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He got up and started messing with the lights. First the kitchen, then the dining area, then the living room. He flicked the lights in the hallway on and off several times. It took him at least five minutes of fiddling before he came back to the couch.
She had to admit, he’d found the perfect balance of light to see the movie better.
“Sorry.”
She glanced over at him and frowned.
“About the lights,” he explained. He grabbed a handful of popcorn. “They distract me.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” She thought for a second about whether she should share what she was thinking. “I wish I was confident enough to ask for things that would make my life easier.” She shrugged. “But I tend to just tolerate whatever is happening so I don’t make anyone uncomfortable.”
He squinted at the screen but she knew he wasn’t really looking at it.
“I guess,” he started. Stopped. Crossed one leg over the other. She noticed he had taken off his shoes. Something about that detail filled her with happiness. He felt comfortable enough to relax.
“I guess I’m so used to people being uncomfortable around me all the time anyway that I figure it’s not going to make anything worse.”
She had not expected him to say that.
She wanted to defend herself, but she took a breath first. He hadn’t accused her of anything.
“Why do you think people are uncomfortable around you?”
He turned his head in her direction and rolled his eyes. “C’mon, you’ve met me, right?”
Her heart squeezed. She’d dealt with several students with a similar outlook and things started to click in her mind.
“Because you see the world differently than others?” she guessed.
He took in a deep breath and she watched his chest rise and then slowly release. His eyes trained on the screen.
“That’s a really nice way of saying it,” he muttered.
Oh.
She’d accidentally stumbled upon something sensitive.
She dug into the popcorn and held a handful close to her chest while she ate one piece at a time with her free hand. “For what it’s worth, you’ve never made me uncomfortable.”
He turned to look at her but she kept her eyes on the movie.
She tried to remain undisturbed but his words made her insides chaotic with frustration. Too many times she’d tutored kids who were neurodivergent and the hardest part about teaching them was getting them to realize there was nothingwrongwith them.
Yes, they were different. But they weren’t fucking broken.
She took a deep breath, trying to quiet her urge to get up and rant about the system and society and people being d-bags.
Here was this amazing, talented,giftedartist and somewhere along the way someone had made him feelless than.To the point that he pretty much assumed everyone saw him that way.
It was fucked up.
Her heart hurt.
And it was also angry.
But it wasn’t her place to fix this. Not for him. He wasn’t her student or her boyfriend. He wasn’thersat all.
Which…
