Page 55 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
‘Except you are. Listen, these T-shirts my mum orders for me online because they don’t scratch me. You know the little tag at the back of the neck? Feels like a bloody noose around my neck. And I can’t even cut it off because then there is still a small annoying bit that practically cuts my skin, or so my brain tells me. These shirts enable me to think and work without being distracted, and yes, I’m privileged that I have parents who can afford them. But just because they do, that doesn’t erase the years of ABA therapy they put me through. Doesn’t change the fact that they’ve always wanted and still want me to be different. My parents may own nice things, I may own some nice things, but that doesn’t necessarily make it all easy.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
She’s too worked up to even hear my sorry.
‘And most of those nice things I never asked for and never needed. But I had to be grateful, and I was reprimanded when I didn’t like them. ‘Oh, this expensive doll Daddy bought and you haven’t even taken it out of the pack.’ No one asked me what I wanted. Which would have been Legos and chapter books.’
‘Sophia, I’m not saying you had it easy. I know that you didn’t. I’m just saying we have different lives, different lifestyles.’
‘Well, of course we do, everybody does. But we all have to learn to live with them. We have to learn how to make ourselves happy, how to accept what people give you even if it’s not what you wanted. You open the doll and stroke her hair and sit strategically for a while where your parents can see you. You learn to make the best of the life you have.’
I can see that she’s close to tears again.
‘And then...’ She attempts to speak through what is now very loud, very snotty cries. ‘Then you...’
I reach my hands out in a question, and she nods. I pull her close and hold her. She sobs but then it turns into a different, calm cry.
‘Then what happens Sophia? You were saying?’
‘Then you grow up and find you don’t know how to be, how to have a life you actually want, if you’re not doing what other people want you to do.’
Sophia
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 breakfastbuffets 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 byvägen 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
