Page 100

My eyebrows furrow, memories of a string of psychologists surfacing. “No. I’m too empathetic to be autistic.”

“Are you? Did someone tell you that?” she asks gently.

“Yes, an expert,” I reply, confused.

“I rather doubt they were an expert, Olivia,” she says. “Most likely they were narrow-minded and only knew what autism looked like in men.”

“No, you don’t understand,” I argue. “I’m just… angry… violent. I was a terrible—”

She cuts me off. “Stop for a moment, please. When did you get angry?”

Kira and Rin walk into the clearing right as she asks and I freeze up when I see others moving toward us, but then make myself let it go.

I’m sick of pretending.

“I get angry when people touch me. Sometimes I hurt people,” I say, feeling miserable to admit it. “I kept getting moved from one boarding school to the next, each time getting expelled for fighting.”

“I see,” Ree says. “And are sounds too loud and lights too bright sometimes?”

“Yes…” I trail off.

“What happens, besides sometimes being violent, when you get overwhelmed?” she asks.

I swallow hard. “Sometimes I shut down… I mean… I just can’t stay awake because it all just feels like too much.”

Ree nods. “You said you’re empathetic. How do you know how people feel?” she asks.

“Well, not always with their faces, that’s confusing a lot of the time, but from their voices. From context and knowing how it would make me feel. See? Not autism.”

“That is autism, Olivia,” Ree says gently as more people take up seats around us. “Sometimes it isn’t that someone can’t recognize emotion or empathize. In fact, for some people they empathize so much it is painful for them.”

What? I blink, what she’s telling me suddenly resonating.

"But… I thought we had healing nanites. Why don’t they fix my broken brain, then?" I say, reeling.

"Because it's not broken, Liv. Just different. Just like all of their…" Ree pauses to gesture around at all of the hulking aliens around us. "… brains aren't broken."

"I think a case can be made for Drasuk," Kira breaks in dryly.

"Shut up, Kira,” Ree says, but not unkindly. “Look at them. Their brains are just like they should be. Just like yours is how it should be."

"Am I an alien now, though?" I ask, still catching up.

"Well, we all pretty much are at this point,” Rin says, laughing.

“But you aren’t like me,” I insist, “and it’s just getting worse since I met Kroaicho. Now I also want to hoard things, even though I know it's stupid and I just… I…”

“What?” Kira asks softly. “You what?”

“I know you’ll get sick of me. Everyone does,” I admit, voice breaking.

Ree lets out a long breath fists clenching, but Kira laughs. “Livie, my green, green girl. Have you met Drasuk? Have you met Wroahk? We love those idiots and you are a cute little ball of fluff in comparison.”

Ree chuckles, no longer tense now. "Listen to me, Olivia. I doubt we are going to be able to leave this planet, which means we are making a new world. Right now. With every choice we make. A new culture. We won't have a neurotypical world you have to bend yourself into a pretzel to fit into. It’s going to be full of aliens, which includes us, by the way. Just be you."

“It isn’t normal,” I mutter, still unconvinced. “The rage.”

“That’s the wrong way to think about it,” Eli’s voice calls out.