Puddle Jumping (9 page)

We concentrated there for a good minute until I could feel him getting warmed up again and hesitantly, I pressed his open palm to my chest.

I knew him. I wanted him.

It felt really,
really
good.

It was too much for me so it had to have been too much for him. I took a deep breath and leaned away, giving him one last kiss before slipping his hand back down to my waist.

“Are you all right?” I asked and he opened his eyes, droopy lids and hot breath accentuated by pink cheeks.

“Yes.”

A smile. A nod. Another small kiss.

“I should go.” I had planned on staying to watch him paint, but the tension was too thick and I didn’t think I’d last an hour more in his room, watching him work.

He stood in the doorway for a second and said goodbye before shutting the door on me. I made sure I looked presentable before escaping his house like my ass was on fire.

* * *

It never occurred to me that people thought a certain way about Colton. Like, if they didn’t know him and he did something they would consider to be strange or rude, you could see their faces turn bitter and I could almost hear them thinking he was a jerk for not initiating conversation or looking at them when speaking. Or, if he became easily distracted by something that caught his interest, others would seem to think he was ignoring them.

But as soon as it was brought to their attention that his brain worked differently, they just accepted it and after that it was, “Oh, Colton is a wonderful young man. He’s just a little different. He doesn’t make eye contact and he hugs too hard.”

Colton doesn’t care about things like that. He cares about art and making friends. He works in a space within his mind that allows him to do what he wants to, without feeling like he’s wrong for it. There are no rules as far as his passion is concerned. And I envy him.

I wanted, more than anything, to take his paints and stand in his art room in just my underwear and throw buckets of colors at a canvas just to see what kind of chaos would bleed down the face and mix to make new shades of colors that possibly hadn’t even been invented yet.

But I didn’t.

Because I don’t have it in me.

I ate dinner weekly at his house and spent time with his family. I always took him to and from his PEERS classes. I never really minded that he didn’t call me every night, and that we didn’t go out on real dates. What Colton lacked, I tried to overcompensate for. He would most likely never be interested in the things I liked, but if I could meet him on his same ground, then we’d have a chance. I was sure of it.

I drew the line at learning about architecture because that is just boring. You can’t say I didn’t try, though.

We could hang out for a short time after school with people in small groups that he was comfortable with. But he seemed to really be most at ease when it was just the two of us, and I can’t say it bothered me at all to have alone time with him.

What I had failed to realize during all of that was, even though I was going out of my way to see things through his eyes . . . to understand him more and more each day in order to make our relationship work . . . learning about things was not enough.

There’s a huge difference in reading about it and experiencing it.

* * *

The night of the Homecoming dance, Colton had an art exhibit downtown. I got all prettied up in a new dress my mom gave me money for. I bought new shoes, did my hair, and even wore a little more makeup than usual. I did all of that because I was going to be seen with Colton in public at one of his shows and I wanted to present myself the best way I knew how.

He looked incredible, as always, in a casual suit and I couldn’t take my eyes off him the entire ride downtown. Nor could I hide the immense pride and happiness I felt when he took the stage, looking bashful and blushing, to acknowledge the crowd with a couple short sentences, his eyes focused on the exit sign at the far end of the room.

People clapped and fawned all over his work and I hadn’t really thought about the fact he’d taken the portrait of me and hung it as well. The people who passed by would look the picture over and then their attention would fall on me and I would get these strange looks. It made me very uneasy to think people were being judgmental about our relationship by thinking I was with him for any other reason than being in love with him. Like I was, as my mom would say, hitching my wagon to his star.

It made me uncomfortable and, after a while, I moved to the back of the room and waited at a table, people-watching.

But that feeling of insecurity was nothing compared to the pit I got in my stomach when my gaze had roamed the room for Colton and found him in the farthest corner next to the stage . . . speaking one-on-one with a gorgeous girl who reminded me of a young Nicole Kidman. She was tall and slender with light, almost red, curly tresses.

Jealousy flew through me faster than I’d ever thought possible. I was on my feet, crossing the room with my stare deadlocked on him. But when I arrived by his side, he didn’t seem to acknowledge I was there. Neither did the girl.

It wasn’t until Mrs. Neely swept by us that she stopped their conversation and introduced me to Talia Benton, a girl Colton had been chatting with online in an Asperger’s forum, as he had been instructed to do by his PEERS teacher.

My heart once again felt frail and useless in my chest because I fully understood at that moment that all my good intentions were for nothing if I was just trying to learn about Colton’s likes and dislikes. The reality of it was it was not the same as being like Talia.

She got it. She probably understood the way Colton thought. She totally got how he felt.

Because she was the same.

And for the first time, I wished I was too.

T
he ride home was torturous.

In most relationships, you can say to the person:
Who was that? How long have you been talking to her? Do you want to be with her?

That just wasn’t the case with us, and it was killing me not to be able to address what was making me feel so horrible inside.

He held my hand. He talked art and answered his parents’ questions with an unusual amount of excitement. I was trying my hardest not to cry, but it was out of character for him to be so vocal and my only thought was Talia’s presence had made him that way.

When we arrived back at their house, he got straight out of the car and headed inside. Even though my heart was breaking, I started to follow him. But Mrs. Neely stopped me before I made it to the door, asking if we could chat.

Now, my first thought was Colton had somehow slipped that he’d been all over my bunny slopes and she would be mad and tell me we needed to only visit with supervision. My head was spinning all over the place with misplaced anxiety and the fresh pictures in my head of Talia, so tears were welling in my eyes as she led me to the side of the house where the porch swing was and took my hand to sit me down.

What I didn’t expect was for her pat my hand softly and sigh before she wiped one of my tears away.

“Are you okay?”

She asked it like she really cared and I could only nod because I was afraid using my voice would cause me to start wailing like a psycho. Apparently she didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t have, either. I’m a terrible actress.

“I should have told you that she was coming. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it affecting you.” Her eyes were soft, like she meant it. “You’re so good with him.
To
him. He’s grown exponentially over the past few months just by having you around. You should know that.”

“I don’t know if it’s enough.”

She nodded, all-knowing and Gandhi-like.

“Then let me say it for him, since he can’t.” She smiled a little. “Yet.” Thoughtfully, she held my hand tighter, reminding me of her son. “He talks about you all the time.”

Panic hit me pretty hard and I braced myself for the discomfort I was sure to experience when she started talking about my boobs.

“He talks about you to
us
because he’s not going to talk about you to
you
. He talks to
her
online because his teacher suggested it. But that girl is obsessed with Math and Physics. It bores him no end, but he does it because he was told to in order to reach his end goal. The reason she was there tonight was because it was part of his homework to invite her into a social setting.”

“But she’s
so
pretty,” I finally managed to get out before my voice cracked.

Mrs. Neely’s eyes were shining and she smiled again. “Sure, she’s pretty. But Colton didn’t say one thing about that when she left. He said she was . . . what was it?” She thought for a moment and then giggled. “He said she was unnaturally tall for a girl her age. And that she smelled like chlorine.”

It made me laugh, too, because I could hear him saying it in my head.

She took my chin in her hand and pulled my face up to look at hers. “He
painted
you. It’s as close as he’ll get to saying how much he cares for you right now. I knew the day you came to play with him all those years ago that you would be good friends, Lilly. It just wasn’t the right time. Everything he lacks, you have. Spirit. A sense of adventure.”

My tears had almost dried before they started up again and I’d nodded thankfully, trying to look away from her but she wouldn’t let me.

“You’re the reason he wanted to go to school. He’s never forgotten you. And he thought he’d see you again if he went.”

It didn’t make sense, really. Coming to school was putting him in the position to be made fun of and be anxious. Why would he do all of that?

“So many times, more than I can count, he’d ask. ‘Where’s Lilly?’ And I’d have to tell him that you were probably at school. Eventually he just asked what school you were in and if he could go, too. Please don’t get upset, but I made sure you were there before I agreed. How could I say no? He’s been in occupational therapy. I paid a lot of money when he was younger to get him into a room with other children to make friends under the watch of a therapist. If you haven’t noticed, he’s much more comfortable with adults. But you? He wanted to find you again. He doesn’t care about what others think about him. Spending time with those other people in his class has been an added bonus. But you’re the reason he continues to go.”

Call me blindsided, but I’d had no idea.

“I was so surprised to see you standing at the pick-up with him on the first day. I thought it would take more than a few hours for him to find you and become friends again. But you’ve always had a good heart, even if you’re clumsier than anyone else in the world. Anywhere. Ever.”

I wanted to laugh but I needed answers. “Is that why you said I couldn’t hang out with him anymore when we were younger?”

Her eyes dropped to where our hands were still joined. “I was seriously afraid you were going to kill yourself on our property . . .”

At that point we both started laughing because it was the truth. Had I been left alone with him any longer, Colton would surely have been present at my funeral.

“It’s been a really tough road for us. From the minute I knew something was different about him. Between the testing and evaluations, learning him and how he works . . . I’ve often thought maybe I did things wrong. That he should have been in school this entire time. But it’s just not for him. He gets frustrated when he can’t communicate because the other person isn’t on his level. He touches too hard. He gets overwhelmed and it makes him break down because he can’t vocalize what’s happening inside of him. Having the tutors alleviated some of that.

“Maybe I should have told you when you were younger. But if I walked into every room announcing that he wasn’t the same as everyone else, it wouldn’t have done him any favors. I want people to see him for who he
is
. All I’ve ever wanted was for him to have some semblance of a normal childhood – a normal life. When you came around, I thought maybe, because he was so enamored with you, that you two would be a good fit. You’ve never judged him. I’m overprotective to a fault because of what we’ve been through, and it was a rash decision to remove you from his life, but I felt it was best at the time. But he never forgot you. Not for one day. There are paintings upstairs that prove just that. And if you can hold onto that truth for the future, when things get tough and you’re feeling like it’s a little one-sided, then maybe it won’t be so bad.”

This was the truth he could not say, and it made me happier than I ever thought I could be.

She released me and I made my way up to his room to tell him goodnight. And though I was torn to leave him, I knew I had to walk out the front door. But before I did, I snuck into the art room to unlock his window.

Because it would be the first night I would climb that lattice to sneak into his room after his parents went to bed.

* * *

I was nervous as I pulled my car around to the other side of his neighborhood and parked off the road before changing into a pair of sweatpants, t-shirt and flip flops I kept in the car for emergency sleepover clothes when I would hang out with Harper.