Page 69 of Wish You Were Her
For a young autistic girl, who had always been alone in the world—not just felt alone, butbeenalone—the deal had seemed so freeing. It had felt like a chance to eat at the table with everyone else.
And, for the first few years, it had all been so wonderful. To be wanted. To be seen. To be listened to. She had been able to share parts of herself that the world had only ever told her were ugly and unnatural. She was no longer made of stone to the people around her.
And then they turned her new flesh into bronze and gold and copper. Her name on too many tongues had cast the spell, and she was stationary again, while the world moved and spoke all around her.
And there are sadder songs. There are crueller stories. There are many, if not mostly, harder lives.
To become an idol is to be safe from the wind and the rain and the cold.
But no one can love a statue. Not really. They can touch parts of it until it turns to gold. But it can never go home with anyone. It can never touch them back.
She was just a statue to Jonah, she thought bitterly. When he said, “wish you were her” in his emails, that “her” didn’t even exist. He was intrigued by the statue, the idol, the thing that was skin-deep.
“It’s a privilege,” was all she said to Simon, knowing that it was the truth and also what people needed to hear. “I’m very lucky.”
She wanted Jonah, though. She wanted his gaze, which was always so unclouded by the things that other people deemed so important. He hated her fame, and she had thought he hated her.
He was like her. She remembered it every time they were close to one another. Had felt it with every breath and gasp when they had come together in the bookshop.
“Simon,” she said, overwhelmed by the realization. “I have to go.”
He frowned. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just—” She suddenly realized that he wasn’t. There was something distracted about him. He seemed fidgety and on edge. “Are you?”
He looked surprised by the question. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
“Just… Jonah. He’s being difficult.”
Allegra almost smiled. “Difficult how?”
Simon exhaled. “He’s usually pretty regular, you know. But lately, he’s been acting weird. Different. More than the usual.”
Allegra wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “Are you worried about him?”
“No. I’m worried about everyone around him. Worried that he’s going to keep upsetting people. First you, now Kerrie. George barely speaks to him.”
Allegra felt a touch of protectiveness rise up. “He hasn’t ‘upset’ me, Simon. I can handle myself.”
“I’ve always sort of looked out for him but sometimes he just can’t act right.”
“Hey,” Allegra said softly, disliking the focus on Jonah. It felt too familiar to her, too similar to the language used by people who had judged her for her disability when she was little. “He acts just fine.”
Simon gave her a look of betrayal, one that made her wonder about him. She knew about masks better than anyone. She and Jonah were autistic, they wore theirs to survive. She wondered if Simon’s was perhaps a touch more sinister, if the niceness was skin-deep. A veneer that was employed as a means to an end.
It didn’t happen too often, but when neurotypicals revealed themselves to be two-faced or insincere or, at the very worst, ableist—it always made her feel like a person in a movie who had just discovered that their friend was concealing a zombie bite.
“I’m going to go, Simon.”
She had never been good at predicting other people. She expected him to look disappointed, but to understand. But that was not what happened. He leaned in and kissed her.
It was too wet and too firm and she pulled away at once, scowling at him in fury.
She knew that he, like so many before him, just wanted to say that he had conquered Allegra Brooks—that’s why he was doing it in public. A few people were watching and pretending not to. Simon winced as soon as it was done, and said, “Sorry, Allegra,” almost too quietly for her to hear.
“That was so unasked for,” she snapped at him.
