrying out my plan.
“So I moved on to other ideas till I was sick in the head, miles away from your house and lying on a bench contemplating why I couldn’t even come up with a good plan to off myself. My uncle’s best friend Roscoe had every police officer on duty searching for me, and they eventually found me in Merrick, an entire town over, and they only found me because in some weird state of mind I had thought Carter might be able to help me think of ideas because we always came up with harebrained plans together. I somehow managed to call him and came back down to earth enough to realize that he obviously couldn’t help me with my problem because then he’d know. The whole thing was chalked up to my reaction to being diagnosed, and no one knew what it really was. Walker, I think, looked at me differently from then on, and not because he knew I was autistic but because he knew something else was wrong.
“I went to college. I thought about my problem more. I changed my degree thinking that I could karmically make up for all the ways I’d hurt you, and I fell in love with cellular biology, both because of you and because it captivated me. I started seeing a therapist again after I listened to a seminar on autism in which I thought I would learn nothing, only to find out how high the suicide rates are for people on the spectrum. I graduated and painstakingly got a tattoo to remember when someone— you —laughed at something I said because you genuinely thought I was funny. I worked on myself and found better ways to self-soothe than diving headfirst into logic because I found that my logic was faulty. I started to see things differently with my family. That I wasn’t a nuisance. That they did love me.”
“And so did I,” Scarlett murmured. She had been playing with his hair the whole time he spoke, he noticed, and his glasses were so crooked on his face that he couldn’t see out of them. He rubbed his head into her like a cat.
“And so did you. I know that now. I promise.” He laced his hand in hers as she pulled away from him.
“You better, because if you ever do anything like that again, I will hunt you down.” She jabbed at his chest. “I really love you, Colin.”
He adjusted his glasses back over his nose. “I take it you believe me now? That I love you, too?”
“Admittedly, the cyberstalking, the extra money you gave Theo, the paints you didn’t give me, the tattoo, and your entire career change should have alerted me.” Scarlett chuckled.
“And the flowers,” Colin added.
“What flowers?” She screwed up her face, and he peered over at the vase sitting atop the cubby station to make sure they hadn’t disappeared.
“The ones I buy you on your brother’s birthday? The half-dead-looking ones over there?” He pointed. Scarlett’s body stiffened under his embrace.
“You sent those to me?” For some reason, she was crying again after he thought they had worked through the brunt of their problems.
“Do you hate them?”
“I thought they were from my dad, Colin!” Scarlett snorted through her tears.
“Why would your dad send you flowers?” As far as he knew, her dad was still pulling his disappearing act and reappearing to send a quick text for holidays and birthdays.
“Good fucking question. But why would my ex send me flowers, and with my brother’s catchphrase on it the first time, ‘a great soul never dies’?” Her body grew rigid once again, and her humor-filled face lost all its color. “Was that an ominous statement about yourself?”
“What?” Colin shook his head. “No. I meant your brother. I left my name off the flowers so you didn’t have to associate them with me if you didn’t want to, but you told me Tucker’s catchphrase at least twenty times when we were dating in one of your long stories, so it felt like an important phrase and one you’d know I knew.”
“I don’t even remember telling you that once.”
“That’s probably why you told me twenty times.”
Scarlett giggled and bent to kiss his lips, chaste and sweet, hugging him close to her. “Thank you for the flowers, then.”
“You’re welcome.” He pulled her head into his chest, wrapping her tightly in his arms. The touch finally made him feel grounded.
“Come lie down with me?” Scarlett asked as his fingers massaged her scalp in slow circles. He nodded, and they wandered up to Scarlett’s apartment above the studio, only releasing their hold on each other because of the narrow staircase. Her place was exactly how he had imagined it—eclectic, with even more plants than the dying ones in the studio. She had macramé hanging off the walls and white lace curtains that looked like doilies hanging from the window in her tiny living room. A standing lamp with five differently colored light covers sat in the corner of the room, and a yellow sofa that could only seat two was currently occupied by a white cat with Play-Doh-pink ears. The sofa was front and center, facing a large framed painting of the lookout in a nighttime setting with a figure of a man standing on the flatter surface of the rock and looking out over the cliff’s edge.
“That’s you, I think,” Scarlett said sheepishly. “I pretended it wasn’t and that it was just a random silhouette of someone, but I was lying to myself. It’s you. I liked the lookout best at sunset, but you liked it at night with the lights.”
“I wish you were standing next to me in it.” Colin peered at it and smiled easily.
“Maybe I’ll add that.” Scarlett grabbed his hand again and led him to her bedroom. She had hung shelves, paintings, and even more trinkets on the walls. Her bed stood out to him the most because the comforter was the exact same or a duplicate of the one he had been under so many times at her uncle’s house.
An inexplicable wash of sadness drowned out the happy feeling in his chest. “Is this how you would have decorated our apartment in Maryland if you came with me?” It was so warm and happy that he felt the loss of her all over again.
“Maybe.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “But I’ve grown up a bit. I don’t think I knew myself back then. Moving with you was never a good idea, Colin. I know we were in love, and I love you now, but I’m glad we had some time apart. I needed to learn who I wanted to be besides your sidekick.”
Colin adamantly shook his head. “I never thought of you as a sidekick. You’re a main character.”
“I know that. But you always had more faith in me than I did.”
Colin finally sat beside her, newly nervous as they both kicked off their shoes and crawled under the covers together, Scarlett curling into his chest. “Did you find faith in yourself, then? Or are you still looking?”
“I’ll always be looking, but I know more now. I think what makes me special is that I’m a helper. I teach people to find joy through art. I help people find hope through my brother’s foundation. I used to think it was bad that I was never the one changing the world directly, just helping people along the way to their own greatness, but there’s nothing wrong with that. In every award or acceptance speech, the winners thank the people who helped them get there. I don’t mind if my name isn’t on the trophy as long as I helped someone else change the world,” Scarlett said.
“That is changing the world,” Colin replied simply. “Assuming you don’t mean the ecosystem of it.” She giggled and shook her head against his chest. “You changed my life after my parents died just by being you. You’ve changed Theo’s, too. I worry about him because I don’t want him to ever feel the way I did about myself, but I feel better when I think about how he has you. The current version of you that knows you’re making a difference.”
“He has you, too,” she whispered.
“He does,” he agreed. “And do I have you, too? You kissed me downstairs, but does that mean we’re more than friends?”
“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to want to fuck your friends.” Her warm breath ghosted across his chest.
“So, you agree that we’re soulmates, then?” Colin stiffened when Scarlett did, fear creeping into his chest once more.
“Soulmates?” she squeaked out.
He swallowed, but continued, “I don’t want to just be your boyfriend.” It was as simple as that. He was already her boyfriend once. This was different. This was forever, or he didn’t want it at all.
“You think we’re soulmates?” Her voice was less squeaky now and brighter as her body relaxed.
“There are eight billion people on Earth, and I only want you. I have no desire to search for anyone else. I don’t want to be in a romantic relationship at all if it’s not with you. You are my soulmate. You always have been. I just don’t know if I’m yours.” His heart tightened in his chest when she wiggled free of his arms, and he thought she might get up and leave him there until she instead reached beside her and pulled the first book he had ever given her from her nightstand, handing it to him.
“You’re my soulmate, Colin. I wouldn’t have kept this if you weren’t. It still has all your sticky notes. I read those more than the actual book.” Scarlett wiggled into his torso again, her hands burrowing under his shirt and pressing into his skin. He was momentarily distracted by the warmth of her body as he thumbed through the book, until he snapped to attention at the sight of a small splotch on the corner of a page and the way the book wanted to lie open on a certain page.
“You broke the spine! There are smudges everywhere. You—” His mouth propped open in horror. “You doggy-eared the pages?”
Scarlett was laughing. He couldn’t see where the humor was in this at all. “But you still love me?” Her laughter died down.
“Of course I do. That has nothing to do with you being a book murderer.”
“Book murderer seems harsh. Arguably, shouldn’t this mean that that book has received the most of my love because I’ve opened it so much that it’s falling apart?”
“No,” Colin said bluntly. “It just means you’re a book murderer. You take care of plants okay, barring that fire emergencies don’t force you to leave them behind. How do you manage that?”
“I just stick them everywhere so I know that I have to water them because they’re always in my face.”
“Then you need a bookshelf with so many books you don’t end up reading the same one over and over again until you kill it,” Colin decided, handing the book back to her. He watched as she set it on the nightstand with exaggerated gentleness. “We’ll work on it. You can get a bookcase of your own at my place.”
“I’d like that,” Scarlett said, balling up in his arms once more. “Your place needs help. It’s so boring.”
“I’ve been putting it off because I want your help.” He still had yet to make any decisions on Piper’s designs, but he highly suspected that his sister had drawn up some of them with Scarlett in mind, given the bright colors. “I like what you did here, and Piper gave me a whole folder of options, but I want it to look like both of us. I want your half-dead plants everywhere and Pepto to have her own little cat house. You and Theo can use the spare bedroom I was going to put my books in as a home art studio.”
“You want me to move in with you?” She shifted in his arms, but only to squeeze him harder. The pressure felt like everything he had needed for years.
“Is five years too long to wait to ask you to move in with me? Or is it now too early?”
“Your apartment is bigger, and it has a lot of potential, but I can’t get rid of my apartment and the studio.” Scarlett hummed in consideration. “But I do want to live with you.”
“Then keep it. You can leave everything exactly how it is or use the apartment space for something else.”
When Scarlett sat bolt upright with a start, Colin didn’t get up with her, used to her livewire reactions to ideas that sprang to her head. “I could make it a showroom. A gallery! I’ve always wanted to hang some of the pieces in places that are open to the public other than Roaster’s Republic, and if Kashvi helps me put together exhibitions, then it would make even more of a difference for sales of the pieces. I could use the kitchen for charcuterie because that’s clearly the best hors d’oeuvre. Kashvi already gave me the hookup for wine for my paint-and-sip nights, so I have that covered if I want to get all classy about children’s art. Someday we could just have a full-fledged Theo night, and he could have an exhibition all to himself. I do have some adult classes, so I guess it could have mixed-age exhibitions, too. Maybe you’ll finally start painting, who knows.” Colin didn’t respond, content to let her talk at the speed of light until she turned to him, sobering. “You don’t think it’s a good idea?”
“I think it’s a great idea,” he replied calmly and closed his eyes, sinking into the pillow. “I just really missed hearing you ramble, and it’s been a very noisy and emotional day. I’m tired and a little burnt out.”
Scarlett flopped down beside him and whispered. “Do you need to retreat?”
“As long as you keep talking and I don’t have to respond, I’ll be happy,” Colin sighed.
“I don’t think I told you about how I started the program. That’ll take me a solid hour with all my tangents. I’ll start there?” He lazily bobbed his head, and she started to remove the socks from his feet while she spoke. “Okay, so, first off, I applied for a lesser art teaching job that I didn’t end up getting, and I was kinda pissed about it because I was the perfect candidate.” She started to unbutton his pants. “Then I realized I didn’t even really want the job because it was just teaching art to rich people, and that’s not as fulfilling. So, I said ‘fuck it, I’ll just do everything myself’—well, actually, I did have some help, but it was my idea, so I can give myself a little credit for that. I straight-up typed out ‘grant writer’ into a Google search and found this crotchety old man in a shitty apartment complex who worked for free as long as I brought him cupcakes. He was really grumpy, but I think he was just lonely. Sometimes I think about going to check on him. Maybe I’ll make him some cupcakes tomorrow. Kashvi and I upped our game from boxed cupcakes and can make some pretty decent homemade ones. I’ll have to make some for you, too. Anyway, back to the art program. So, we filled out all these grant applications, and…”
As Scarlett removed the rest of his clothes and spouted out her story in a roundabout way, Colin felt loose-limbed and spent. Once Scarlett folded all their clothing and joined him under the sheets and her naked skin was pressed up against his, he felt himself drifting off to sleep. Cocooned in warmth and listening to the other half of his heart ramble, he had never felt more comfortable. He finally belonged somewhere. Five years later, he was finally home again.