The second Friday of September rolled around, and with it came my monthly appointment with Dr. Booker. I'd decided I was going to tell him I'd talk to a therapist. Hell, I'd even go to the sessions alone, without my dad hovering like an overprotective helicopter parent. I was going to take this shit seriously. Which, let's face it, it just might.

I still wasn't fully convinced therapy wouldn't be a complete shitshow, but Jethro had somehow managed to prove that talking about feelings didn't always have suck. And, well, it was starting to feel pretty fucking unfair that I'd been using him as my personal emotional dumpster.

Of course, if I told Jethro he'd been my inspiration, he'd probably say some sappy shit about how I wasn't a burden. But that wasn't the point. It wasn't fair to dump all my issues on him and then flaunt my determination to do jack shit about any of it. Every time I brushed off his concerns, I saw that little flicker of sadness in his eyes. It was like kicking a puppy, if that puppy was an unfairly attractive boy who inexplicably put up with my bullshit.

So I told Dr. Booker I wanted to see a therapist. The words felt like sandpaper in my mouth, but I managed to spit them out. Then, despite my newfound commitment to talking about feelings, I sat there like a constipated lump while he tried to pry out my reasons. He eventually gave up and moved on to praising me, which was somehow even worse. I never knew what the fuck to do with praise. I settled for scowling at him. He already knew I was a disaster, so why bother hiding it?

After the appointment, I still went back to my dad's office. I'd half-expected my parents to start nagging me about taking the bus to school after my Peter Pan bus adventure, but they'd been surprisingly chill. Maybe they sensed that I was already dealing with more change than my rigid autistic brain could handle.

When Jethro bounced into the office at lunch time, I kept my mouth shut about the therapist thing. I would tell him after I actually started the sessions, once I was sure I could stick to it and actually make it work. I didn’t want to give him hope only to end up fucking it all up later. 

I did cling to him for an extra long time when I hugged him, though, letting out a deep sigh against his neck. He smelled sweet and fruity, as usual. Sometimes I’d be going about my day and I’d get a whiff of something sweet and it would make me think of him. It was nice.

He was wearing stockings under his uniform shorts, the sheer fabric clinging to his legs like a second skin. The school had agreed to it, then changed their mind after they actually saw his legs in that shit, then agreed to it again after his mum had gone to battle for him. Sure, he looked way too fucking hot in stockings, but why was it any different from a girl wearing them? Presumably they also looked hot in them, though I was too gay to have much of an opinion on that.

We headed to the break room and I sat down at the table while Jethro put his sausage roll in the microwave. Once the microwave started its merry dance of radiation, he came over and wrapped his arms around me from behind, his chin digging into my shoulder like he was trying to burrow into my collarbone. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck, sending a shiver down my spine that I tried desperately to ignore. Fucking hormones.

My phone let out a sad little bing and I fished it out of my pocket to find a message from Brandon: were r u?? followed by two little emoji faces that looked like they were on the verge of a breakdown. From anyone else, I might’ve been worried, but Brandon was always a little dramatic.

About to watch my boyfriend choke down a sausage roll, I typed, and Jethro let out a snort of laughter against my neck. I erased the message and instead sent, Psych appointment today.

I'd told Brandon and Tayla the truth about my monthly disappearing act last time, and shockingly, it hadn’t been weird or awkward at all. But, like, genuinely. I’d been trying to take a page out of Jethro’s book and just be my full, honest self, and so far it actually seemed to be going fine. The more myself I was, the more Brandon and Tayla had started to feel like they were my actual friends.

Oh rite cool cool, Brandon sent back, followed by several badly framed photos of a comic book’s pages. Brandon was dyslexic, so reading was tough for him, but he was a sucker for stories. He was a big fan of any comic books he could find that were more pictures than words. Sometimes he'd hunt me down in the library at lunch, and I'd grab a regular book because there was no way in hell I was reading gay fanfic with him sitting next to me. We'd just chill and read, like a couple of nerds who'd found their natural habitat.

Tayla would show up at the library sometimes too. We'd raid the place for every pillow and bean bag we could find, then hunker down in a corner like we were building a fort against the world. She'd get overwhelmed sometimes, like Jethro but with an extra shot of anxiety and a side of existential dread, but she didn’t like being alone at school. Quiet time with me in the library helped her calm down.

The more I subjected myself to human interaction, the more I realised I wasn't the only weirdo on this planet. Sure, I'd known that in theory, but experiencing it firsthand was different. Maybe everyone was a little fucked up, or maybe I just attracted fellow disasters, but either way, I wasn't as alone as I'd thought. And sure, the problems other people had weren’t necessarily the same as the problems I had, but I didn’t have to barely be able to read to relate to the feelings of shame and isolation that went along with struggling with something that came easy to most people.

In a couple of weeks, the four of us—Jethro included—were going to the movies together. Brandon had called it a double date, and Tayla had just smiled without correcting him, so maybe that was a thing. I didn’t really care whether it was or wasn’t, but Jethro had seemed to think it was great gossip when I’d told him.

The microwave let out a shrill beep, and Jethro planted two quick kisses on the back of my head before getting up to retrieve his sausage roll.

I never knew what the fuck to say when Brandon texted me. His reading skills were about as good as my social skills, so I usually just sent pictures. This time, I snapped a shot of Jethro extracting his food from the microwave and sent it off.

Wow, Brandon sent back, and it took me a moment to realise he was talking about the stockings. I’d already forgotten that wasn’t a normal thing to see on a guy. 

But yeah, wow indeed. Jethro's uniform shorts were long enough to keep things decent, but those stockings were like a second skin, clinging to every subtle curve of his slender legs. The sheer fabric highlighted the elegant lines of his calves and thighs, turning a simple walk to the microwave into some kind of fucking catwalk show. 

Jethro plopped down next to me, bringing with him that mix of sweet Jethro-smell and microwaved meat that shouldn't work but somehow did. He poked at his food in silence, probably waiting for it to cool down enough to eat.

"I shaved my armpits," Jethro announced out of fucking nowhere.

"Oh," I said, my brain immediately conjuring up an image of shirtless Jethro—not exactly a rare sight given his habit of changing in front of me—and mentally erasing the armpit hair. "Cool."

We still hadn't done much beyond some pretty heated makeout sessions, which was fine by me. Sure, my mind was a cesspool of dirty thoughts and my taste in fanfiction was downright degenerate, but when it came to actually doing shit, I was still a bit shy. We'd get there eventually, but for now, we were both cool with taking it slow.

“You don’t mind if I’m a bit… you know.” Jethro shrugged, his eyes on his sausage roll. He normally looked at me when we talked, even if I didn't always return the favour. “You’re gay, but I’m… everything? Nothing? I’m just… me.”

“You’ve always been you. This isn’t some sudden shock to me.”

“Yeah, but what if I don’t always just straddle that centre line? What if sometimes—not always, but sometimes—I feel like stepping further over it?” Jethro finally glanced at me, but only for a split second. “Like I shave my armpits. You know?”

Was that supposed to be monumentally different from any of the other shit he did? I barely saw his armpits anyway. 

“That’s fine?” I offered.  It wasn't what he needed to hear, but I was fumbling in the dark here. “It’s your body. Whatever you do always ends up looking good.”

"Thanks," Jethro said, the word clipped like he'd bitten it off mid-sentence. A silence stretched between us, thick enough to cut with a knife. Finally, he continued, “But, like, where’s the line for you? I flop all over the gender spectrum, and that’s what makes me happy, but is there a point where it’s too far for you? Like, if I wore a skirt or something…”

"That Peter Pan costume was basically the same as wearing a very short skirt," I pointed out, wondering if I was missing something obvious here.

"It's not the cut of the fabric that makes a skirt, though, is it?" Jethro asked, fiddling with the edge of his sausage roll. "It being clothing for girls is what makes the difference."

“I guess?” I said, struggling to understand the issue. There were plenty of things Jethro owned that weren't exactly standard issue for guys. Some of the shorts he wore were very short and definitely not designed to accommodate the anatomy of a man. “Do you want to wear a skirt?”

Jethro just shrugged, but I knew that shrug. It was his "yes, but I'm feeling anxious about it" shrug. Most of the time when he came to me with this stuff, it wasn't really about me. He'd made it about me this time in a way that was confusing as hell, but mostly, he just wanted someone to tell him he was okay.

On a whim, I asked, “Have you talked to your parents about this?”

Jethro shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. He was quiet for a moment, pushing his sausage roll around on the plate. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, barely above a whisper.

"My parents are great, you know? Mum's like this fierce warrior queen when it comes to defending me. And Dad... he's chill. He doesn't always get it, but he rolls with it."

He paused, chewing on his lower lip as he psyched himself up to continue.

"But they worry," he continued. "At school, it's not so bad. If someone's a dick to me, the other kids shut that shit down fast."

I nodded, though I realised I didn't actually know much about how things went down at Jethro's school. There was no way he didn’t get some shit, but he didn’t bring it up very often.

Jethro's voice dropped even lower. "It's different when we're out, though. Adults can be... nasty. And that freaks my parents out."

He let out a sigh so deep I thought he might deflate. I waited, knowing there was more.

"The thing is," he finally added, his words tumbling out in a rush, "I don't even want to wear a skirt out. I just want to have one, you know? For me. Why is that such a big fucking deal?"

The frustration in his voice was raw, and it hit me that this was probably the first time he'd said any of this out loud. All the 'big deal' was coming from inside his own head, from all the bullshit he'd absorbed from the world that was now crushing him with doubt.

I stretched my arm out and draped it over his shoulders, pulling him close like I was trying to shield him from the world's bullshit. Jethro melted into me, his body sagging against mine as if all the strings holding him up had suddenly been cut. He was warm and solid against me, but also felt fragile, like he might shatter if I held him too tight. He took a deep breath that shuddered through his whole body as he let it out.

In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to punch the entire fucking world in the face for making this amazing person feel like he had to hide any part of himself. Instead, I just held him tighter, hoping that somehow, my gangly arms could be enough of a shelter against all the crap he was dealing with.

"You know what?" I said, pulling back just enough to look at Jethro's face. “This is actually great for me. Your birthday’s coming up soon, and I was stressing myself out trying to figure out what to get for you. This is such an easy answer and you just handed it right to me. We’re going skirt shopping this afternoon. Pick whatever you want, my treat."

Jethro made a noise somewhere between a whimper and a laugh, then practically launched himself at me, wrapping his arms around my torso. "Thank you," he whispered, his voice muffled against my shirt, his breath warm and damp through the fabric.

I rubbed Jethro’s back, just holding onto him for as long as he needed. I was aware I appeared awkward and stoic on the outside, and that kind of shit was probably where the myth that autistic people lack empathy came from. But on the inside, every little sad sound he made hit me like a sledgehammer. I was going to buy him any goddamn skirt he wanted.

After what felt like forever, Jethro loosened his death grip on me, though he kept one hand firmly latched onto my arm. His sausage roll sat forgotten on the table, probably cold by now. He’d have to microwave it again.

He looked up at me, his eyes still a bit red and puffy. "Your birthday's not too long after mine. What do you want?"

"Hmm," I said, rubbing my knuckles under his chin like he was an overgrown cat. A slow, mischievous grin spread across my face. "How about... seeing you in that skirt?"

Jethro's laugh was a bit watery, but genuine. "I think that can be arranged."

THE END