Page 15

busses and bikers

. . .

lark

G rowing up in the Homewood North neighborhood of Pittsburgh, being autistic was something only White kids did. On TV.

But as the internet is fond of saying—there were signs.

I couldn’t stand tight hairstyles or hair accessories. That included everything from headbands and scrunchies to cornrows and box braids.

I considered commercial surround sound my natural enemy. My mom and sister got used to finding me waiting in the lobby whenever a movie got too loud.

And the worst on my maybe we should’ve caught that ASD diagnosis earlier list? Something I called Fire Legs .

Or as the University Counseling Center psychologist who diagnosed me put it in her written report—after I brought my Psych 101 class to a grinding halt with a meltdown over a pop quiz that wasn’t listed in the syllabus:

“History of elopement tendencies in response to social and emotional stressors.”

Which is the clinical way of saying: When presented with a tough, unexpected, people-based problem, I cried and ran.

Like panicked, involuntary, heart-in-throat ran. The same way someone might if they were literally fleeing danger. Or had actually caught on fire.

When I was eight, I rushed headfirst into the street after my parents announced they were getting a divorce and almost got hit by a car.

When I was nine, ten, and eleven, I bolted off school grounds after getting teased so many times that my exhausted mom got me a monthly bus pass—so she wouldn’t have to leave her own classroom to come get me.

By junior high, I’d learned to mask . But Fire Legs still managed to find me at least once a year due to gym class bullies, unfair teachers, and my forever archnemesis, pop quizzes (evil incarnate, and I will never understand how they’re still allowed in education).

In high school, like many undiagnosed female auties, I started carefully curating my life to avoid anything that might trigger a meltdown. Orchestra instead of sports. Newspaper instead of chess (or any other game where flipping the board in rage was a possibility).

I became that student who raised her hand on the first day of class—not to ask about assignments, but to clarify that the syllabus wouldn’t change.

Even after diagnosis, a year of DBT therapy, and a move to Canada to follow my twin, the Fire Legs issue never completely stopped getting me in trouble, and I still occasionally found myself taking an unintended bus trip.

After Robin beat me at Connect Four and crowed about it at Vikram’s parents’ game night.

After I walked out halfway through my first post-college date when the guy said I’d be “a lot cuter” if I dialed down the know-it-all talk.

After Mr. Good Time, the guy who dumped me on Christmas, turned out to be roommates with the only two men who’d ever made me come (besides him).

“Hello? Hello? We’re here.”

A woman’s voice snapped me out of my haze.

I looked up to find the bus driver turned all the way around in her seat, frowning.

“We’re at Barrington’s. You getting off here? Maybe want to grab yourself something else to wear?”

I glanced down at Callum’s Bear Mountain Bar & Grill T-shirt. Adjusted my glasses. Once. Twice.

“You okay?” she asked, concern softening her voice. “You want me to call someone? Maybe one of the Red Outsider Twins?”

The Red Outsider Twins… Oh. Right. That was what people called Callum and Gideon.

My heart clenched at the memory of how seen and sexy they made me feel last night. But I shook my head quickly. “No. I’m getting off.”

I couldn’t go back to Bear Mountain. Just the thought of it sent my legs into motion.

That refusal carried me down the bus steps and away from the driver’s worried stare. But the moment the thin soles of the slip-ons I put on to pad around on the den’s cold stone floors hit the concrete, I knew I was in trouble.

I’d run, and Fire Legs had delivered me to the shuttle just before it pulled away. But everything I’d brought with me—including my phone and wallet—was still in the den Callum and Gideon shared… with Mr. Good Time.

And for the first time in my life, there was no Robin to get my homework from the teachers, apologize on my behalf, or collect the phone I left behind at the restaurant.

Or give me a list of reasons not to feel like the biggest idiot in the world.

Are you… ? Are you stalking me?

Mr. Good Time’s question echoed in my mind. I guess his name was Rys all this time? And that he was also an insanely hot mayor/MLA bear shifter?

Nausea roiled in my stomach as I remembered that first unmasked look at him.

Clean-cut and tanned, he’d worn a tailored navy suit like it had been sewn directly onto his broad shoulders, a tiny Canadian flag pin gleaming on the lapel.

He also gleamed: his black eyes, his perfectly straight and blindingly white teeth, his glossy dark hair slicked back with ruthless precision—not a strand out of place, and his face, which was all charisma and GQ angles.

And even though I knew (and had taught my sixth graders) that ascribing moral qualities to beauty was an example of lookism bias, his near-perfect symmetry and the crinkles at the sides of his eyes made him come off as both trustworthy and compelling.

Like he was instantly the most fascinating man in any room—not that silver fox from the old Dos Equis ads.

I didn’t recognize him. But the feeling that I knew him had been immediate.

And then he’d called me by my Fetder handle, “sweetiebird,” with Mr. Good Time’s voice.

Okay… let’s not review. Let’s just… not.

Now that the worst of my Fire Legs panic had faded, I needed to go inside the Barrington’s Super Center. See if someone would let me borrow a phone to call Robin….

Robin, who was a harried mother now and didn’t need to keep getting calls to clean up another mess Fire Legs had caused.

I hate myself…. They’re probably all laughing at me right now and calling me a stalker…. How did I manage to mess this up, too…. Why can’t I ever get it right?

Intrusive thoughts flooded into my brain, rooting me to the spot.

“Here, pussy, pussy, pussy! You looking for a party?”

A slurred, too-friendly voice snapped me out of my self-hate spiral.

And I looked up to find two men in dusty leather vests looming over me.

One was burly, with thick arms and a mud-brown beard twisted into a braid.

The other was lean and angular, all elbows and sharp lines, with sunken eyes and lank blond hair.

“What you on, pussy?” The burly one looked me up and down with a knowing smirk. “Bet we’ve got more of it back at the clubhouse.”

Okay, Fire Legs was an involuntary response to a socially or emotionally overwhelming situation.

But backing away from the two guys with nothing but malicious intent in their eyes struck me as the smartest, most natural choice I could make in that moment.

“Where you going, pussy?” The burly biker latched on to my arm. “Don’t run away. We can show you a good time.”

“I can smell your pussy,” the sunken-eyed blond told me, like it was a selling point for me to take them up on their invitation. “Smells like you been freshly fucked.”

I was, actually.

After holding me all night, Callum had woken me up with morning sex in his bed, followed by a dip in the hot springs just beyond their room—a water-based balm for all the previous night’s activity. Even when it turned into another round of sex.

My heart twisted at the memory. Callum had been so sweet and attentive.

Horny in a way that made me feel like a goddess. Not just a piece of meat to be grabbed and dragged back to whatever rock these two had slithered out from.

“Leave me alone!” I used all my strength to try to wrench free. But it wasn’t enough.

“Don’t be like that, pussy,” the burly one bit out. “Talk nice to me, or you’re going to piss me off.”

“You’re pissing me off,” I shot back. “You’re holding me here, even though I already told you I don’t?—”

A collective cry of surprise from behind where we were standing cut me off.

And the biker finally let me go.

Not because I’d told him to. But because a blur of red tackled him to the ground.

A bear. A red grizzly stood over the biker—who immediately began to shift into a brown bear.

At least he started to. Just as his body began to expand and sprout fur, the red bear swiped at his face.

Once.

Twice.

And suddenly, the biker no longer had a face.

His shift stopped mid-transformation—an open gash where his eyes, nose, and sneering mouth used to be.

Dead.

The breath froze in my lungs. The biker who had grabbed me and refused to let go was now dead.

“Holy shit!” The lank blond shouted, as if to echo my own open-mouthed thoughts out loud.

He was already on his motorcycle. Apparently, he had no intention of suffering the same fate as his friend. He peeled out with a shriek of tires as the red bear let out a blood-curdling roar over the body of the burly biker.

Before swinging his massive head around to lock eyes with me.