Page 24 of Late Bloomer
My gaze locks with hers and holds. After a moment, Pepper’s eyes widen a bit, like she’s nervous. I clear my throat, reminding myself to blink away. I’ve gotten better at not staring at people with the laser focus that feels most natural—learning from Olivia and Ophelia when I was younger that the intensity of it can make people uncomfortable—but something about Pepper’s face is so dynamic, so captivating, I can’t help it.
“And while Savannah, Georgia, doesn’t immediately sound like a place to hard-core party,” I continue, “I definitely found groups that would provide as much while I was there for school. After visiting student health for the third time in a monthbecause of dehydration and/or to get the morning-after pill, I started seeing a counselor there about it.”
“Having to see a counselor over your sex life seems a bit puritanical,” Pepper says, pursing her lips as she brushes her hair over her shoulder.
I grin. “I think it was more the heavy alcohol and frequent drugs that accompanied the sex that warranted it.”
Pepper opens and closes her mouth a few times. “Ah,” she finally lands on.
My grin grows. I’m not ashamed of my wilder past. If anything, all the reckless choices launched me to rock bottom—the depression that followed benders leaving me at risk of failing more than one class due to unfinished projects. It was at rock bottom that I learned to actually face myself and my clanging brain instead of trying to numb it all away.
Life definitely feels easier at the end of a blunt with a fourth drink in hand or tangled in the sheets with a random person. Ever since I was a borderline feral child, I’ve been searching for something to drown out my thoughts, make my heart race, slow my brain down. It was sugar highs and new best friends and endless crushes and the rush of a new hobby. It was bummed cigarettes in my high school parking lot and stolen sips from my parents’ liquor cabinet.
It’s a basic, primal need formore.Stimulus. Numbness. Adrenaline. Blackouts. My brain wants it all.
Butmorehas its limits and reaching them doesn’t feel very nice.
Eventually, with gritted teeth and a particularly helpfulcounselor, I learned to stop trying to feed the numbness and instead channel every painfully intense emotion I have onto whatever canvas is on hand.
“Anyway, after I told the school counselor about my hyperfocus and this kind of…desperateneed for stimulation, they suggested I might have ADHD or autism. We talked about it a bunch, then I did some of my own research, and both overlapped and fit in different ways. I looked into taking formal exams for both but they were repulsively expensive and the wait was something like eleven months so I basically said fuck it. Neurodivergent feels right and that’s all I kind of need. I know how I feel and experience the world.”
Pepper has stopped walking at this point, her mouth pressed into a firm line. Anxiety and embarrassment braid together in my chest.
“Sorry. I’m sure that was like, way too much of an overshare,” I say, digging my nails into my palms as I stare at the dirt, wishing I could bury myself under it.
Pepper clears her throat. “I can promise you,” she says, voice soft like a rose petal, “as someone with little to no natural instinct on what’s socially acceptable in conversations, nothing feels like an overshare.”
A small hiccup of happiness floats through my chest. “Guess we have something in common after all,” I say, reaching out my foot to nudge hers.
Pepper’s eyes flick to my face, and a whisper of a smile touches her lips. “Saying I’m stunned is an understatement.”
I let out a bark of a laugh, clapping a hand over my mouth when I catch Pepper’s startled jump.
“Come on,” Pepper says, leading the way again.
We walk a bit farther through the rows of flowers, some patches fully in bloom, others vibrant green with swollen buds ready to burst.
“Will this work?” Pepper asks with a gruff flick of her wrist, stopping at a shed a few yards from the barn.
“For what?”
Pepper lets out a sigh like I am exceptionally dense. “Your shoe factory.”
I snort, giving the shed a closer look.
The structure is on the kinder side of shabby, extensively chipped green paint exposing the weather-worn wood beneath. A small door with iron hinges sits crookedly in the frame. I push it open and take a hesitant step in.
It’s dirty but dry, smears of soil decorating the floors. Large windows are centered on three of the walls, letting in bright slices of light that turn the dust motes into sparkles. I test the panes, confirming I can open them to let out paint fumes. Besides a few rogue shovels, the space is empty, and I can already picture my worktable in one corner, a drying area in another. A spot for supplies on the shelves already lining parts of the walls.
A quick loop around the outside of the shed reveals ivy climbing the back while flowers and overgrown grass hug the base. I lean closer to a white flower, its petals delicate and flung wide to the sun, and watch a bumblebee lazily tumble around the center, collecting pollen.
“So?” Pepper says, voice sharp at the edges.
I look over my shoulder to find her watching me closely, eyebrows scrunched and mouth tipped down in a nervous frown. I grin at her, and her shoulders release a bit of tension.
“It’ll do,” I reply primly, my smile still growing as I stand and face her.
“Yeah?” Pepper takes a stilted half step closer.
