“Because you took yours off first,” she roars back.
“Fuck.” I plow a hand through my hair. “Now I have to scrub down the entire clean room. Look what you made me do!”
“I made you do?” She jabs a finger in my chest. Over and over again to punctuation each word. “You. Took. Off. Yours. First. I didn’t do anything you didn’t do. How is this my fault?”
“You made me lose my temper,” I snarl.
And, yeah, I know what an asshole I sound like. I know I’m being completely unreasonable.
Holly has the gall to laugh. “Imade you lose your temper? I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t on me. Your lack of control is on you.”
For one terrifying second I’m tempted to tell her that I have plenty of control. If I didn’t have control, I would have kissed her by now. I would know if she tastes like lemons as well as smelling like them.
I’d also probably be rolling around the floor in pain, because if I did that, she’d undoubtedly stab me with something. And even then she wouldn’t run away. No, Holly would probably stab me, then bandage me up, then lecture me about how to grovel in front of the McPherson committee.
The simple truth is, what she just described is everything I’ve ever wanted. I know everything would be easier if I was better at sharing my ideas. I know it’s important. I’ve tried. And I just fucking suck at it. I’ve had colleagues tell me they can’t read my work without having a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary in one hand and access to Google with the other.
I want to explain that to her. To make her understand the frustration of having so many ideas churning through my brain and not being able to slow my mind down enough to get them out in a way that makes sense to other people. But I can’t even convey that. Let alone the complexity of my work. There are few things that I want more than I want to be able to explain my ideas. That just isn’t where my strengths lie. And that’s something a woman like this can never understand.
Iknowthat. I don’t explain myself or justify my behavior to anyone. I gave up on that a long time ago.
I could even give her the ever growing list of books my aunt keeps sending me about how to manage these various disorders. God knows there isn’t anyone who has tried harder to understand how to deal with me than my aunt has. If those diagnoses and those books haven’t helped her, they sure as hell aren’t going to help Holly.
And yet, despite that, Iwanther to understand. Ineedher to.
“My lack of control isn’t the problem,” I practically snarl. “My Asperger’s is the problem. I fucking suck at reading nonverbal cues like facial expressions and body language. It’s why I’m a shitty lecturer and an even worse teacher. To make matters worse, my Asperger’s comes with a side order of sensory processing disorders, which means things are too scratchy or too loud or smell too strong. Plus, I’m a goddamn bull in a china shop everywhere I go because I’m too distracted to pay attention to my surroundings.” I waggle my cane in between us. “And all of that was true before the car crash that left me with this goddamn limp.”
The words are out before I think them through, before I realize what a fucking whiner I sound like. When I see that flash of pity in her eyes, that’s when it hits me that I’ve crossed a line I never cross. The line between gruff asshole and pathetic loser.
The pity is only in her gaze for an instant, but it slices me all the way to the bone. I don’t give her a chance to voice it out loud, and instead come out swinging.
“Those are all the reasons I’m not the right guy for the McPherson Fellowship. I have a damn grocery list of shit wrong with me, none of which your degree in communications can fix.” I make sure to add an extra splash of derision to the word communications, because I would always rather be a dick than be the object of pity. “What the fuck was Thorndyke thinking siccing you on me? You’re so underqualified, it’s a joke.”
This is the point in my tirade where I expect her to turn tail and run. That’s what any sane person would do. Especially since she’s only doing this because her ex-husband has either bribed or bullied her into doing it. It’s her fucking job.
“There’s no way in hell you actually want to work with me, so I’ve just given you the perfect out. You’re not qualified. You don’t have to skill set to fix all the shit that’s wrong with me. So take the easy out, and stop meddling in things you can’t handle.”
I’m still waiting for my words to cut her as deeply as that flash of pity in her gaze cut me.
Instead, her expression softens. Just a little, but I see it. Even me, as bad at reading emotions as I am, see it. Or maybe it’s just her. Maybe I can read her emotions because she holds my attention in a way no one else ever has. Because I can’t stop looking at her.
Then she does the last thing I expect.
She sighs, and says, “You’re right.”
“What?”
“You’re right. I’m not a neurologist or a psychologist. I’m not an occupational therapist. I can’t ‘help’ with any of the symptoms related to your autism spectrum disorder or your sensory processing disorder.” She makes finger quotes around the word “help.” “But you’re wrong about almost everything else you said. First off, you’re not broken. You don’t need to be fixed. Secondly, wake up. You’re a professor at a research university. You couldn’t throw a microscope in this building without hitting someone with an autism spectrum disorder.”
“Why on earth would I throw a microscope?”
She blinks at me, then her lips curve. “It’s an expression. Usually people say, ‘You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting ...’ whatever. But I figure there aren’t many cats in this building.”
“Of course there aren’t cats in this building.”
“My point is, Asperger’s doesn’t make you special, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re broken. I can’t and wouldn’t change anything about who you are. I just need to teach you how to give a speech. And that is something I’m good at. Something I’m excellent at, as a matter of fact. I help people write speeches all the time. I teach people how to give speeches for a living. I do it to lecture halls packed with students who are less knowledgeable and less passionate about their topics than you are. I know I can do this. All I am asking is that you give me a chance to prove that I’m right.”
She says the words calmly, but with a quiet determination that unnerves me.
