Page 18 of Role Model

Fizz always seemed like a broken grownup to me.

Someone much older than I am, but still younger than any of the other grownups in my life.

Younger than my parents, my teachers. She’s just this in-between person who still enjoys having fun, even though grownups are supposed to put fun to one side.

That’s what Mum and Dad do. They never have fun.

They never laugh. I’ve learned through watching them that this is what being a grownup means.

Fizz isn’t very good at being a grownup.

I watch as she stares at Mum. They’ve hurt each other too much, the fight has flickered out. Like a flame up against too much wind. Fizz moves to leave, as if in a trance.

“Fizz,” I say, my voice quiet and scared.

143 No one has ever stood up for me before.

Mum and Dad always take the teacher’s side.

The doctor’s side. The psychiatrist’s side.

I once ate some chicken nuggets and there was something off in them so I put them back in the box and slid them under the sofa bed in our spare room back in Scotland.

I only meant to put them there for a moment, unable to look at them because they made me feel sick. But I forgot about them.

And I was punished when they were discovered.

No one believed it was a mistake. No one believed that I had done it to stop myself from being sick.

No one believed that the texture, the taste, were enough to make me ill because they’re not autistic like me.

They don’t understand how food can be such a battle.

They don’t think it’s something out of my control, they think I’m just being wicked and difficult.

They think I’m weak and lacking in willpower.

I remember crying and screaming and begging because it’s one thing to be punished for doing something ‘wicked’ when you absolutely meant to do it.

I didn’t mean to be bad. I didn’t mean to be difficult. Or different.

Fizz was the only one to ever see that.

I stare up at her. “Fizz, don’t go.”

I’m scared that she won’t ever come back. She 144 looks at me and her face crumples. She feels it all, too, I see that now. I don’t know why I’ve pushed her away so much, I hate myself for it. I reach up my arms like I’m two years old again.

“Don’t leave me here,” I plead. “Please, Fizz. Let me go with you.”

Somewhere without the coldness, the photographers, the reporters and the whispering. The friends who make me sadder than I ever thought possible. I know Fizz has found the secret. I want her to teach it to me. I want her to tell me how to stop caring about what other people think.

“I gotta go, Aeriel,” she says softly and I can tell by the way her jaw is trembling that she’s trying not to cry. “Okay? But remember what I said earlier? You have to pull yourself up. You have to do it yourself, babe. You have to be the one who says who and what you are.”

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m not strong like you.”

“Yes, you are!” she declares fiercely. “Aeriel, you’ve been stalked and followed and talked about by millions of strangers and you’ve borne it better than anyone three times your age could have.

They’ve all told you how you’re supposed to feel about being autistic and you’ve been polite.

How dare they? Who gave them 145 the right? ”

I want to tell her that I had given them the right. When I fainted. When I let them make those videos. I’ve brought this on myself. I let them put the chain on me.

“Hey,” she says, smiling wetly through her tears.

“You’re named after a spirit, you know? Remember?

Ariel, from The Tempest. He was bound by other people, not allowed to be free.

But you have to set yourself free, Aeriel.

Your name, it means flight. Sky! Airborne!

But you have to teach yourself to fly. No one else can do it for you. ”

I think of the baby birds in the nest at school. I sniff and laugh, a sad sort of sound. “I didn’t know you could be so serious.”

She laughs too, a little more heartily. “Me, neither. I’m just glad you’re finally starting to accept that I want to be your friend.”

I gasp for air. “I don’t think I’m very good at spotting when someone is a good friend.”

“Well, you’ve got me there.”

I can feel Mum staring at us. She can’t seem to believe what she’s seeing.

Fizz bends down to hug me. She hugs me tightly, in a way that makes me realise that I’ve never really been hugged before.

People have 146 tapped me on the back with their arms hovering around my general vicinity.

But this is a real one. It’s like being snug and safe.

When she pulls away, her face hardens and she glares at Mum.

“Give her a chance,” she says to her and I can see that her hands are shaking. “Do better this time. Stop trying to force her into a neurotypical shape; that’s not what she’s meant to be. You’ll break her. Let her be.”

She leaves. I feel like Mum and I are frozen in time after she does.

Mum makes a move towards me but I start and leap away.

I run after Fizz, even though I know she’ll be out on the street by now.

People yell and shout as I sprint to the large, shiny black door that leads to the outside.

An officer stands there at all times, the door cannot be opened from the other side.

Which means, once you choose to leave, you can’t let yourself back in. Someone else has to do it.

The man is startled at the sight of me and I use his surprise to grab for the door. I’m out, in the slush and the soft fall of snow before anyone can stop me and I keep moving. I know if I stop, they’ll catch me.

I fly. I’m too nimble for them. I know she’ll have gone to The Strand because it’s easier to catch a taxi there, so I run. I’m usually a clumsy runner but, even 147 with the snow and the slush, I don’t trip. I don’t fumble.

I see her ducking into the back of a black cab.

I reach it just as it’s about to drive away.

I press my hand against the cold, wet glass of the window and call her name.

She looks up, startled to see me. She opens her mouth as if to say something but the car pulls away.

I chase after it for as long as I can, running alongside the great black beetle as it moves. But it’s faster than I am.

I’m vaguely aware of the Downing Street security team bustling me back into the house. I’m put in a hot bath and given soup. A small television is brought into my room and I stay there for most of the weekend. It is never discussed. It is never spoken about.

I find an illustrated copy of ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare. One of the drawings shows Ariel, the fairy, reaching out to Prospero, the wizard who owns him. The wizard who won’t set Ariel free.

I read Ariel’s words in the dark of my room.

Before you can say ‘come’ and ‘go’, and breathe twice and cry ‘so, so’, each one tripping on his toe, will be here with mop and mow. Do you love me, Master? No.

A sad question after a bunch of nonsense. I stroke Ariel’s face on the page. I can never forget that line of the play. It’s what I think about when people ask me 148 why I’m called Aeriel.

Dad asks me on Monday morning if I feel like going to school and of course I don’t. I haven’t felt like going to school in months. My friends make me so anxious and afraid, going to school now feels like going to war.

But I refuse to hide. I let Ilya drive me there once more on Monday morning.

I’m ready to face the aftermath of my shutdown at the party. Knowing that, whatever awaits me, it won’t be pleasant.