Ethan

I had miscalculated, badly.

Well, okay, I hadn’t really been calculating at all. Which was the problem. My dick had proposed the idea of taking things a little tiny bit further, and I’d gone for it because I’d probably never get another chance to, and, well…

Honestly, it hadn’t been bad. Not something I’d ever brag about, not a thing of great romance epics, but I couldn’t claim I hadn’t enjoyed that one minute of passionate making out and grinding… or the way it’d ended.

What I hadn’t taken into consideration was that the whole thing was a lot to process. It was a very emotionally dense one minute of make outs and grinding, okay. Every look and every touch was seared into my mind, playing on repeat. Was that a good thing? Was it a bad thing? That barely mattered. What mattered was that it was a lot.

And that might’ve been okay, but Rue was still right there, expecting me to be a human being. Being a human being was also quite a bit of work. I was spiralling, but I had no way to explain myself because my ability to communicate was always the first pillar to fall. It was still falling, actually, deteriorating further and further until finally I’d reached the point where I was now: shut in the bathroom because I knew if I even tried to look at him, all he’d get was this deer in the headlights stare that would definitely freak him out.

Although from the gentle tap on the door and Rue’s soft voice asking if I was okay, it seemed like I’d managed to do that anyway. Which was, annoyingly, unavoidable. Even if I’d managed to find my voice enough to tell him I was done being social for the day earlier, how would that have sounded to a neurotypical person right after we’d done… that? He still would have thought something was wrong. And, Rue being Rue, he would have blamed himself.

At this point, though, I had zero ability to communicate with him, so I did the only thing I could think of. I called my dad, opened the door just a crack, and shoved my phone into Rue’s hand just as my dad picked up.

“Oh, uh, hi. It’s, uh. It’s Rue,” I heard Rue say through the door, which annoyed me just a little because there’d been the whole thing where he’d introduced himself to me and my dad by different names, and now he was calling himself Rue to my dad as well, so what the fuck? 

“I think maybe Ethan’s had enough of me and he wants me to go, but… I don’t know?” Rue continued. “He’s been quiet, but I don’t really know what’s wrong.” He paused. “No, it’s okay. I can get the bus.” Another pause. “Uh, yeah. Alright. I’ll see you in a bit.”

There was a long moment of silence before Rue tapped on the door again. “Your dad’s gonna come drive me home. I’ll just leave your phone out here, okay?”

I nodded to myself, because that was the closest I could come to actually responding, and after a few more seconds he walked away.

I grabbed my phone before quickly shutting the door again. I wished I could at least send Rue a text, tell him something, but words just weren’t working at all. Every time I tried to think about what I would say, everything went panicky and scrambled. 

I knew my limitations and mostly I was fine with them, but it could be incredibly distressing when they crossed over with other people who ended up getting hurt by them. I hated being rude or hurtful, but I didn’t always get a choice. If a situation demanded a response, and I couldn’t give one, what was I supposed to do?

Maybe the answer was that I shouldn’t have been doing things that might put me in a situation like this in the first place, like kissing boys and having friends. That was the kind of thing nobody ever said to me, but I suspected it might be the right answer all the same. I couldn’t be a good friend. I definitely couldn’t be a good anything more-than-friend. So it was mean to put Rue through all this.

But then, all this would be over in a couple of days, so there wasn’t really any point in dwelling on it.

My dad must have already been on the way home, because it was less than twenty minutes before I heard the sounds of the front door opening and muffled conversation. My dad’s footsteps down the hall were a lot heavier than Rue’s, and not just because he weighed more. My dad had a presence. Rue seemed to try to shrink his almost as much as I did.

The knock on the door was a lot less tentative as well, though no less gentle. I let my dad in.

I kept my gaze aimed off to the side as my dad looked me up and down, hands planted on his hips. “Done socialising for the day?”

I nodded.

“Alright,” he said. “Anything I need to know about? Did he cross any boundaries, push too far…”

I gave an adamant shake of my head, even making eye contact just so that he knew I really meant it. None of this was Rue’s fault.

“Just making sure,” my dad assured me. “You’ve really been stepping outside of your comfort zone, spending all this time with someone else. I’m not surprised you reached your limit, but you should still be proud of yourself for trying.”

I would’ve been prouder of myself if I’d managed my limits responsibly and not caused this whole mess, but neurotypical people loved the thrill of constant challenge and growth—the greater the risk of traumatic failure, the better! It was amazing how many times this man could watch me crash and burn without realising that it was almost never as productive as stability. Not that he didn’t go to all kinds of lengths to support my stability, so I knew he kind of got it, but it still made him all excited whenever I extended myself.

“I’ll go drive Rue home,” my dad said. “Wendy’ll be here in case you need anything, okay?”

I nodded. I didn’t know what I could possibly need or how I’d even communicate that to Wendy, but again—my dad was neurotypical. There were certain patterns of care his brain just locked into no matter how little sense they made. It was sweet, like a dog licking your tears when you were sad.

My thoughts started pingponging as soon as my dad left the room, doing a mental review of everything, all at once. That was how I realised I’d forgotten something very important.

Rue and my dad were still in the living room, heading for the door, when I burst in. I rushed up to Rue and pressed a hand to his shoulder, hoping he’d somehow understand that as a request to wait, and then hurried off to the kitchen where I emptied an entire plastic wrap covered plate of biscuits into a plastic bag. 

Either Rue had correctly interpreted my nonverbal communication or he’d just been stunned by my bizarre behaviour, because he was still where I’d left him. I shoved the bag of biscuits into his hands and walked away while he was still stuttering out a confused thank you.