-Flynn-
Many years ago…
I couldn’t get comfortable. My mother hadn’t changed my sheets this week and they are rough on my arms and legs. I hate them. They hurt. I don’t want to roll over because then I’ll feel the fabric.
So I lie there in my bed, rigid, staring up at my ceiling.
I don’t sleep.
I can’t. Not with the sheets touching me.
I was staring a new school tomorrow.
Everything would be new.
I didn’t like new.
I wanted to be back in Massachusetts where everything was the same. Especially my house.
The bathroom was two doors down on the left. The light switch was just inside on the right wall. My room was brown with a green border. My bed was beside the closet. The stairs had exactly twelve steps.
It was the house I had lived in my entire life. It was the last place I had been with Dad before he went to heaven.
I didn’t like West Virginia. I didn’t like the house we live in now that I don’t recognize.
Here the bathroom is beside mine and it confuses me. My room is blue not brown. And there are fourteen steps. I hate counting them. Because it isn’t right.
It makes me anxious.
My mom tells me to stop being silly. She says that this is a fresh start. I don’t understand what that means.
I start rubbing my hands back and forth. Back and forth. Down my hands and back up again. Running over the smooth skin. Over and over again.
I lie there until I can’t take the feel of the sheets anymore. I rip them off my bed and throw them out the window. That makes me feel better.
My mother comes in to see what the noise is. When she sees my window wide open and the sheets and blankets gone, she gets me some new ones and makes up the bed again.
These sheets feel much better.
But I still can’t sleep.
So I lie there rubbing my hands. Over and over.
Until the sun comes up.
Wellsburg High School is much bigger than my last one. There were people everywhere.
“Stop rubbing your hands, Flynn,” my mother said as she pulls into the parking lot of my new school.
Telling me to stop only makes me rub them harder.
Up and down. Over and over again.
My mother reaches out to take my hand but I pull away. I hate when she touches me. She usually didn’t. I don’t like it.
“Flynn, please try and make an effort to get along with the other kids. Let’s make this time different,” she said with a sound in her voice I didn’t understand.
Her eyes are wet and I frown. Why was she crying?
I rub my hands a little harder.
My mother let out a breath and got out of the car. She opens my door and I slowly get out, making sure not to touch the rough fabric of the seat with my bare skin.
I follow her up the steps to the front door of the school.
I keep my eyes down. I don’t want to look at anyone.
I rub my hands again.
It is really noisy. Too much noise. And the lights are bright. Too bright.
It was better once we are in the office. It is quieter and I stop rubbing my hands.
My mom fills out some paperwork and I wait, not looking at anyone, though I can’t take my eyes off the tiny statue of a pyramid on the secretary’s desk. I reach out and poke it with my finger. It doesn’t look like the pictures I have seen in my books. It isn’t right.
I like looking at pictures of different places and then drawing them. I like the details.
“It has a crack in it. And the color is all wrong,” I said to the woman I haven’t looked at yet.
My mom makes a noise and swats my finger away from the pyramid. I touch it again anyway.
“It’s ugly. And it’s all wrong. That’s not how they’re supposed to look,” I said flatly. I tell the truth. It doesn’t look like a pyramid. I can make one a thousand times better than that.
The woman behind the desk clears her throat and reaches out to pick up the tiny pyramid and tuck it into her drawer so I can’t see it anymore.
“I’m so sorry. He has Asperger’s. He has trouble communicating,” my mother said and I feel the woman behind the desk looking at me. I don’t like the way she looks at me. People always look at me when my mom says that.
“Principal Higgins will be with you shortly,” the secretary said, her voice sounding funny and tight.
“Flynn. We talked about this. Remember what Dr. Johnson told you about not always saying what’s in your head?” my mother said quietly.
I remember. There isn’t much I don’t remember.
I start rubbing my hands again. Harder this time.
My mother makes another noise. She did that a lot. “Is there something in your throat?” I asked her.
She closes her eyes and I wonder if she is tired.
She reaches out and touches my hand. I don’t like feeling her touch me. My skin doesn’t like it. I pull away.
“Stop rubbing your hands, Flynn,” she said and I know she is mad. Dr. Johnson had shown me pictures of faces and told me what they were feeling. Right now my mom’s face looks like the guy with the angry expression.
The principal comes out and introduces himself. He holds his hand out for me to take.
I don’t.
My mom explained I had Asperger’s syndrome. The principal was looking at me like they all looked at me.
They talk a little more about giving me an individualized Education Plan with a focus on my behavior. I hear what he is saying, I just don’t get it. What is wrong with my behavior?
Then we are done and I am given a slip of paper with my schedule on it. My mom bites her lip and her eyes are getting watery again.
“Do you need me to walk you to your first class?” she asks me. The principal puts a hand on my shoulder and I push it away.
“Don’t touch me,” I said.
Principal Higgins clears his throat. “I’ll make sure he gets to his class. Don’t worry, Mrs. Hendrick.”
Before my mother leaves she says, “Be nice. Try to get along with people. This is our fresh start.”
I start rubbing my hands again.
There is a girl in my class with bright purple hair. She sits in front of me. Her hair is long and brushes the top of my desk.
I don’t like that.
I take my pencil and push the strands away, careful not to touch them.
She slouches down in her chair, her hair falling on top of my desk again.
“Move your hair,” I said loudly.
People are looking at me. They always look at me.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Hendrick?” the teacher, Mr. Goodwin, asks me. He is ugly with a bald spot on the back of his head. He made me stand in front of the room while he told everyone who I was. I didn’t like them looking at me. I told him he smelled like beer.
He let me sit down after that.
I hate when people looked at me. I put my head down and poke at her hair with my pencil again.
The girl turns around and her lips curl up. Was she smiling at me? Maybe she was nice. Maybe we’d be friends.
It would be nice to have a friend. I don’t think I ever had one before.
“What the f*ck is your problem?” she asks, her lips still looking like a smile.
I frown, not understanding her question.
“Your hair was on my desk,” I said. She is pretty. I like the way she looked. Except for the metal in her eyebrow and her nose. Those aren’t pretty. Why did she put them there?
I point at the ring in her bottom lip. “Why did you do that?” I ask her.
The girl’s lip curls again. I can’t tell if she is smiling now.
“None of your business, freak,” she spits out.
I rock back in my seat. She isn’t smiling. She doesn’t want to be my friend. She is really mean.
I put my head down and tuck my hands into my lap, rubbing them furiously.
“What are you doing? Jerking off?” she asked me, her voice sounding not nice at all.
She leans down and looks under my desk to where I am rubbing my hands. Up and down. Over and over again.
“F*cking freak,” she hisses before turning around. And then she lifts her long purple hair and drapes it all over my desk.
I try poking it with my pencil but she keeps shaking it back in place. It covers my book and papers.
“Move your hair!” I yell, knocking my book off the desk and onto the floor.
The room is silent.
Everyone is looking at me.
I hate when they look at me.
“Mr. Hendrick, I think you need to leave,” Mr. Goodwin said, pointing to the door. Keeping my head down I leave the room. But I look at the purple haired girl before I do.
This time I know she is smiling at me.