#kit lowell

On Tuesday, I open my locker to find a fat, dusty book, and old edition of the DSM. There’s a big Post-it note and an arrow pointing to the section titled ‘Asperger’s Syndrome.’ I’m pretty sure I have Asperger’s. This is an old DSM (the new one folds my diagnosis under autism spectrum disorders). I think this will tell you a lot about why I am the way I am (and why I acted the way I acted), though I can’t use the Aspie thing as an excuse. It’s more of an explanation than an excuse. There’s a famous expression that if you’ve met one person with autism, then…you’ve met one person with autism. So you met me. Just me. Not a diagnosis. I realize I hurt you. I forgot to think about you first. I did not put myself in your shoes, as the expression goes. (Though as a sidebar, I think wearing other people’s shoes is kind of disgusting; I’m only okay with the concept metaphorically.)

‘Wait one more second. I need to tell you something while I have you captive. I know I screwed up, but I love you and your dad. When your father’s parents died—your grandparents—your father, well, it broke him, and for a long time he was like someone without batteries. Kind of like how you are now. Pathetic and dangly. Empty and sad.’ ‘Thanks.’ ‘I mean how we are now. I’m just as pathetic and dangly, though let’s be honest, I smell better.’ I give my mother a small smile. Despite everything, I can do that. ‘But over time, Dad started becoming himself again. Not the same person he was before. Not even close. He became a better, stronger, Humpty Dumpty-glued-back-together version, and that’s when I really fell in love with him. Head over heels. I decided that, no matter what my parents had to say about it, he was going to be my person. The thing is, sometimes people grow from breaking. That’s what I think was happening with your father and me before he died—I truly believe we were going to work things out—and it’s what I think we should both aim for now. Not just survival. We need to become even better versions of ourselves. In honor or Dad. We owe him. That’s the least we can do for the people we love.’

Instead of talking, I cry. ‘It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. I promise. It’s all going to be okay,’ she says, and strokes my hair. ‘How?’ I ask. I can’t get out more than that. And that’s all I want to know: How, how, how. How can it be okay? ‘I have no idea. All right, so maybe it won’t be okay. Not really. Not the same, but we’ll survive this. That’s a start, right? Survival? We’ve still got each other.’

‘You’re probably good people too, but just so you know, I love David more than life itself, so if you hurt my brother in any way, or if you even think about hurting him, I will ruin you. I may not still live here, but I can still do that,’ she says in the hurried whisper of a Mafia don, which come to think of it is not unlike a homecoming queen, even an ironic hipster version. Her eyes are dry now and cold. ‘Understood?’ ‘I think so.’ ‘Good,’ Lauren says, and then she throws her arms around my shoulders in a weird, semi-friendly half hug. ‘I think we’re going to get along just fine.’

‘Don’t get me wrong. He is no way normal.’ I stop, look at David. Smile a little. ‘Sorry, it’s true. But who is? And since when is normal a requirement for high school?’ ‘I like her,’ David’s dad says to no one in particular. ‘I know, right?’ David’s mom says.

‘She’s just, you know, pissed about Gabe,’ Violet says. ‘And we miss you.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. This hurts, I want to say. Even just standing here talking to you. It all hurts more than you could possibly imagine. I want to show her my watch, how time barely moves forward. How I don’t much care for this version of me either. I stay quiet.

I know what it’s like to walk down halls with your back the target of a million eyeballs. Hearing the ripple of echoes you leave in your wake: Did you hear? Her dad died her dad died her dad died.

I’m tired of the constant hole in my stomach, that slow burn of loss. I will never see my father again. Nothing I will ever do can change that. I wonder if one day soon I will forget the sound of his voice. I can’t imagine a world where I can’t conjure up its deep bass. Where I can’t conjure up the planes of his face or the feeling of his hand on my forehead. That’s not a world I want to live in.