Page 41 of The Second Chance Bus Stop

‘Every single Christmas, Sophia would ask if Santa was coming. Not because she wanted presents but so she could hide well

ahead of time!’

I think Blade can see the agony on my face, and I imagine he must be wondering how this photo has made it onto the mantelpiece

in this home where there ought to be moments of joy instead. He clears his throat.

‘My mum used to tell me not to worry, that he was a human just like her. Mum used to say it unsettled her at first, how I

was scared of something other children loved, wondering if I’d be brave enough for the world. But then she figured all I needed

was to find out the truth and I’d be okay.’

Two sets of eyes stare at him, not sure how to respond.

‘So what do you do , Blade?’ Dad says.

‘I’m a full-time carer. To my mum.’ I wish he would have said journalist. Now there’ll be questions at best and harassment

at worst.

‘I read about the carers’ strike here in Sweden. Paid less than cleaners, aren’t they, carers?’

‘It doesn’t make you rich, no. Carers could do with more support.’ Blade doesn’t seem to mind the questions. He has that deep

confidence that lets all comments bounce off.

‘We all have a choice, don’t we? I didn’t receive any help, left with no grades and yet within ten years I’d made my first million.

Hard work and determination is all it takes.

’ My mum nods and smiles, but I can’t help to think that its half-hearted, lacking the usual flair and flavour.

Quite like a basil leaf that’s slightly dark and wilted and less fragrant.

The ones you need to put in some cold water to refresh.

‘That’s great to hear.’ I thank Blade in my mind for not adding what I know he thinks: Not everyone has those opportunities.

Not everyone has the ability, and not everyone has that privilege.

He lets it slide. Mainly because his eyes are fixed on a family picture.

One of the few we have with my uncle. It was taken

on Midsummer. I’m wearing a crown of Alchimella, Nigella , evening primroses and spray roses. If you add roses to your crown, you’ll find love , my uncle said. Blade moves closer and studies our faces. Closely.

‘That’s my uncle,’ I say. ‘And those are my brothers. Hampus, Pontus and Mattias.’

We’re alone in the formal reception room, my parents having retreated to the kitchen, waiting for my mum to serve us coffee

and place a box of chocolates on the table so that she can remark when I take three instead of just one. I guess you do have a few odd years until your thirties when your metabolism slows down and sugar becomes your greatest enemy!

Ha!

I turn to Blade and say quietly,

‘I wish you would have met all my brothers. They’re loud and ruthless but can also be wonderful. Especially Mattias. When

I feel down he sends me pictures of animals he’s met at the clinic.’ My brothers’ presence has a way of taking the focus off

me, which is welcome in some situations where I prefer to remain small.

‘If you need to... well... just take hold of my hand, you can squeeze it.’

I should point out that his hand is not an instant-release anti-anxiety medication but when my Mum comes round the corner saying in a high-pitched voice, ‘Who would like a chocolate?’ I think that the hand may well do the trick, so I simply nod at him.

And when we leave, after he’s asked me if I’m ready to go, and all I’ve managed in reply is a silent nod, and the door closes

behind us, and I hear Mum and Dad’s voices immediately starting to discuss us, I do reach out in the dark and find the hand.

Later that night Blade opens a beer and hands it to me.

‘How did you know I needed that?’ I ask.

‘There are some things a glass of milk just can’t take the edge off.’

I reach for it. He adds, ‘It’s alcohol-free.’

‘Thanks. Actually I’m starving. Do you still have that snack bag?’ I didn’t eat much. It’s hard to eat when I need to balance

a napkin on my lap.

Blade comes back with goodies and I immediately begin stuffing my face with salty crisps. I think how easy it is for me to

eat in front of Blade.

‘You’re different, around your parents,’ he says. ‘You stop all the little things that you normally do. Like twirling your

hair or rubbing your index finger over your thumb nail. You even have a different posture, like, like—’

‘Like an Arabian horse.’

‘Not what I was looking for but, yes, maybe. They’re elegant right?’

‘I always felt like a strongly built pony.’

He laughs.

‘I can see that it’s complicated,’ he says, and I shift on my log, finding a better position.

‘It’s very simple, actually. They just want me to act normal, when I clearly can’t. There. Simple issue. With no solution.’

People think problems are hard to solve, but there are ways to shuffle around, dig into it, find your way around it.

‘My family is just my mum and me, and neither of us is very normal. But we just are.’

My family and I never just are. We sit and ask polite questions about each other’s jobs. We talk, in that everyone is constantly

saying please and thank you. We never had pets growing up: dogs shed too much and cats go to the bathroom inside .

We got a fish who died after a year. I wanted to bury him, but in the end he got flushed down the toilet and I cried.

It’s only a fish, Sophia , Dad said. So then I thought perhaps it was better if I didn’t ask for another pet.

‘Your body loosened up, though, and the usual things you do, you started doing them once we arrived back here, in the woods.’

How is it that he knows all my quirks? And then I think about how I must be comfortable enough to do them in front of someone

I’ve known for about two minutes but I’m not comfortable doing them in my family home. Then I think that maybe I better finish

my unmasking book. I mean, of course I mask. It’s survival instinct. People have been accused of being witches for less than my behaviours.

I shift my body weight on the rock I’m currently using as a seat.

‘I had a sort of therapy called ABA, applied behaviour analysis, when I was younger . It’s based on changing unwanted behaviours. I’m only learning now that maybe it was toxic. What if the behaviours didn’t need to change? Or couldn’t because

they’re part of who you are? How about accommodating differences instead of extinguishing them?’ Every time I hear the word

therapy I go cold. I would never set my foot in a therapist’s office again.

They’re forever associated with Karin and her dark bob.

‘Do you want to hear something I read?’ I squeeze my fist so hard it starts pulsating like a heart.

‘With ABA, half of Autistic children become indistinguishable from their neurotypical peers. That’s the goal. Making sure we don’t stand out.’

‘How does it work?’ Blade asks.

‘I had to learn all sort of things. Mainly to appear normal. Stimming—like when I flap my hand against my thigh, that appears

pointless to most people, so my hands were held in place. But to us it’s not pointless. It calms us down. If I can’t do it,

I feel as if I’m about to drown in anxiety. And eye contact? It had to last for five seconds or I wouldn’t get my reward.

I was trained like you would a dog.’

‘That seems pretty artificial. The last time I had more than five seconds of eye contact was when I proposed.’ I sit up. Straight.

I reckon I just spontaneously did four seconds of intense eye contact. Possibly more.

‘You proposed to someone?’

‘A year ago.’

‘What did she say?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ I can’t imagine anyone saying no to Blade. In fact, I don’t think I’ve managed it once in the short time I’ve known

him. I wanted to say no when he stopped at the side of the road—but couldn’t. I want to say no every time he wears that silly

beanie which doesn’t cover his ears—and I can’t.

‘It was definitely a no . A maybe if I’d upgrade the ring and try again in a year. I crossed path with her a few times since. Now there’s no eye contact. We

both look at the ground if we run into each other.’

‘But... why?’ I’m supposedly bad at understanding people’s motivations, and this is the first time I agree. Because, why ?

‘She said she wouldn’t just be marrying me, it would be like marrying me and my mum. Basically I came as a two-for-one package, and the main product wasn’t enough to entice her to buy it. Can’t blame

her. A carer isn’t exactly the most attractive profession you can list on a dating app. Caring, yes—carer, no.’

‘Do you miss her?’

‘Not any longer. Not her. Does it frustrate me that there doesn’t seem to be a woman my age who could enjoy staying in with

an old lady every day of the week? Who doesn’t need me to always be more, do more and have more to be worthy of them.? Yeah,

I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever been enough to anyone, not even Mum.’

‘How can you do more? You are here because of your mum, because this is important to her. You carry, shop and prepare for

me every waking minute. I don’t see how you could possibly do more.’

‘I like doing those things for you.’

‘I think you’re the first person who does.’

There’s a comfortable pause. I’m trying to think of what to say next when Blade continues.

‘There is nothing wrong with you, Sophia. I don’t know if anyone’s ever said that to you. Nothing wrong at all. You were left

in a freezing car because those meant to look after you didn’t get it. Didn’t get you. Maybe they thought they were helping you, but it seems to me that everyone who tried to help you and protect you did more

damage than good. But it was never your fault. None of it.’

Tears start rolling down my face at his words. I always knew my heart was broken, but didn’t realise someone else might be

able to see it too.

I think about all the so-called ‘problems’ I have.

The emotions that seem to come at me with such force I can’t contain them inside my body, that I have to flap my hand for them to begin to subside.

I think about all the things my parents wanted to be different about me.

All the things they didn’t like, that didn’t fit into their image of what I should be like.

I think of sitting next to Karin. I would have liked to stay on my feet, walk around the room the way I can in the shop when

I talk to a customer, because the movement helps me focus. One time, I was bending forward, looking intently in her eyes,

and began telling her of the origins of cherry blossom trees. My uncle had sent me a postcard with one on the front, and I

kept it in my coat pocket. Karin turned her whole body away from me. Dramatically, as if she’d seen something indecent. I

was trying to connect, but she didn’t want to talk about flowers. So I stopped. Then I reached out my hand and sat with it

mid-air, like I’d been taught, like she wanted me to do. She finally took it into a firm, quenching grip. Good morning, Sophia. Good girl. That’s how we greet each other. By the time it happened, my hand had begun shaking.

My tears have stopped. Like an automatic irrigation system that’s completed its next cycle.

I speak quietly. ‘What do you think people should do when they’re in my position?’ I always knew that Autistic women are three

times as likely to experience domestic abuse. I just never thought it would come from my own family. Or if that is even the

correct word for it. But I decide that having a word, even the wrong one, is better than having nothing. This is the first

time anyone has called my experience something , and it’s like it suddenly exists as a solid shape rather than blurred around the edges. I will hold on to these words for

it until I figure out what to really call it.

‘I think they have a choice. You can do whatever you feel you need to do to heal.’

‘But I love my family.’

‘You can love your family and still be angry with them. You can love them and still wish they had treated you better. Loving someone doesn’t mean they don’t have to take responsibility for what they did. But you need to do what you want.’

‘I am angry, when I think about it.’

‘So you tell them that and let them step up. What you need is important. If you give them another chance to be what you need

them to be they, should consider themselves the luckiest people in the world.’

I nod.

‘Thank you.’

Blade turns away from me, tilts his head upwards to drain the last of the beer.

‘Let’s pack up. We’re moving locations tomorrow, remember.’