Page 21 of Role Model
We reach a stall inside the covered market in Camden. The crowd is packed in, everyone pushing and jostling. Ilya swears softly, clearly agitated by the number of people. Fizz is neurodivergent like me, but in a different way. She likes frenzy and fray. She likes life to feel like a rollercoaster. I prefer it to be a steady train.
We’re at a stall that sells vinyl records. Fizz is always buying these. Her record player used to be Dad’s and it’s practically falling apart. She smiles at the girl working there, who looks to be in her early twenties like Fizz.
“You’re so pretty,” Fizz tells her.
The girl’s very serious face turns a deep shade of pink and she smiles in spite of herself. “Thanks. You, too.”
I roll my eyes. Fizz thinks everyone is pretty. I’m about to ask her if we can go somewhere else when I feel a tug on my elbow. I turn and jump in fright as a grown woman leans down into my face, smiling so intensely that it makes me feel on edge.
“You’re Aeriel Sharpe,” she says, her voice full of awe.
“Yes,” I mumble, as Ilya firmly removes the woman’s hand from my arm.
“Sorry,” she tells him before turning back to me.80She’s looking at me with such reverence, it makes me uncomfortable. “I have to ask you some questions, Aeriel. I’ve watched every single one of your interviews. You’re amazing.”
She moves closer to me, if that’s even possible. It makes me feel cornered.
“My daughter’s like you,” she says, and I notice her eyes filling with tears. “Only she’s not. She would never be able to do a live television interview.”
I want to tell her that I didn’t know I could do one until they tossed me into the deep end with my hands tied. No words come out.
“What can I do, as a mother?” she asks, her hands suddenly pawing at me.
I can’t breathe.
“How can I help her, Aeriel?”
They always do this. The neurotypicals. They think that we all come in the same size, colour and design. They can never grasp that we’re as different from one another as they are. One neurotypical person likes apples, another doesn’t. One likes to skydive, the other doesn’t. One can tap dance, the other has no rhythm.
It’s the same for autistics but they never believe us.
She grabs at me more forcefully and cries, “Please, Aeriel, just come outside and meet her!”
81“That’s enough,” Ilya says, stepping between us. “Felicity, let’s go.”
I’m suddenly being corralled out of the market, Ilya on my left and Fizz on my right.
“Why didn’t you keep them from touching her?” Fizz demands, speaking over my head.
“You might have noticed her sooner if you weren’t so busy,” Ilya snaps back at her.
“Oh, you jealous, comrade?”
“I want to go home,” I tell the air, because neither of them are listening.
Ilya has called for the car to come and as we wait for it to pull up by the kerb, I hear a man loudly ask, “Where do I know her from?”
I get into the car and my vision starts to spot.
“God, Aeriel,” Fizz says, sounding worried for me. “You really are famous.”
Famous. I’ve had problems with being labelled my whole life, but I think I may hate that particular label the most.
*
I can’t sleep. I’m bad at sleep. It’s never been one of those natural relationships. I lie there in the dark82and think about every single thing I’ve done wrong during the day. I try to think about how I could have prevented it. I let myself become fixated on the time. I count how many hours it will be until I have to be up again in the morning. When my brain fixates on something, it can sometimes be hard to make it stop. It’s called rumination. I spiral and I fall down mental wells with foul-smelling water. I can’t always pull myself out. Like when one of Fizz’s records gets stuck and the same part of the song plays over and over again. I just can’t break free of the negative thoughts.
I finally get out of bed and go to see if Mum is still up. Sometimes she sits on the sofa in the living room with a laptop and a big file full of papers.
