This is nothing like those other times, when David’s honesty felt good and refreshing: air, underwater. This time, it’s sharp and cold and precise, like being stabbed, and he whips my dad’s singing right out of my ears.
People at the other tables can hear us. I’m sure of it. I need him to stop talking; I need to undo whatever it is I’ve started. The world begins to spin, and his face morphs from handsome to cruel. I fold over myself. “You were driving, right? Your dad was the passenger. It all makes sense! You’re exactly sixty-four inches tall. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it until now!”
He sounds perversely excited. Like this is one for the win column. Like I should high-five him in celebration: Yay, David! You figured it out—I killed my dad!
“Please, stop. Let’s not…” I am begging. I can’t do this. I can’t. Not here. Not like this, with his maniacal grin and booming, self-congratulatory voice. I understand my mother’s lies. The truth is too ugly. I want to put our string back in my pocket. What was I thinking?
Help me, Dad.
I was mistaken.
I was mistaken.
I wanted David to tell me that nothing could have been done to stop the car in time.
I wanted David to exonerate me.
I did not want this.
“I don’t understand why you lied to me, Kit,” David says, and then his face morphs again, and now he sounds accusatory. There is no warmth to be found. Not even a sliver of compassion or humanity. He’s Hannibal Lecter sitting down to an ice cream bowl full of my insides.
“Please…Please stop.” But my words are lost to the Formica table. I cannot lift my head. The tears flood my face, but I am not crying anymore. I am what happens after crying.
So I held my head down and cried.
Where are you, Dad? Where did you go? I can’t hear his voice. It is gone.
“How could you, Kit?” David demands, as if this has anything to do with him.
“David—”
“You’re like everyone else. A liar. You were driving that night. It was you. You lied!” David shouts, and then, like in a horror movie, because that’s what this has become, my very worst nightmare, everything goes quiet.
Someone drops their fork. I hear an audible gasp.
I had stupidly expected a soft landing. Not free fall.
I was wrong yet again, because of course I haven’t yet hit bottom. Here it is. Even colder, darker, lonelier than you’d expect.
I was mistaken.
I turn my head and that’s when I notice: Gabriel and Willow in a booth right next to us, eating pancakes covered in whipped cream. The kind of food happy, simple people get to eat.
They’ve heard every single word.
I figured the puzzle out. I did exactly what Kit asked. But it was a setup. A wild goose chase. A lie. Her lie.
McCormick’s goes quiet and then there’s a collective gasp. A man I’ve never seen before unfolds his long legs from a nearby booth, comes over to our table. I am supposed to get up and move out of the way, though I don’t know why. Kit is leaving open too many questions: Why didn’t she trust me with the truth? And doesn’t she want to know the math? I have hard numbers for her. Comforting facts and calculations. I stayed up all night for this.
The man puts his arms around Kit and starts to walk her out of the restaurant. The whole thing happens so quickly, I almost miss it. Kit doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t say anything except “Jack?” like it’s a question, even though it’s clearly not, because that must be the man’s name. He looks like a Jack.
I hate him.
“I got you, Kitty Cat,” he says. Kitty Cat is the perfect nickname for her because cats are confusing and creepily smart and can contort themselves. I can see a cat using the sleeves of a sweater like gloves.
“Wait!” I say, but they don’t stop. Kit looks back at me, one last shocked look, and I see that her face is wet and pale, and for the first time I can read her eyes, even though I don’t want to.
And then, only then, when I force myself to make eye contact, do I finally understand what has happened. How and how much I have broken.
—
“Oh crap,” Miney says when I tell her the whole story. I ran home from McCormick’s, so discombobulated I left my car parked in the lot. I am cold and wet from rain and my body is shaking. I’m trying not to lose it, because losing it won’t help.
I don’t let myself think about pi. I do not deserve its numbing relief. I also don’t allow myself to think about Kit’s face, because it hurts too much. Like being irradiated.
“I mean, I was so nervous, I forgot rule number four. Think about the situation from the other person’s perspective. Everyone there heard, Miney. Everyone. What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Miney says in a quiet voice.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You have to know. You have to help me,” I say, my voice thick with panic.
“I’m not sure I can. Let me get this straight. First, you smiled like you did something good? And then you started yelling at her and accused her of killing her father and other people heard you?”
I nod, too ashamed to explain the sequencing of events. I was happy to solve the puzzle and then heartbroken to learn about the lie and then, too late, always too late, I realized I was seeing everything upside down.
“I screwed up,” I say. I notice that Miney’s suitcase, which has been open and throwing up clothes all over her floor for the past two weeks, is zipped closed and next to the door. She is fully dressed. Her hair is combed, and she smells fresh. “Wait? You’re leaving? Like right now?”
“In a couple of hours. I told you I was going. I’ve been giving you warnings in daily intervals just like you asked.”
“But, Miney, you can’t go. I need you to fix this.”
“I can’t always fix things for you. Honestly, I have to get back to school. I have my own things to fix, David—”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Okay, sorry, Little D. I don’t know if she’ll forgive you, but I think you know what you need to do. You don’t need my help the same way you used to.”
“Of course I do. Today demonstrates that I absolutely, unequivocally need your help.”
“No. Today demonstrates that you are still you and you’ll occasionally make Aspie mistakes.” She takes a quick breath—we’ve never used the term Aspie between us. And yet of course the word fits so much better than David. I’m not sure why I’ve resisted it for so long. So Asperger’s is no longer in the DSM. It doesn’t mean it’s not at least somewhat descriptive of me. “But look how quickly you figured out what you did wrong. The old you might have not even noticed Kit was upset. Or might have insisted that she was being overly sensitive. You’re getting better at this empathy thing. Like anything else, it requires practice.”
“Not for you.”
“Well, don’t tell Dad, but I’m basically flunking physics, so you know, we all have things to work on. Apparently, though, you can learn anything in ten thousand hours.”
“So in one point one four years I might be normal?”
“Nah. Probably not.” She smiles at me, squeezes my arm. “But normal is way overrated. Believe me.”
“I need to apologize to Kit.”