Page 46 of Wish You Were Her

The bedroom they shared was cozy, warm and dimly lit—just how two autistics on the verge of becoming lovers liked it.

Allegra climbed into his lap and he held her for thirty minutes without either of them speaking.

Every electrified nerve that was tried each day by the neurotypical world started to quiet.

Their jaws unclenched. The masks loosened and floated away, cast to the floor with the rest of their clothing.

“I have something important to tell you tomorrow,” Jonah said as the night ticked over into early morning.

Allegra had seen him glancing over his emails as she had brushed her teeth.

She felt the secret like a stone, and regretted leaving him in the dark.

It had gone on long enough now that she was almost too afraid to tell him the truth.

Whatever important matter he had to discuss with her, it couldn’t be as revealing as the truth of who was really writing to him in those emails.

Allegra pressed her check against his neck. “Tell me now.”

“Can’t. Has to be in public. Just before the movie starts tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“I’ll be able to keep it together. Can’t do it now. Want to say everything, just right.”

“Is it something bad?”

“No.”

She thought about her secret. She couldn’t predict what he would do. When she tried to rehearse the scene in her mind, it disintegrated into mist every time she got to her confession. She was petrified he would be angry.

Or that she would lose him.

“How did your interview go, Jonah?”

“I got the job.”

She pulled her head back a little to stare at him. “What? Jonah! That’s amazing!”

“It is.”

“Have you told my dad?”

“Yes.”

“I bet he was happy for you. He’s proud of you underneath it all, I know he is.”

“He fired me, you know.”

She wondered for a second if he was kidding. But, despite the darkness within the room, she could see a touch of sadness in his face. She brushed her hands across his jawline, as if she could somehow smooth away the sudden regret.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were unwell. You were dealing with enough.”

He was rubbing her upper arms in a soothing motion and Allegra was reminded once again that she could never be just a friend to this person.

As ever, when her mind wandered to romantic idealistic daydreams of the two of them, she wondered if he was still infatuated with an imaginary person on the other end of an email.

His kisses and touches had spoken of desire, without question, but she couldn’t forget the frustration on his face as she had found him in the cafe with a book and a flower.

That felt like another lifetime now.

“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” she said, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Tell me now?”

“Nope. I had two things on my to-do list. Get a great new job, and tell you this thing. Did one today, gonna do the other tomorrow.”

“Can I seduce it out of you?” she asked teasingly.

“You are definitely welcome to try.”

They listened to the braying sounds of the city at night for a few minutes before Jonah asked, “Does everyone who came tonight know you’re autistic?”

“Yes. February, because I can’t do certain fabrics and textures. Clark, so he knows if he ever does anything ableist on my socials stuff, he’s out. And Natalie has known since the beginning. Apart from my agent and my parents, that’s it.”

“And you don’t want to go public?”

Allegra hesitated. “I don’t know. Telling people that you’re autistic doesn’t magically transform an intolerant person into an understanding one.”

“Preaching to the choir.”

“Well, even the choir needs to rehearse.”

He laughed at that.

“I don’t know,” she said, listening to the beat of his heart as she spoke. “I think a big part of me just wants to blurt it out. Then never talk about it again until I want to.”

“You should be able to do that.”

“Not in my business.”

“Allegra, you’re grown. You’re in charge of you. No one can get you into trouble anymore, you don’t answer to anyone.”

Allegra absorbed the words, which were spoken so casually. Another ode to the strange period of transition between childhood and adulthood. She was still playing by the old rules sometimes.

“Maybe,” she spoke softly. “If I felt really safe. If I felt like I had something more to lose than my career, I would say. Just to be proud for once, instead of careful.”

When he didn’t say anything, she looked into his face. He smiled sadly at her.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Every time he told her that, it was gold paint between the cracks of the vase. “You say that a lot.”

“You need to hear it.”

“Yes,” she said, surprising herself. “You wouldn’t believe how many people like to tell women they follow what they think of their looks.

‘Oh, if you just fixed your nose.’ ‘Have you gained weight, Allegra? Is it for a role?’ ‘Your hair looks dry right now.’ It’s constant.

I can’t hear my own voice sometimes, just everyone else’s. It’s why I like hearing yours.”

His fingers massaged her temples and she closed her eyes in bliss.

“People don’t know,” she breathed. “Having a disability… everything I did was wrong. When I was young, I mean. I would fail at things that seemed to come naturally to other people. The exasperation, the eye-rolling, the ‘you’re just not getting this, are you?’ It was inescapable.

I always felt like an alien. Nothing I do comes naturally.

I just wanted to be like other girls. I wanted to be like everyone else. I would lie awake and pray for it.”

So when the boy she liked called her beautiful, it felt like antivenom to the snake bite that was the world calling her imperfect. Jonah saw through everything.

“You’re not an alien to me, Allegra,” he said, almost too quietly for her to hear. “I want to write everything down. Everything about you. Everything you’ve ever said.”

A writer. His emails.

This unleashed in her an idea. The sketched outline of a plan for tomorrow. And as her mind wandered, Jonah kissed her and held her until she fell into the kind of sleep you can only reach when you’re completely at home in your mind and body.

Jonah allowed February, Allegra’s stylist, to suit him and boot him.

He liked how he appeared in the tuxedo. As a tall, broad-shouldered person, shopping for clothes was never a favorite pastime.

Yet he enjoyed how he looked in his reflection.

As she doused him in Tom Ford, he wondered if he was finally starting to look the part.

The part of someone who could stand next to Allegra and belong there.

He was putting on cufflinks when she emerged from the bedroom.

Jasper and Grace had already been dressed and were dancing in the living room of the suite, while Allegra changed and filmed content with Clark in the bedroom.

He took in her golden gown and her sparkling eyes and the smile that she now seemed to reserve for him and he felt his breath leave his body.

“You—you look… Allegra, you’re just—”

“Yes, she’s stunning, but she’s also late!” Natalie called from the front door of the hotel suite and Jonah inwardly wished everyone else could just vanish for a frozen moment in time, leaving him alone with Allegra.

“Thanks,” she told him softly, squeezing his elbow as she passed him. “You look really hot.”

He caught her by the waist and pressed a kiss into her hairline, not caring a bit about everyone seeing them. The whole world had taken a look at one of the most private and precious moments of his life, but he didn’t want that humiliation to stop him from showing Allegra how he felt about her.

He held her hand in the car, perfectly content to gaze out of the window while the three girls sang along to Cyndi Lauper and filmed themselves in the back of the limo.

They shared a look before stepping out into the city square where the red carpet for the premiere was laid.

Jonah blinked and winced at the size of the crowd and gripped Allegra’s hand as they were ushered out of the car and toward the guest entrance to the carpet.

Jonah watched as the mask slipped effortlessly onto Allegra’s face as she greeted the associate at the gate.

“Just the VIP on the carpet and one guest,” the man said, shouting over the din of the crowd.

Jonah could tell the exact moment that Allegra was spotted on the large screen erected nearer the actual movie house, as the crowd began to rumble and a few young women shrieked her name at a startling pitch and decibel.

“I’ll take Jonah,” Allegra said.

Jonah stared at her in astonishment. “Not… not your publicist?”

“No,” she said with a small smile. “If you’re okay with the carpet?”

“Allegra—” Natalie began to object, but Jasper swept her away with all the grace and decorum of the Lake Pristine royalty she was.

“We’ll head straight in,” Jasper said, as if she had worked film premieres her entire life. “See you after the carpet, Allegra.”

Jonah and Allegra, still holding hands, stepped onto the red fabric laid out like a brick road to a land he had never known before.

The roar that greeted them was thunderous.

Jonah winced as flashes began to take over his vision, as they moved from one step-and-repeat to another on the long, winding scarlet path.

He moved back to allow Allegra her moment alone in front of the cameras.

He watched, both in awe and in disgust, as photographers yelled things at her.

“Over the shoulder!” one bellowed at her.

“Over here, whore!”

Jonah thought he must have imagined it, but when the female pap repeated the order, he was about ready to slap the camera from her hands. Allegra caught up to him and she gently steered them further down the carpet.

“They do it to get a reaction,” she told him, without needing to know his question. “There are so many lenses to look into so sometimes they say horrible shit to get their shot.”

“I hate them.”