At the end of the afternoon, as we’re getting ready to go, Ethan asks us when we’re planning to come back for another visit.
“Whatever you think,” David says. “Do you want us to come back soon?”
“Yes,” Ethan says. “But you don’t have to come for so long. I didn’t get to do some stuff with my friends today that I wanted to do. But it’s okay. I’m still glad you came.”
“We’ll come for a shorter visit next time.”
“Then come back soon. For just a little while.”
“You got it,” David says, and the brothers embrace briefly. I give Ethan a hug too and say goodbye.
“Hey,” I say to David as we continue on to the car, “you know what I just realized?”
“What?”
“Ivy turns twenty-one in a month. If she comes with us to visit Ethan after that, they’ll have to let us take him off campus!”
“Wait,” he says, halting. “That’s, like, totally brilliant.”
“I know, right?”
“You may actually deserve to be my girlfriend.”
“Jerk,” I say.
“Blonde,” he says.
On the drive back, he holds my hand tightly whenever he doesn’t need his hand to steer. “Thank you for coming with me,” he says when we’re close to home.
“You’re welcome.”
“And for keeping me from making a mess of everything.”
“It’s a full-time job.”
“Then why do it?”
“I don’t know. I must like something about you.”
“Well, don’t stop.”
“I won’t.” I hesitate and then say, “That place . . .”
“What?”
“It was pretty nice. Maybe your folks knew what they were doing.”
“They just got lucky.”
“Maybe.” His father had said they’d chosen carefully. I’d dismissed that as the kind of thing he would say whether it was true or not. But maybe he’d meant it. “It’s good, is all.”
“Yeah.” There’s a moment of silence. “Guess I should start looking at colleges,” he says abruptly.
“Yeah—?you can go anywhere now.”
“I’d still like to be within driving distance of that place so I can visit Ethan a lot and be there if anything goes seriously wrong.”
“I’ll look nearby too. Maybe we can both end up near our siblings and—” I stop.
“And?”
“I don’t want to presume.”
“If you think I don’t want us to be near each other next year—”
“Then what?”
“Then I take back calling you brilliant.”
“Ugh,” I say.
“What?”
“This whole liking each other thing. It’s disgusting.”
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s totally outside my comfort zone.”
“We could stop. You could crawl back into your hole—”
“And abandon you to a meaningless life of high social status and handsome boyfriends?” He shakes his head. “I’d never be that cruel to you.”
“Then I guess we’ll just keep going on like this.”
“Yeah,” he says. “It sucks but it’s the right thing to do.”
Thirty-Nine
I POST A PHOTO of the two of us on Instagram, which David says is the “most basic thing” I’ve ever done. “The fact that I’m dating someone who even has an Instagram account—”
“We can’t all be antisocial psychopaths,” I respond sweetly.
Unfortunately, it’s a sentiment shared by many of my friends.
“No one likes him,” Sarah tells me bluntly one day. “It’s not like we’re not trying. But he says stuff like that thing today, and you have to admit, it’s just rude.”
I know what she’s referring to. I’d made David sit with me and my friends at lunch. People were having a lively debate about the meaning and the usage of the word feminism, and David brought the entire conversation to an abrupt halt by saying, “A feminist is someone who believes in equal rights for women, so you’re either a feminist or you’re an idiot.”
“He was kind of right,” I point out.
“It’s not what he says, it’s how he says it. Can’t you get him to at least pretend not to think that everyone else is a moron?”
“Believe me, if I could, I would.”
“Don’t get mad at me for asking this, but why do you like him? I mean, I know you guys have the autistic sibling thing in common, but that can’t be the whole story.”
“It’s not.” I want to explain, but it’s not easy. “You know that viral video that everyone was into a few years ago? About the lion who gets reunited with the guy who raised him as a cub? And the lion, like, licks him and hugs him and plays with him? And it’s amazing?”
She raises her eyebrows. “You saying David’s a lion?”
“It’s just . . . it’s easy to get a dog to love you. But it’s a lot harder—?and cooler—?to get a lion to. Especially if you’re the only person he doesn’t attack.”
“I hope there’s a sexual metaphor somewhere in this whole lion thing,” Sarah says. “Because, honestly, that’s the only reason that would actually make sense to me.”
“I don’t think either of us has a problem with you leaping to that assumption,” I say with an exaggerated wink.
“Seriously,” she says. “Calling him a lion . . . I have issues with this.”
“It’s just a metaphor.”
“I know. But I don’t want you to be involved with someone who could hurt you.”
“He wouldn’t. Not ever. He thinks the world is a shitty place, but he also thinks I’m the best thing in it. Well, me and his brother.”
“Great,” she says. “Now you’re making me jealous. I’m jealous of your relationship with David Fields. Could I be a bigger loser?”
“I’m not even telling you the best parts.”
“Good,” she says. “Spare me.”