We reached the top of the hill and the skyline opened up as we crossed the road, dark sea and dark sky almost blending together at the horizon. I could hear the sound of waves on rocks down below, the rhythmic rush and crash of the water like laboured breathing.

A cold breeze stung at my cheeks as we stepped up to the railing and stared out at a view we really couldn’t see. There was a ship lit up somewhere out on the water and the glow of houses and streetlights lit up the coastline, but there wasn’t much of the sea or beach to be seen.

Rue let go of my hand and looped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer against the warmth of his side. I waited for him to kiss me again, like he had last night, and when he didn’t I tugged his shirt until he faced me and then awkwardly mashed our lips together.

I wasn’t sure how experienced he was, but together we managed to figure out how to move our lips together in a rhythm after a few fumbling seconds. I’d always been one to seek out oral stimulation by chewing on pens or hoodie strings, but this was something new entirely. Soft and firm and warm and so deeply intimate I could feel myself straining against my jeans in seconds. 

Rue pulled back to look at me, knuckles lifting to rub against my cheek. “You’re smiling.”

I touched my face on the other side, feeling the gentle dimpling of my cheek. “The facial expression randomiser got it right for once.”

“Is it random? I’ve never seen you smile like that.”

“Nothing in the whole world is actually random. But some things are complicated and confusing enough that it seems like it.”

“Mm,” Rue said, as he raked fingers through my hair, sending shivers through me—shivers that didn’t stop as cold wind cut through my sweater.

With his arm still around me, Rue guided me away from the railing, to the seating set back under the covered area of the lookout. It wasn’t much warmer, but the wind wasn’t quite as brutal. We sat down together and huddled in close, his arm around me and my head resting against his shoulder. It was a relief to learn he was a good hugger.

The last woman my dad dated before Wendy, Katrina, had been an awful hugger, made worse by the fact that she felt hugs were the appropriate response to every situation. Her hugs felt like grabbing, like restraint. My dad liked how touchy and exuberant she was, but I got so sick of it I stopped politely tolerating it and started dodging her affection. Despite that and my dad’s gentle attempts to mediate, it took me biting her before she got the message that I truly didn’t like it. People are very surprised when meek sixteen year olds bite them.

My dad never said what happened, but the relationship didn’t last very long after that. If it was my fault they broke up, I wasn’t sorry.

But Rue. Rue was a good hugger. It was one of those hugs where you were just holding onto one another, no plans to let go. Besides the part where I still halfway had a boner, it reminded me of the hugs my mum used to give me. Like snuggling up under a weighted blanket, but a million times more soothing.

I’d forgotten about the way my mum used to just hold me whenever the world got too big and loud, the two of us so in tune that having her with me, touching me, didn’t feel oppressive. I barely knew Rue at all, but there was something about him that echoed those feelings. Maybe it was just hormones trying to convince me how very right the smell of man was against my face to try to get me to fuck.

Eventually, I shifted just enough that I could tug my bag into my hands. “Want a biscuit?”

“Huh?” Rue asked, the word barely more than an exhale. He sounded as relaxed as I felt.

“A biscuit,” I repeated as I pulled the baggie I’d crammed full of them out of my bag. I cracked it open so that he could get a whiff and waved it near his face.

That woke him up enough to reach for one, keeping his other arm tucked securely around me so that he didn’t jostle me as he moved. He took a bite and then said around his mouthful of biscuit, “This is really good! Where did you get these?”

“I made them.”

“Wow, really?”

“It isn’t hard,” I said, only slightly defensive. Usually I really didn’t care how I came off to others, but Rue was different. I wanted him to understand the boundaries of my tangled mess of ability and disability.

“I wouldn’t know,” Rue replied, downing the rest of his biscuit in a single bite. “I’ve got to start stepping up, huh? First the plush, now homemade biscuits. I haven’t really done anything for you.”

“You saved my life, and then you almost died getting me that dragonfruit.”

“I didn’t almost die, and the closest I came was fucking around being an asshole, not helping you. And I didn’t save your life, either. There were plenty of places to climb up on the rocks that are above the tideline. You just maybe would have waited until your shoes started getting a little wetter.”

Maybe he was right or maybe he was wrong, and besides, there were other things he’d done—lend me his hoodie and help me get help from that girl and then get home. And he’d let me talk about my dead mum. But if he wouldn’t take my gratitude, he probably didn’t want it. I gave him another biscuit instead and took the last one for myself so that it wouldn’t be as obvious I was trying to fatten him up.

He inhaled the second one almost as quickly as the first one, which was impressive. There was so much sugar and butter and chocolate chips in them that they could be a little overwhelming.

I’d started shivering again. Rue chafed his hands up and down my arms, which didn’t do much through my clothes. “We should get you back. I’d forgotten how easy you get cold.”

“I don’t get cold easy. You’re just unreasonably hardy.”

He let out a quiet laugh as we stood from the bench. “I like the way you say things. Do you read a lot?”

I frowned. Did I say something weird? Well, as long as he liked it…

“Sometimes plants just need to sit and grow, so I needed a second hobby. I read a bit.”

“Yeah, me too,” Rue said. As we started our way back down the hill, he slipped his hand into mine again, his touch whisper soft and gentle. “But I feel like—I don’t know.”

I made a quiet sound of interest.

“It’s kind of hard sometimes because I’m not really out, so I have to worry about what other people will think about whatever I read. I mean, it’s not like it would all be gay shit, because I doubt there’s even that many books like that in our local library, but… in general, y’know?”

“Why are you in the closet?”

“Just my dad, I guess. Mostly. I guess your dad knows you’re… what, bi?”

I wrinkled my nose up. “What? No.”

“Uhh… which half of that am I getting wrong?”

I held up our linked hands and tried my best to communicate with a look how stupid of a question that was.

“Okay, yeah, but you spent five straight minutes checking out Brit’s tits, so you understand my confusion.”

“I wasn’t checking them out. They’re just interesting to look at.”

“Even if you are gay, you probably shouldn’t do that.”

“I know that,” I said, frustration edging into my voice. “My brain doesn’t automate many of these things, you know. I have to actively think about what I’m doing and what someone else will think of that, assuming I even know. And a lot of other things as well, at the same time. I was busy worrying about how I was going to get home.”

“Yeah, okay, sorry,” Rue said, giving my hand a squeeze. “I read, like, all the symptoms of autism and all that, but I guess I don’t really know what it’s like.”

“I don’t mind it, but being autistic is my full time job. Helping at the nursery is just a thing I do on the side with whatever energy I have left.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help…”

My eyebrows pinched. “With me being autistic?”

“I mean, I don’t know. In general.”

“I doubt it.”

“Okay, thanks,” he grumbled.

Was he offended? I guess it probably had come off as kind of mean.

“Just don’t worry about it,” I told him. 

I’d be leaving in a few days. I had mixed feelings about that, but the upside was that we didn’t need to get into the harsh realities of my disability too much. I could mask just enough to keep this fun for him, and then I could go home and sleep for a month. It would be worth it to have the memory of what another man’s lips felt like against mine.

He made an unhappy sound in the back of his throat. “It’s just, if it’s that important to you—if it’s that big a part of your life…”

“You might just have to forgive me for being awkward sometimes. That’s all.”

Which was ridiculously, outrageously not all—or at least not all autism was. But it was all I’d need from him, with any luck.

“Is it weird that I kind of like that you’re awkward?” Rue asked as we began crossing back through the park. “Well, not awkward exactly, but you know. Different.”

“Yeah, that is kind of weird,” I said. “But convenient.”

He laughed, which was okay because I had mostly been joking even though it was true that it was kind of weird but also convenient that he liked that I was “different,” as he put it. Not that I necessarily thought there wasn’t anything to like about me and the way that I was. 

Years after my mother’s death, when I thought back on what my mum had been like and listened to my dad tell stories about her, I’d started to realise she was probably autistic. She was eccentric and particular and so filled to bursting with passion for and knowledge of the things that interested her. Maybe nobody would have diagnosed her because she wasn’t all that disabled by it as far as I could tell, but she was “different” and I’d loved her for it. And so had my dad.

But unlike my mum, I was disabled. Really and truly. My autism wasn’t always quirky and charming. I’d probably never work a proper job or live independently.

Again, though, that really didn’t matter when we only had a couple more days left together. He didn’t need to worry about where I might be in life in five or ten or fifty years. He didn’t even really have to worry about the day to day complexities of disability. All he needed to do was kiss me and hold my hand, and he was very good at that.