Page 41 of Wish You Were Her

Jonah was struggling to keep his composure.

Allegra could elicit intense emotion in him just by looking in his direction.

But seeing her in such a fragile state, with dark circles and barely-there breaths, was incredibly unsettling.

He was used to her being vibrant and bright.

Now he was scared, afraid that he was somehow part of the cycle which had led to her becoming this unwell.

For the briefest moment, Allegra had looked excited to see him. Now, she looked haunted. His words had clearly unmoored her.

“I’m sure that’s not it,” she said carefully.

“I’m not saying it to make anyone feel bad,” Jonah assured her. “But I’m not the sort of person your dad wants you with. Not that we’re, you know… with each other.”

“Well,” Allegra’s words had a staccato feel to them. “He’s probably not the best judge of relationships.”

“I thought the split was amicable.”

“It was. It wasn’t violent or nasty. He just… got complacent. At least, that’s what Mum says whenever I really push her about it. And she wanted more than a small town and he is terrified… of,” she coughed and heaved a breath. “Anything else, he’s terrified of anything else.”

Jonah wanted to tell her everything. That George had fired him, yes, but mostly how he felt.

He wanted that last little dam of fear to break.

He didn’t understand how love could be the most desirable thing, while also being something that commanded such fear and hesitation.

Perhaps because it was so desirable. As she was.

The idea of losing the stability they had in favor of a great love was the ultimate reward, but to risk it meant possibly ending up with none of her. And that, he found to be unbearable.

Being without Allegra had creepingly, and casually, become nothing less than unbearable.

She frowned and tilted her head, regarding him. “Are you all right, Jonah?”

I wish you were her. It was what he had inadvertently said to the kind person on the other end of an email chain, the anonymous friend who made him feel worthwhile as Simon flirted with Allegra and made her smile politely.

Now he had to acknowledge that it was true.

He would wish every face was hers. If he protected this flame out of fear of it burning out, he would keep a little light in his life.

It might have to be enough.

So, strike up another match. Make another friend. Take her home, fool around without a paparazzi. Have a whole box of different matches, be good to every one of them.

It would never be her. It would always end the same. Burned out and in the dark.

“I’m fine,” he said, trying to suppress everything. “What do you need? I want you to feel better.”

She smiled, a little dazedly. “This soup is amazing.”

“I’ll get you more. I’ll get you a bathtub full.”

She laughed and the sound sealed it up for him.

He had lived his whole life being told that the way he saw things, felt things, reacted to things, was wrong and irregular and frustrating.

That he was spoiling everyone else’s great performance with his need to rehearse and analyze.

He had treated Allegra with the same shortness and coldness that neurotypicals had always used on him and he hated that.

He hated the distance he had forced between them.

Nothing about the overly neurotypical world had mattered much to him until she walked through the door of Brooks Books.

Suddenly, the songs were for him. The love stories were for them.

The poetry sparked memories rather than intellectual detachment.

The curse of overstimulation that the world had always pressed on him suddenly promised pleasure beyond understanding.

He knew what many didn’t, that a mind that so many had been taught to fear could connect to a heart with more love than the average brain could feel.

If autism meant being in one’s own world, why couldn’t someone else become that whole, entire world. They could live in each other.

She leaned forward, as if reading the many emotions in his face.

“I’m fine,” he reiterated. The last thing he wanted was to cause her any discomfort. She would want to be kind and make him feel better, if he broke the dam and told her what he had come to feel. “Don’t worry about me. Do you need some heartier food? Painkillers?”

She smiled at him, in a way she had never smiled at him before. “Will you lie next to me and just talk?”

“Yeah?” he said, almost balking. Lying next to her on a bed, even though he was fully dressed and on top of the covers, still sounded incredibly intimate. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Can you just talk? I like your voice. It’s deep and even and it relaxes me. When—when it’s not yelling about book returns.”

He smiled, despite the small jab. He slid onto the bedspread beside her and she nestled a little closer, shutting her eyes and trying to take a deep breath despite her lungs insisting on shallow ones.

He talked nonsense for her. She pulled him a little closer, her head on her pillow and her hand clutching his black fisherman’s knit.

He lay on his back, she on her side. He spoke slowly and softly, deliberately trying to lull her into a state of complete rest. When he knew she was out, he kept talking.

He didn’t want his silence to jolt her back into discomfort.

He told stories of his first wooden sword at twelve.

His favorite Greek mythology facts. The lyrics to “Downtown Train.”

He talked and talked until she was completely at peace.

When he finally left her to sleep, he went into the kitchen and started to make a note on his phone. Jasper was sitting in the window seat, drawing on a tablet with a stylus. She smiled at him as he entered the room.

“How’s our girl?”

Jonah raised his smartphone, showing her his list in progress. “I’m cooking her dinner.”

Jasper formed an “O” in delighted surprise. “You are, indeed.”

“I’ll make enough for all of us,” he added hastily.

“But most of it for her. Maybe a lamb ragu, something that’ll stick to the bones.

But I’ll get some bread and eggs and cheese and spinach and stuff, all she has in here are bananas and oatmeal.

I can do a veggie omelette or a grilled cheese, if ragu is too heavy right now. And Tylenol, she needs Tylenol.”

Jasper still wore a small smile as she watched him type. “Okay.”

“I don’t know how deliveries will work in this building, it’s pretty airtight and I don’t want randoms knowing she lives here so I’ll go down and get it when it’s here.”

“I’ll keep guard.”

He knew she was teasing but he nodded anyway. “Thanks.”

If she had any opinion about his prepping, she didn’t express it.

When the bags of groceries arrived, he fetched them from the lobby and thanked Mohammad for quizzing the delivery driver on entry.

He took the brown bags back to the apartment and, after locking the door securely behind him, he got to work.

“Jasper, I know you’re working and I hate to, like, use you, but could you ask her what she would like to eat? I can order in more if nothing here speaks to her.”

Jasper’s smile widened as she obediently rose to her feet, with the grace of an ex-ballerina, and made her way across the apartment to Allegra’s room where Jonah heard her speaking softly. She returned after a few moments.

“She says an omelette sounds amazing but you don’t have to.”

“I do,” Jonah said quietly. “I’m on it.”

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I know some basics.”

Jasper sat back down. “Arthur and I are both useless, we go out way too often to eat.”

“My mum’s great at baking but she can’t cook. It’s too unpredictable for her, she likes to say. She likes measuring cups and stuff. I had to learn at twelve how to cook for two when I couldn’t take it anymore.”

There was silence from Jasper as he started to crack eggs into a bowl.

“That can’t have been easy,” she finally said.

He shrugged, focused on cooking for Allegra. “She felt so bad but we couldn’t keep eating overly well done—sorry, burned —lamb chops and brisket.”

Jasper’s phone rang, giving him an excuse to cook in comfortable silence.

“Hey, baby.” She was speaking to Arthur.

The endearment was telling enough, and Jonah could hear the low murmurings of the cinema manager on the other end of the line.

He threw a quick glance toward Jasper. She was leaning against the kitchen wall, smiling as she listened to whatever Arthur was saying.

As her smile grew, Jonah felt a painful pang.

He wanted Allegra to look like Jasper did when he called her. He wanted her to light up and answer on the first ring. He wanted to make her feel as loved as Jasper felt. That intimacy, the quiet luxury of private love.

“I’m off the clock soon, but I’m also Jonah’s ride home,” she told Arthur.

“That’s okay,” Jonah told her, whispering in that way that people did when they were speaking to someone who was already on the phone. “I can get the last bus or something.”

“Uh-huh,” Jasper said, spluttering out a laugh. “Sure. I’m your chaperone as well, young man.”

A voice spoke to them both from the doorway. “No paps on the twelfth floor, don’t worry. This building is super secure and off the grid. Even my most obsessive fans don’t know about it.”

Both Jonah and Jasper turned to see a very weak looking Allegra.

“You shouldn’t be up, you need rest,” Jonah said. “Get back to bed.”

Her eyes danced with amusement. “No. I’m watching you cook.”

“Back to bed, Allegra.”

“It smells great.”

“Allegra!”

Jasper made her way to the door. “Well, if you’re sure about that bus, Jonah, I’ve got to get back to my grump. You’re both okay?”

“Yes,” Allegra said. “Thanks for everything, Jasper. I can’t wait to see what you’re ma-making.”

Her words were earnest but clumsily delivered, a cough fighting its way out of her as she tried to thank her new designer. Jasper reached across to squeeze her arm and needed no words as she said goodbye and closed the front door behind her.

They were alone.

Allegra watched as Jonah flipped the omelette onto one of her many unused plates. They were pristine and untouched and she had a sudden wish. She wanted to see them chipped and scorched; blemished by a life lived with someone else. Meals made and shared, without worrying about perfection.

“Go back to bed. Now.”

She watched tendrils of heat rise from the omelette on the plate he was holding. “Looks so good.”

She wasn’t speaking purely of the food, but he was too busy ushering her back to her bed to notice any hidden meaning.

He pulled the covers over her and only once she was still and breathing a little more steadily, did he give her the food.

She ate slowly but intently. It was a comfort to her throat, now raw from coughing.

“Thank you, Jonah.”

He was perched on the edge of the bed, keeping a respectful distance as he watched her eat. He took the empty plate from her when she was done and they looked at each other.

“Everything is so easy with you,” Jonah told her softly. He sounded incredulous and her face must have shown bemusement because he clarified. “It’s rarely that way with allistics.”

“Ah,” she said, smiling. “Well…”

“I’m always having to explain myself,” Jonah said and his sadness seemed bone deep.

“They don’t get that it’s a disability. I can’t read between their lines unless I have a million miles of energy.

Which most of the time, I don’t. Because I’m fighting off sensory overload or trying to keep my scripts in order.

They never say what they mean and if I ever stand up for myself, I’m the asshole.

And I was an asshole to you. Horribly. But I wasn’t always like that.

I used to be really open. I—I used to be softer.

You know that there’s this whale in the ocean that sings at a different frequency to all the others?

So, it’s always alone. The others never hear it.

That was me. For so long. It’s why I overlooked Simon being an ass to me.

He never was to other people, they wouldn’t believe me if I ever told them about his darker moments. ”

“I believe you,” Allegra breathed.

“I know! That’s what’s so wonderfully jarring about you. You’re nothing like the rest of them.”

Allegra reached out a hand to caress his face. She held it in her hand. “Jonah…”

“They’ve never understood,” he said, almost to himself. As if finally realizing something. “They’ll never understand.”

“No,” whispered Allegra, who had met this truth long ago. She and that truth were old friends. They would sometimes clink glasses and laugh about how naive she had once been. But she knew Jonah needed this. Perhaps he was shedding the mask more easily now that he was away from Lake Pristine.

“They will make me explain myself and explain myself until I’ve no breath left in me,” he said.

“They will never see what I see. They won’t even try to look, even though I’ve memorized every color of their lives.

They’ll never see the disability because it makes them uncomfortable.

They’ll tell themselves they’re just tougher.

Built stronger. But they’ll never know what that whale knows. ”

Allegra brushed his cheek with the pad of her thumb.

“Jonah, I have something to tell you,” she heard herself say.

She had so many secrets. The one that was directly tied up with him, and pages of online letters.

She was afraid of that one. Terrified that she was some base attraction to him, a warm body, while the girl in the emails was an imaginary girl on a pedestal.

A fantasy that wasn’t based in reality. It was a frightened, whispered thought in her head.

It made no logical sense but eighteen years of feeling othered let self-doubt dig its claws in deep.

But there was one secret she needed him to know now.

“Jonah, I’m autistic, too.”