Page 84 of Unapologetic Love Story

‘Don’t be silly, we’re coming up to a roundabout.’

‘Mum, I mean it.’

‘So do I. Don’t be stupid.’

Before her mother joined the oncoming traffic, Raina unclicked her seat belt and flung the car door open. She heard Meggie’s screams as she dashed for the adjacent field of Oxfordshire grass. She’d panted and gasped, forcing air into her lungs as she ran towards the skyline, desperate to be alone and still.

Away from all of them.

She crashed down onto the grass when her body couldn’t go any further and she screamed. Her eyes were shut tight and her scream wore into a silent bawl. She shook. She drowned.

And she bargained.

‘Please, God,’ she breathed. ‘Please, God, I want to be like other people. Please, God, please. I’ll do anything.’

Raina hadn’t been sure if she believed in God. She’d been removed from Sunday school for asking too many questions. The logical part of her had always grappled with the concept. The simplistic explanations that the teachers gave about a man in the clouds and a gate keeping people out as they stood in line for heaven hadn’t quite quenched her thirst for understanding.

What good is a heaven where there is more waiting?

Now, in this moment of darkness where she’d wanted only clarity, she begged Him.

‘Please, make me just like other people,’ she whispered into the earth. ‘Please, God, please. Just like them. Make me know what to say. Make me know how to show them I’m not all wrong.’

She didn’t know what the label meant. She didn’t know what she was. She only knew that she was so tired of speaking the same language as all of them, using the same expressions as all of them, only to be treated like an alien.

‘Please,’ she cried into the ground. ‘Please.’

She dug her hands into the grass and the soil. She gripped the dirt of the earth and begged for rescue. For someone to understand. For something to change. For intervention. For something to come down from the sky and make sense of everything for her. For a door to open and reveal that she was in the wrong story. A mistake. One that could be quickly rectified.

I want to feel human. For once in my life. Send me something, or someone, to make me feel human.

Now, fourteen years later, Raina sat before a microphone and felt her voice catch in her throat as she tried to record. She started again, wiping at her eye.

‘Hello,’ she said, smiling a watery smile, ‘and welcome to another episode of The Disability Track with me, your hostess, Raina Lewis. I’m so thrilled to welcome a fantastic guest on today, as we focus this episode on neurodiversity. Dr Elaine Partridge is here to discuss late diagnosis in women, and we’re thrilled to welcome her on. Join us to discuss that incredible moment when—’

She felt her words stop as a sob threatened to break loose. She stiffened. She steadied. Then put on a beatific smile, her own dazzling stiff-upper-lip.

‘Join us to discuss that incredible moment when you get a little bit of yourself back, and start finding out who you really are.’

She was relieved that the interview was already wrapped. Relieved that she was alone in her studio.

No one saw her cry. Just as it had been in that meadow, fourteen years ago.

No one bore witness to the fragments breaking apart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Later that evening, Tom took her to a seafood restaurant.

She walked precariously along the central London cobblestones in her heels and backless white dress, while he waited outside the front entrance.

‘Young lady,’ he called, in an already rather affectionate voice. ‘This is a messy dive. You look far too elegant and glamourous.’

She grinned as she reached him, grasping his outstretched hands. ‘They do bibs, don’t they?’

‘Those are only for serious eaters.’

‘Your Majesty, I am an extremely serious eater. The most serious. I’m going to eat you under the table and then bury you in a casket made of oysters.’