Page 23 of Melted by a Man

If the CEO and CFO were part of this, I was probably the one overreacting.

Again.

I froze, stuck between wanting to tell Leo to quiet down, while also still raw from feeling like three members of upper management implied that I was overworked and run down from my job within a week.

I was nervous, I didn’t want to make them think I was incapable or that I couldn’t do my job with distractions around me. Anyone would be able to work with coworkers laughing and playing music in their office, right? I was just sensitive.

You’re too sensitive.

You need therapy, Jackie.

Two things I already knew about myself, but my ex’s voice still rang loud and clear in my mind. I frowned, getting ready to turn on my heel and hide in my office the rest of the day when Mary’s voice echoed from the space.

I hesitated, curiosity getting the best of me, because she was singing.

In Leo’s office.

I turned back around to face the backs of Brandon and Nicole when I realized the song that Mary was singing along to wasBlink-182’s“Feeling This.”

Nicole noticed me behind her. She leaned over to whisper to me, “They’re testing out the product team’s newest feature. Mary is merging it now, so we’re waiting to see if it worked.”

I nodded as if that was the part I was curious about before peeking in between their bodies to see inside the room.

Mary and Leo were sitting in the two chairs in front of his desk, heads bobbing to the energetic music as Mary sang the first verse and plucked away on her laptop. Signe had her phone out, recording the two while Zaid sat on the leather couch of the office, grinning from ear to ear with a computer on his lap.

Leo was also singing, but he had the easier part of the song. His phone was in his hands and his eyes were glued to the small screen. He only seemed to chime in to say, “I’m feeling this!” while Mary sang the gist of it.

The cousins were smiling, and acting goofy, and everyone else in the room was encouraging it. Everyone was having a good time while Mary and Leo performed their own rendition of the song, nodding along with the tune.

While also…working?

Suddenly, Mary stopped typing and crossed both of her fingers.

Zaid crossed his fingers too.

Leo’s brow scrunched as he harmonized with his cousin.

Then the chorus hit, and my skin broke out into goosebumps.

This happened to me on occasion. I never spent the time to figure out why this phenomenon happened to me, or what triggered it. But for some inexplicable reason, hearing Mary and Leo harmonize while singing the chorus of, “Feeling This” something felt scratched in my ears. My brain too. Leo’s deeper voice took the lead for the chorus, while Mary’s alto filled in for the round.

I forgot all of my duties. I just stood there, pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed hearing Leo’s voice sing like this, even if he wasn’t particularly skilled.

A new auditory stim of mine was born that day, hearing Leo’s voice layer with the original vocals ofBlink-182.

Mariam was the one who informed me what stimming was. A repetitive action that my body relied on to regulate my nervous system. It was a behavior commonly found in neurodivergent individuals, and when I pointed out to her that I had not sought out any formal medical diagnosis saying I was, she reminded me that just because a doctor didn’t write anything down on a piece of paper, didn’t mean that I wasn’t neurodivergent.

It wasn’t like the symptoms of neurodivergent behaviors would wait to appear until a licensed professional permitted them to do so.

That being said, I still had no desire to seek out a medical diagnosis. Was I autistic? Was I ADHD? OCD? Or did I struggle with some type of generalized anxiety disorder? Did hypotheticals like this matter, when I had made it this far in my life without those formal labels?

That’s what I told myself most of the time, anyway.

All I knew was that I needed to rely on a specific set of coping mechanisms to make it through situations that neurotypical people wouldn’t necessarily struggle with as much.

Stimming was one of them.

It could look different. Sometimes it was tapping my foot, sometimes it was humming or swaying in my chair from side to side.

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