“Kind of,” I replied. “There's a spectrum of autism. Some people have it a lot worse than others. The next doctor they took me to said I might have Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a very mild form of autism. Actually, we’re supposed to just say autism spectrum disorder now, but they still called it Asperger’s when I was diagnosed. I started going to therapy then, but it didn't help much.”
“So which one is it?” Mayra asked after some more silence.
“A little of all of it, I guess,” I told her. “I have…”
I paused and mentally pushed down the panic in my chest again.
“…social deficits,” I finally got out. “You may have noticed.”
“You aren’t like some of the other kids.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mayra shrug. “Sometimes it seems like it’s hard for you to even be in the room with them. I thought it was because of your…”
“Because my parents died.”
“Yeah.”
“No, I was fucked up before then,” I admitted. “It just got worse.”
“Sorry,” Mayra said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“I don’t really fit Asperger’s,” I said, continuing. “People with Asperger’s usually have one or two things that become fixation points. I have hundreds.”
“Fixation points?”
“Once I start thinking about something, I can’t stop,” I said. “When I was up here before, all I could think about was hitting the bag. I had to go do it, or I’d drive myself nuts. But it’s not always the bag. My sister is all about the clocks.”
“Your sister?”
“Megan,” I said. “On the autism spectrum, if I’m at one end, she is at the other. Megan has never said anything except the time.”
“I don’t understand,” Mayra admitted.
“She knows what time it is all the time,” I explained. “She will tell you it’s eleven twenty-six a.m. She will tell you it is time to eat dinner, and she will tell you it is time to watch iCarly. She can also walk by and tell you how many clocks and watches are in the room and what kind they are. She doesn’t talk about anything else at all. She’s never even said hello to me or called me by my name.”
Mayra sat with her hands in her lap and thought awhile.
“Where is she?” Mayra asked.
“In an autism institution in Cincinnati,” I said. “When Mom got sick, she couldn’t take care of Megan, and then when Mom was gone…well, I can just barely take care of myself. Most people who have some form of autism can’t interact with others at all. I can, at least some of the time. It just has to be under certain circumstances.”
“Like it’s okay for me to be here, but you can’t really come to my house, can you?”
“Not really,” I whispered. I had no idea why I was speaking softly. I had no idea why I was speaking at all. I never told anybody about any of this outside of the therapist I quit seeing right after Mom died when the insurance wouldn’t pay for any more sessions.
“Is it just because you haven’t been to my house before?”
“I don’t know what’s inside,” I said. My heart started pounding just thinking about it. “I don’t know if there are dishes in the sink or if you have magazines on the coffee table or when your Dad might walk in or if he has a gun.”
Mayra snickered a little.
“He never actually uses them outside of hunting and the practice range,” Mayra told me. “He spends most of his time cleaning them.”
“He still has guns.”
“What’s wrong with magazines on the table?”
“They might be out of order,” I said. “They might be from different months, or magazines that don’t go together might be touching each other.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I leaned over and put my face in my hands. I sounded ridiculous, and I knew it, but I couldn’t help how I felt. I rubbed my fingers into my eyes and jumped when I felt Mayra’s hand on my arm.