“And your assessment?” Kirk asked.
“He is.”
Biggens made a sound that wasn’t quite amusement. It was quiet, but I heard it. Kirk maintained a consistent expression throughout. Wyzinski was still writing.
I counted twelve items in my immediate field of vision with sharp right angles. The notepad corners. The edge of the name placard. The picture frames on the wall above Biggens’s left shoulder. It was something I did in rooms that felt uncertain. Anchoring to geometry helped.
“Mr. Cornish.” Wyzinski set her pen down. “You described a situation in which you were under considerable stress. A traumatic event.”
“The fire, yes.”
“And I understand that you have an autism spectrum diagnosis.”
I waited.
She kept her voice careful, professional, precise. “Have you considered whether the intensity of that experience—the rescue, the physical danger, the acute distress—might have affected howyou responded emotionally to the person who found you? Who got you out?”
There it was.
Sable pressed her head against my ankle. I reached down and set my hand on her back for a count of three then returned it to the table.
“Ihaveconsidered that,” I said.
Wyzinski looked up. I think she had expected me to stop there.
“The phenomenon you’re describing is sometimes referred to as limerence by proximity or, in its more colloquial form, trauma bonding. It relates to intense emotional attachment formed under conditions of acute stress or crisis. It is a documented psychological pattern.” I paused. “I’d like to address several assumptions embedded in your question, if I may.”
Her pen was very still.
“First. Autism spectrum disorder does not impair my capacity to form consensual, considered relationships. It affects how I process sensory information, navigate social conventions, and communicate emotionally. It does not affect my ability to assess whether I want to be in a relationship with a specific person. Suggesting otherwise is not accurate, and I would ask that you not frame your concern that way, even implicitly, because it conflates a neurological difference with an incapacity, and those are not the same thing.”
Biggens uncapped his pen. He still didn’t write anything. His gaze had not moved from my face.
“Second. I did not fall in love with Dane Rourke because he rescued me from a fire. The fire occurred on January 14. I delivered the cupcakes ten days after the fire. Those are two separate things.” I paused to let that settle. “The third time I saw him was at my instigation. I asked him to meet me. He agreed. The fourth time was also my choice. The relationship developedincrementally over a period of weeks, and every stage of it involved my active, informed participation.”
I looked at all three of them and then returned to her.
“Third. If your concern is about power imbalances, then that is a legitimate institutional concern and one worth examining carefully. I am not dismissing that. But I want to be precise about this specific case. Iamautistic. I’m not, because of that, automatically vulnerable—” I stopped because Sable shifted against my ankle again. “Dane has never once spoken to me or treated me as though my diagnosis made me less capable of knowing my own mind. In fact, of anyone I have encountered in my adult life, he has been the most deliberate about making sure I was comfortable, the most careful about respecting the parameters I set, and the most consistent about adjusting when I needed him to. If your concern is my well-being, I can tell you that he has actively supported me. In every situation. Without exception.”
The room was quiet.
Wyzinski’s expression had shifted. It was subtle—the line of her mouth softening slightly, the set of her shoulders changing—but it was there. She had arrived prepared for one version of this conversation and had gotten a different one. I watched her recalibrate.
“Thank you, Mr. Cornish,” Kirk said. “That was—thorough.”
“I wanted to be precise.”
“You were.” He glanced down at his notes. “Just one more question. In your assessment, did Firefighter Rourke ever behave toward you in a manner that seemed inappropriate given his professional status?”
“No.”
“Did he ever apply pressure or influence you in ways that made you uncomfortable?”
“No. He stopped what he was doing immediately every time I indicated that I needed him to. He learned my preferences quickly and respected them without requiring me to repeat myself. He showed up when I asked, gave me space when I needed it. Not everyone has that skill.”
Biggens set down his pen with a quiet sound. “Thank you, Mr. Cornish.”
I looked at all three of them in turn. “Is that it?”
