Page 44 of The Second Chance Bus Stop

Tenhult

Yesterday was sixteen hours ago but I can still feel his arms around me. I might have cried for a minute longer than needed

just for them to stay there. I’ve been toying with what to say all day—in between dealing with a stall holder who claims to

be allergic to flowers and is insisting I move any arrangements out of his vicinity—and have come up blank.

I decide to take the bus back after work rather than wait for Blade, and when I arrive I sit outside in silence.

It feels empty without the van but our recently constructed outside living area is enough.

I prop myself up against a large log with my sweater as back padding and settle in with my laptop.

I go over the delivery note of what needs to be sent up from Svedala in the next delivery, and then my thoughts drift to the dinner with my parents and the picture of Santa and how Blade had said something like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I suddenly get this urge to say something too.

To explain to Mum and Dad that I’m not the only one who feels like their body is an anxious mess and who wakes up having had nightmares of an old ABA-therapist and their reinforcements.

There is a whole online community who feels the same way, and perhaps if Mum and Dad won’t listen to me, Sophia, who doesn’t score high on IQ tests and who doesn’t have refined culinary or literary tastes, then perhaps they’d listen to what @Autistic_ProfNed posts when he isn’t lecturing at Harvard.

I find the quotes that speak for me the most and paste them into an email.

SUBJECT: Professor Ned’s thoughts on ABA

Then I feel like I deserve a voice too even if I have no title or any of the things my parents render important, and perhaps

in the shadow of Ned I can have one—perhaps he is the preface that I need.

I compose a second email, this time only containing Sophia’s thoughts on ABA.

TO: Mum

SUBJECT: Why I keep my distance

Mum, there are things I have to say, things I want you to know. The reason I moved away is because I was never allowed to

be who I wanted to. I moved so I could survive. Only Mattias let me be who I am. You got my brothers to pinch me when I stimmed.

I know you did what Karin asked, and maybe it’s all down to one bad therapist, but it still happened. Wasn’t there some instinct

that said that this was wrong? I moved away and muted the bloody group chat because being around you exhausts me. Being around

people I love exhausts me. Do you understand how that feels? Even now when your name pops up as a notification on screen I

feel like I hear your voice shouting at me.

I never liked the things you all like. Travelling, new places all the time, new restaurants with new food and breakfast buffets with every different pastry you could want but no porridge or Rice Krispies.

I just wished and waited for the day I would grow up.

When I’d be able to start a life where I’d be happy. When I could be who I was.

Sophia Ven

Blom’s Blooms

Stora byv ? gen 28

347 44 Svedala

www.blomsblooms.com

I’m surprised when I get an almost immediate reply. I don’t even have time to close the laptop before it pings. The Basilicum

must be alone in the kitchen today.

FROM: Mum

SUBJECT: Re: Why I keep my distance

My girl, I’m sorry you feel like this. I wish you would talk to me. Emails are for work, paperless invitations and mailing

lists. Will you talk to me?

I think about different methods of communications, non-verbal people, and how they’re all valid and we all have a choice.

That I have a choice.

FROM: Sophia

SUBJECT: Re: Why I keep my distance

I too am sorry I feel like this. I can’t talk because I don’t find the words easily. This is how I find the words, so please

just read them.

Best,

S

The next morning I wake up early, before the opportunity clock.

‘What are your plans today?’ I ask after my morning swim. The water feels even warmer than in Eksj o and I stayed there until I couldn’t possibly stay any longer. I can’t believe we lucked out and found another spot with a

lake. A hundred lakes with you, Blade had said. But we’re running out of time.

I have the morning off since the market is finished in this town, and I’m determined to do something with it.

‘Research. Do you need help with anything?’ He gives me the impression that he’d drop said research, drop anything, should

I need help.

‘I have some errands to run, some things I’d like to see in town. Perhaps you want to join me?’

‘Sure, I’ll come.’

I enter the address in the sat-nav and Blade drives.

‘So we’re going on a fun day out?’ Blade asks.

‘Yes, pretty much.’

When we arrive he looks at me doubtfully.

‘We’re going to a garden centre? On your one day off?’ Blade says.

‘You are hanging out with a florist. This is my idea of fun. Window shopping.’

‘Should have known it wouldn’t be laser tag or the movies, shouldn’t I?’

We walk down the aisles, and after I pick up what I need we browse plants. I mumble to myself as I walk.

‘Have you memorised the names?’ Blade asks.

‘Almost all of them, yes. I’d read the botanical encyclopaedia when I was a child.

Kind of became a little party trick. My parents would ask me to name a flower in Latin, and I delivered every time.

They were very proud of me in those moments.

’ I made the most of my entertainer role, revelling in the pride of my parents when I made their friends laugh or exclaim Amazing!

‘What about this one?’ He touches the leaves of a majestic green plant.

‘ Hydrangea Mmacrophylla ,’ I say instantly.

He stops at another.

‘This?’

‘ Rhododendron camtschaticum . This is an interesting one. It started out as one plant but was reclassified in the 1990s, because it was deemed to belong

to a distinct genus.’ I look at Blade, never missing a botanical teaching moment for eager ears. ‘It happens sometimes. DNA

research may find it belongs to a different family than initially found, or Latin language rules may change. So a flower can

become something else. This one over here had its name changed from Rhododendron camtschaticum to Therorhodion camtschaticum .’

‘It had its name changed in the 1990s?’

‘Yes. Like I said, it’s not uncommon, although it’s a struggle for plant-lovers to keep up with. Botanical Monthly do include it in their news section but not everyone is a subscriber.’

I can see Blade thinking, like a cartoon character he does that thing where he puts his hand to his chin and stares into space.

‘You may just have helped me an enormous amount, Sophia,’ he says finally. ‘Do you mind if we head back home?’