Page 43 of Degradation
He smiles a little sleepily. ‘Why wouldn’t I want you touching me, Tulip?’
I frown, feeling suddenly exhausted as I recall Blake’s reaction to me last night. Why is it so at odds with how Mav is acting now? I thought it was some social rule I’d missed, but that doesn’t make sense if Mav... I don’t get it.
‘I don’t know.’
It’s a cop-out answer, but what’s the point? I don’t understand and I don’t think I’m going to.
When I look over at him, he’s staring at me quizzically.
‘You look confused.’
I stare into his face and count to seven instead of five just to see if I can. I do it.Easily.I’m definitely better with some things than I was when I got here, at least with Mav, Blake, and Shade.
Maybe Mav can just tell me what I want to know.
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Shoot.’
My finger strokes the blanket in circles. ‘Should I have waited for you to be awake before I touched you?’
‘No.’ The space between his eyes wrinkles a little and he turns toward me, propping himself up on his elbow. ‘Why?’
I move away from him, laying on my back and staring up at the ceiling with a sigh. I don’t even know what questions to ask to get what I need. It’s like the answers themselves are grains in a mountain of sand. Every time I scoop some up, other bits cascade down the side, all the tiny pieces covering each other, hiding each other in a mass of information I just can’t access.
He touches my face, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. It tickles and I shake my head a little, making it come loose again.
‘Is this about Blake?’
How does he know about that?
‘Sort of.’
‘You can talk to me,’ he says, brushing the same piece of hair back from my face again.
‘Can I?’ I whisper, wondering if I should just take the risk of him using what we talk about against me later.
‘Of course. Whatever we talk about in here, I won’t speak to anyone about it.’
I glance at where I know the camera is and his eyes narrow at it.
‘It isn’t great with audio. It won’t pick up murmured words.’
‘I... Do you understand why I was in England? Why John put me in that place?’
I wonder if he’s going to bring up Mike Larson, but he doesn’t, thankfully.
He lets out a deep sigh. ‘Because you’re autistic.’
‘Yes, but do you know what that means for me? Like in real terms?’
‘Sort of. I mean, I see how smart you are. I’ve noticed some sensory stuff, that you can’t talk sometimes when you’re upset. Sometimes you sit and stare at nothing for long periods of time.’
‘There are a thousand examples I could give you, but the biggest one for me at the moment, I suppose because I’m getting close with you guys, is that I miss a lot of social cues. I can’t read expressions well in general, and all those little rules you normies seem to just know, I don’t. It makes things hard for me sometimes. Hard for you, too.’
‘Like with Blake?’
I nod.
