Carry the Ocean

by Heidi Cullinan

  I could kiss him on the couch. If it turned out he was gay too. And wanted to date me, not just be best friends.

  “I wonder if there are a lot of parties in those apartments. That might not be good for your autism. Or me either.”

  No. Parties would be terrible. I hummed and rocked harder. This was a tricky problem. I would have to think about it and do some investigating—but I wanted it to work.

  As I sat rocking and humming, a group of guys walked by, and I heard one murmur, “Fucking freaks.”

  I shut my eyes so I could focus on controlling my anger.

  I understand I can’t lash out when someone calls me a name. Every now and again it would happen to me when I was with Jeremey, though, and it upset me. I hated not defending myself in front of my best friend who I wanted to be my boyfriend. It made me frustrated and angry and embarrassed.

  “What assholes,” Jeremey said.

  I felt better knowing he hated them too. “I shouldn’t have rocked and hummed. That’s why they said something.”

  “Why can’t you rock and hum? You were thinking. That helps you. People have funny little tics all the time. What’s so bad about yours?”

  All my feelings swelled up. They were good feelings, but sometimes those make it more difficult for me to talk. If I’d been with my family, I’d have made one of my signs, but I hadn’t taught them to Jeremey. So I got out my phone. He never seemed to mind when I texted him instead of talking out loud.

  Jeremey, this is Emmet. You are a wonderful friend. Thank you.

  Jeremey smiled when he read that, and he leaned toward me as if he were going to put his head on my shoulder. I went still, not sure if I wanted him to do that or not. Before I could decide, though, he sat up straight, very quickly. He texted back.

  This is Jeremey. You’re a wonderful friend too. I’ll talk to my parents about the apartments. That would be so awesome, if it worked. But don’t do it if you think it would be bad for your autism.

  Normally I was okay with my autism, but right then I hated it. All I could think about was how if I weren’t autistic, I could live in the dorms with Jeremey. That was bad logic, because if I didn’t have autism, my family wouldn’t have moved to a new city so they could be with me as I went to school, and I likely wouldn’t have met Jeremey at all. I wouldn’t be me, either.

  But it wasn’t fair that autism made it so hard to be roommates with Jeremey.

  When I asked Mom about getting an apartment, I wore my Stitch T-shirt, which was code for my question being important to me.

  I have signs and codes I use with my family and they use with me. I can’t always understand subtleties of vocal inflections, and of course faces are impossible, and Mom says this is where communication usually breaks down. She says it’s why the Internet is full of misunderstandings. I actually do well on the Internet, but maybe that’s because I don’t rely on verbal and visual cues for comprehension.

  When I talk to people in real life, though, they expect me to act like non-autistic people, and Mom says even she forgets not to assume. So we worked out the code. I have shirts that mean different things, and when I wear them, everyone knows I’m feeling something in a big way. We have hand signs so Mom can tell me in public if I’m rude, and she stops me from making everyone mad by accident. When I’m overwhelmed, sometimes talking is hard, so we all learned American Sign Language long ago, which is so handy. Everyone should learn it as a second language, really.

  My Stitch shirt says ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind. I wear that one when I want to talk about something important to me. So when I sat her in our talking chairs in the living room and she saw me in that shirt, she didn’t tell me she didn’t think it was a good idea to get an apartment or remind me of what the dorms were like. She said, “Tell me more about why this is important to you, Emmet.”

  I had practiced my reasons with notecards in my room, and I wrote an essay about it I could have read aloud or handed to her, but I wanted to show her how hard I was trying and did it the talking way instead. “Jeremey is my best friend. He’s nervous about going to college, but his parents are making him. I think his depression is as nervous about being in the dorm as my autism is. Also I think he has an anxiety brain octopus he doesn’t know about. Plus I want to live in an apartment with him like a regular college student. Frederiksen Court has on-site dining and groceries. It is the perfect place for us to start our independent living experience.”

  “Sweetheart, do they have openings this late in the year?”

  I didn’t know, and I worried about that. We would want the two-person two-bedroom, which the site said was very limited. They capitalized and bolded the word very, so they were serious. “Mom, I need to do this.”

  “I understand. Unfortunately the world doesn’t always work itself out simply because we need it to be a certain way.” She rubbed her leg as she leaned back in her chair. “This is a sticky one, sweetie. I’m not sure you’re ready for a regular apartment, even on campus. You work hard and you try, but when you get frustrated by something, you need help in a hurry. We would do our best to prop you up, but it’s not as easy when you don’t live upstairs. Maybe we could talk to your dad about finally turning the basement into an apartment.”

  “I don’t like the basement. It smells funny.”

  “Your choices might be the basement or nowhere, honey.”

  “Then I want to live in the dorm. We can find a quiet one.”

  Mom sighed. “I appreciate how much you want this. Please remember I want this for you too. I can promise I’ll start looking into options as soon as we’re done talking. But I need you to understand it might take a long time, and my solution might not be the exact answer you want.”

  I understood the logic of what she said, but it made me angry and sad. I thought of the guys calling me freak, of how something like that always happened if I was myself in public. I thought about how nervous Jeremey had been when he asked about living together, because he wanted this as much as me, and he needed help.

  I don’t like to hate myself, and hating my autism is hating myself, but right then I was so angry, I wanted to be a different person. I worried Jeremey’s parents would send him away to Iowa City and we’d stop being friends. I worried he would meet someone not autistic and like them better. I hadn’t seen his friend Bart tag him on Instagram or come to his house, and Jeremey never talked about him, but I always worried Bart would take Jeremey away. I thought of all the not-autistic Barts at college who would be brave enough to tell Jeremey they were gay and maybe try to kiss him.

  “Emmet.” Mom’s voice was gentle, and she put her hand by my leg, her way of touching me without adding sensation. “I know how you feel about Jeremey. I know how important he is to you, and that’s why this hurts so much, not being able to give him what he asks.” She held her hand out flat, her sign for I need you to listen to this part. “I am your advocate. I watch for you and fight for you even when you don’t notice. I know you’re upset, and I think you need some quality time with the foam hammer once we’re done talking. But don’t you let those bad voices tell you I’m not helping you.”

  I know she’s my advocate, and I’m glad. But I was so angry. Maybe my face didn’t show it, but inside I felt like fire and sadness. “I’m too different, Mom. I don’t want to be so different.”

  “Everyone’s different. Some people are more able to shove their differences into the dark, to blend in and be sheep, but that isn’t always a good thing.”

  “I’d rather be a sheep than be alone.”

  “But that’s the big secret. The sheep are more alone than everyone.”

  She was right. But I was still pissed off and wanted the world to stop getting in my way. “You’re right. I need to go use my hammer.”

  “And I need to go make some phone calls. Can I have a hug, jujube?”

  I a
m not a fruit from China, which is what a jujube is, and I was too angry for hugs. But can I have a hug, jujube is my mom’s code for when she needs a hug. She’s a mom with lots of superpowers, but she says they’re powered by hugs.

  I really needed her superpowers at full blast right now. So I hugged her and let her kiss my hair, which she also cried on.

  I did not cry. I went upstairs, got my foam hammer from the closet and pounded on the bed and yelled for fifteen minutes. I said a lot of bad words.

  When I was done, I did some algebra. It’s always soothing. I can’t live in the dorms and I can’t stop people from calling me a freak, but I can always solve for X.

  Chapter Six

  Jeremey

  By the end of July, I was registered for classes at Iowa State, and my parents and I fought all the time.

  I felt as if everything they asked me to do was impossible, but even when I did it anyway, my efforts were never enough. I let them register me for classes, but I got in trouble for not taking initiative in getting school supplies or furnishing my impending dorm room. My dorm room where I’d live without Emmet. He’d told me, gaze fixed on the floor, that he was sorry, but his autism wouldn’t let him handle a dorm or a campus apartment.

  “My mom is looking into other options,” he assured me. “She says to sit tight. She has a lead.”

  I wanted her to have a lead, more than I could express with mere words, but until it became a reality, I had to assume I’d be living in a dorm with a stranger, and I had to prepare. According to my mother, I wasn’t prepared remotely enough, and when she got tired of waiting for me to take care of things, she took charge. She dragged me to Target after yelling at me for an hour about responsibility, but I think I would have had a panic attack in the middle of the college prep aisle even if she’d smiled and told me it would all be okay.

  Don’t think she held my hand afterward, though. She shouted at me the whole way home.

  “How could you embarrass me like that? Everyone was looking at us. Everyone looked at me, as if it were somehow my fault.”

  I felt guilty, though she was the reason I got upset. She made me go. I couldn’t do the large discount grocery store or any store bigger than Wheatsfield, and some days it was too much. But I hate disappointing anyone, and I hated the way everyone looked at me too. I despised that I couldn’t walk farther than the greeting cards in Target without hyperventilating, but it didn’t matter how I tried, I always broke down.

  I broke down all the time now, even at home. Not often with Emmet, but we had to stop walking on campus, because it only made me think of how awful living there would be without him, and I would get a panic attack.

  “I think you should not go to college yet,” Emmet said. “I think you should talk to my mom about medicine. She could prescribe it for you.”

  He was right. But I always told him I didn’t want to talk about medicine. Honestly, part of me wanted to go be a mess at school, to show my parents how wrong they were.

  Then I would realize how many strangers would see me break down, and I’d have another panic attack. So mostly I tried not to think about school at all.

  Marietta worried about me, I could tell. She didn’t tell me I should take medication, but she gave me lots of attention every time I was over, assuring me she was looking into alternate housing for Emmet and me, that she was making me an extra-special going-to-school care package. Books began to appear on the Kindle I always borrowed from her too. The Noonday Demon. Shoot the Damn Dog. From Panic to Power. They were books about depression and anxiety.

  I didn’t read them.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want help. I did, but mostly I wanted my parents to stop pushing me, and I didn’t see how me taking drugs or reading was going to change them. I needed them to take drugs or read books or at least listen to me.

  They didn’t listen, no matter what I said or did, no matter how bad my panic attacks became. But one day, my sister called me.

  Jan lives in Chicago, and she rarely comes home. My mother complains about this all the time, how whenever she calls Jan, my sister doesn’t answer. In Jan’s defense, Mom never asks Jan about her life, only complains about her own. I wouldn’t answer her calls either, if I were Jan.

  Jan doesn’t call us, ever, and she never calls me. But that day she did, when I was sitting out back waiting for Emmet to be done with class.

  “Hey, little brother. How are things?”

  “Fine,” I said, though they were anything but. Nobody ever wants to know about bad things.

  “I hear you’re nervous about starting college. And you’ve been having more panic attacks. You’re worrying me, Germ.”

  My whole body went hot with embarrassment. How did Jan know all this? Her calling me my old nickname didn’t make it any better. “I’ll be fine.” I didn’t believe that, but I didn’t want yet another person fussing over me. I didn’t understand why Jan was. She never did.

  But that day, she wouldn’t stop. “I know I’m bad about keeping up with the family. I’m sorry for that. I can’t handle Mom, so I stay away, but that means I accidentally ignore you. Are you really okay? Do you need me to come home, run interference for you?”

  I didn’t know what to say. She wanted to come home and help me? I wanted that, yeah, but this whole thing felt weird, and it made me nervous. And embarrassed, that she’d have to bother with me. “I’m okay. Sorry to bother you.”

  “Hon, you aren’t bothering me. I care about you. I want to know what’s going on with you. I don’t want our parents to drive you out of your mind, and I know from firsthand experience that’s a real possibility. Are you seeing someone about all these panic attacks? Are you taking anything, medicine to help?”

  Why was everyone acting like I was sick? Like I had a heart condition, not a stupid habit of being upset in public and easily overwhelmed by life? “I’m fine,” I told her again. And again.

  Eventually she stopped asking, and Emmet started to text me from the bus, so I told her I had to go.

  “Okay, but I’m going to keep checking up on you,” Jan said.

  I was glad she warned me. I told myself I wouldn’t be so surprised next time she called, and I’d have better lies prepared.

  Two days after Jan’s call, Marietta showed up at my house.

  She had a cute wicker basket full of banana bread and cookies and a glass bottle of fancy mineral water, and she sat in the kitchen with my mom for an hour, talking about nothing in particular, so I went to my room. But after Marietta went home, Mom was all flushed and happy. The day after, Mom and Marietta went to lunch at the fancy new place in Somerset, and another day they had coffee downtown together at Chocolaterie Stam.

  A few days later, Mom suggested I have Emmet over to our house for a change.

  She was nervous about it, I could tell, but Marietta had gone on her charm offensive, and she played my mom like a violin. I overheard their discussion on the screened-in porch before the visit. Marietta was telling my mom what to expect with Emmet. “He gets nervous in a new place, and usually I go with him when we try a new environment, but he’s insisting on doing this on his own. I’ve told him the condition for coming over alone is he cannot lose his temper. So if something makes him angry, he’ll probably withdraw for a few minutes without telling you anything. If he’s doing well, he’ll tell you calmly that he’s angry. But he’s likely far from calm. He’s a good boy, though, and he works hard. I’m sure everything will be fine, but if you have any troubles, you have my cell number.”

  It was huge that Mom was considering having Emmet over. He made her nervous. Incredibly nervous.

  But she was polite when he came to visit, and so was he. He knocked on the door, only rocked while he waited for me to answer, and he presented my mom with a bouquet of flowers from the co-op, which won her over though he didn’t meet her eye while he presented them. He told her, wit
hout looking around, that she had a nice home and he was happy to be there. I knew him well enough to know this was all rehearsed.

  “I want to see your room, Jeremey,” he told me after a little while, and he also tapped two fingers on his thigh in a pattern. He had told me about this—he and his mother had a series of signs and silent exchanges they used to tell each other things without letting anyone else know. The one on the patio that first day I’d gone to his house—her two fingers, his three—was her reprimanding him for rudeness and him acknowledging and apologizing. The two fingers on his thigh meant he was nervous and needed to leave the room, but he didn’t want to say it out loud.

  I rose from the couch and led him to the stairs. “Sure. It’s this way.”

  He followed me up the stairs without a word. I was looking forward to having him in my room, to show him my things, to be in my space. I’d been to his house many times now, and we’d spent many afternoons in his room. But this would be the first time he’d be in mine.

  When I opened the door, though, he took one look inside and jerked, then withdrew into the far corner of the hallway, putting his face to the wall.

  I approached him cautiously. “Emmet? What’s wrong?”

  He held his body rigid, his face hidden from view. “I can’t speak right now.”

  Nerves tangled in my belly. “Why not?”

  His neck and arms were tight with tension, and he screwed his eyes shut. “I’m angry. I promised I wouldn’t get angry.”

  I felt hot and cold, as if someone had put poison in my heart and it had spread into my arms and legs. “Why are you angry? At me?”

  “Yes. Please leave me alone.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I felt sick—this was pretty much my worst fear, that I would upset someone I cared for but I wouldn’t know why, that I would upset Emmet and I wouldn’t be able to fix it. I could feel a panic attack coming, which would make things worse, but I couldn’t stop it. I went to the other corner of the hall, sat down and curled my knees to my chest with my forehead on my arms while I tried to breathe.