Carry the Ocean

by Heidi Cullinan

  For the first week, going slow was okay, but by the second week I realized we weren’t ever going to kiss unless I did something. I told myself I had until we finished sorting out his room to get ready, and then it was kissing time. This made me nervous. That’s a lot of pressure, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I masturbated every night, thinking about Jeremey, but it wasn’t enough anymore. I needed to kiss him.

  I needed to kiss him now.

  Thursday night of the second week we finished cleaning, and before we sat on his bed as we always did, I shut the door. I would have locked it, but he didn’t have a lock, so I closed it until I heard the click of the latch. The sound echoed too loudly in the room, and even though it’s silly to be nervous because of a door, I was.

  I wondered if Jeremey felt the same way.

  I sat beside him on the bed, sideways so I could face him. He fixed his gaze away from me. I wasn’t looking right at him either, but he doesn’t have camera eyes, so he didn’t see me at all. I think Jeremey sees feelings so loudly, sometimes looking at people even out of the corner of his eye makes them too intense. Except I understood then how frustrating I was for people without superpowers, because I wished he would look at me so I could try to read his expression and know if it was okay to kiss him.

  I hummed, and I rocked.

  Jeremey’s shoulders relaxed. He still didn’t look at me, but he took my hand.

  His touch didn’t trigger my autism sensitivity. It made me brave, let me lean closer to finally get my kiss.

  Starting was tricky. In my head I wanted us to melt together, to move gracefully into each other’s spaces, but my body doesn’t work that way. It’s clumsy. It doesn’t listen to me. I’m better than I used to be—I’ve done all kinds of therapy, but I still move differently. Add that Jeremey’s body is hesitant, and it meant our kiss was more of a thump. Jeremey made a noise of surprise. I kept my eyes open until our lips met, and he did too.

  He shut his eyes, and so did I, and it was better.

  He moved his lips over mine, making them wet. It was a little weird, but mostly it felt good to kiss him. It made my penis erect, made me want to touch him to see if he was erect too, but I didn’t. It was too easy to scare Jeremey.

  But I promised myself sometime soon I would touch his penis.

  When it got to be too much, I pulled back, but not far. When he nuzzled my nose too softly, I didn’t let the soft touch bother me.

  “I want to be your boyfriend,” I told him.

  Eyes shut, he rested his forehead against mine. “Emmet…I don’t think you get how messed up I am.”

  “You need to stop saying bad things about yourself.”

  His laugh was an odd sound. “I don’t know how to explain how impossible that is for me to do. I have negative voices all the time. Every day. They never stop.”

  It made me sad, to think of Jeremey with those negative voices. I put my arms around him, and he put his head on my shoulder. I thought of movies I’d seen, commercials, thinking maybe we looked like one of those couples, sitting there. When I pressed a kiss on the side of his head, I was clumsier than they are in the movies, but that’s okay.

  It was a great moment, almost perfect. I held Jeremey and counted the patterns in the wallpaper. I was about to tell him how many swirls he had on his north wall when his mom opened the door.

  Things weren’t so perfect after that.

  Chapter Eight

  Jeremey

  It was all my fault.

  I should have put something in front of the door to keep Mom out, should have listened for the creaking board in the hall so I could break apart from Emmet before she came in. I should have done something to stop it. But I was so caught up in being happy, sinking into Emmet’s touch—he hates soft touches, but he was touching me so sweetly I thought I would melt—that I forgot to watch out.

  I was so lost in the moment of finally getting my first kiss, of having a boyfriend, that I didn’t know Mom had come into the room until she screamed.

  I guess it wasn’t so much of a scream as a yelp and a series of surprised noises. To be fair, I hadn’t told her I was gay. In fact I’d worked not to let her know. It was bad enough with me being a depressed loser. I didn’t want to know what she’d say to finding out I was a gay depressed loser. So not only was she catching me making out with a friend, she was finding out what gender I wanted to make out with.

  Also, I was making out with Emmet. I’d underestimated how much she still disliked him, how much she mostly tolerated him.

  She stood in the doorway, eyes wide. At first she stared and sputtered. “You—what? Jeremey! Why—? What—? Oh my God.” She put her hands over her mouth and backed away. You would have thought she’d caught me stabbing a kitten, not kissing my friend.

  Except she hadn’t seen that. She’d only seen us cuddling.

  My face grew hot, my embarrassment and discomfort spreading down my body like a heat rash. Beside me Emmet had grown stiff, and he rocked back and forth, tapping S.O.S. against his leg in triple staccato. This was one of his signs, and it meant he was upset and didn’t know how to react, what he should do.

  Me either.

  Mom aimed an angry finger at Emmet. “Get out. Get out of my house, right now.”

  Emmet shut his eyes and started to hum loudly, rocking back and forth as he tapped out S.O.S. over and over and over.

  I wanted to take his hand, but his left fist was clenched tight against his leg, his right hand absolutely absorbed in his desperate tapping. I ached for him, and it was only the need to protect him that allowed me courage enough to speak. “Mom, stop. You’re upsetting him.” Me too.

  Shaking her head, she ignored me and swung her finger from Emmet to the stairs. “Go. Get out. Get out right now.” Her face became ugly as it twisted up, her lip curling and her chin trembling in her rage. “How dare you come here and take advantage of my son. You perverted little creep.”

  Emmet’s rocking made the bed creak, and his hum became a guttural moan as he put his hands over his ears. His whole body posture had changed—everything about the Emmet I knew and cared for had fallen away, leaving a strange, terrifying shell. This was what I’d thought autistic people were like before I met Emmet. This wasn’t the boy who had kissed and held me.

  I hated that he’d been reduced to this. I hated that it was my mother who had done it to him.

  I wish I could say I’d stood up and shouted at her. That I’d angrily defended Emmet, protected him. I’m ashamed to admit all I did was cower on the bed. I felt hot and cold, dizzy and nauseous. The panic attack swept me up so quickly I didn’t see it coming—one moment I sat there huddled and awkward, and the next I was crumpled to the floor in a fetal ball, sweating and weeping silently as white-hot terror filled my brain and my teeth clacked together.

  I don’t know how long it took Marietta to arrive, only that suddenly she was there, kneeling in front of Emmet and speaking soothingly to him. He’d retreated into some terrifying internal space, his gaze fixed unseeing at some spot on my carpet, still rocking and making horrifying noises, but she sat in front of him and whispered, her tone so calming it gentled me, though she had yet to so much as glance my way. Her entire being was for Emmet. She didn’t so much as lay a finger on him, yet she enveloped him more thoroughly than any physical embrace. Through my panic-pinked gaze, I watched her bring him down, draw my Emmet to the surface.

  My mom was in the hall—I heard her talking to Emmet’s aunt, heard their sharp whispers rising as they argued. I couldn’t make out any words, but I didn’t want to hear them anyway. Mostly I watched Marietta and Emmet and wished someone would talk to me that way. I could see how much Marietta wanted to hold Emmet, and part of me wailed and moaned inside the same way Emmet did outside. Hold me, Marietta. Somebody hold me. Somebody speak patiently and kindly to me. Somebody come running to save me
too.

  No one did. No one ever had.

  She didn’t say anything to me until Emmet left. No one asked if I wanted to say goodbye before Althea and Douglas formed a pair of walls around him and escorted him into their car, which was waiting in front of our house. I watched him go, aching, still dizzy and overwhelmed as I stood at the picture window in the living room and tracked the car until it was gone from sight.

  All I’d done was kiss him. Let him kiss me. I imagine terrible outcomes for everything as simple as opening a box of cereal, but I hadn’t seen this coming. It made me want to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head.

  It made me want to stay there until I died.

  They turned on me, Marietta’s normally kind face guarded and carefully blank, my mother’s quietly furious. My father glared at me as if he’d caught me doing something unspeakable.

  “How could you do this?”

  I hunched my shoulders and backed against the window, fixing my gaze to the floor as my mother waited for an answer. I had none. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted out. If they hadn’t blocked the front door, I’d have run out of it.

  Marietta took a step closer, and out of fear, I glanced up. Her blank expression gentled. “Jeremey, you don’t need to be afraid. We only want to understand what happened.” She became guarded again as she went on. “Did Emmet…take advantage of you?”

  I blinked, not understanding at first. When I realized what she meant, I hunched further into myself and shut my eyes.

  Take advantage. She meant did Emmet force himself on me. I didn’t have another panic attack, but shame deeper than anything I’ve ever known filled me up, making me feel ugly and wrong to my core.

  Take advantage. Marietta asked me that.

  One kiss. One kiss and a hug. The only time anyone had touched me in years outside of stiff hugs from visiting relatives or strangers bumping into me in public. Even Emmet’s mom acted like it was the most shameful thing she’d ever seen.

  “Answer her,” my father demanded.

  I started to cry.

  I thought things couldn’t get worse, but they did. Marietta started apologizing, to me, to my parents. “I’m so sorry. I should have seen this coming, I suppose. He’s strong-willed, and I knew he had a crush on Jeremey, but I thought it was harmless. I never dreamed he’d act on it.”

  My mother twitched. “Why did you let him do that to you? What’s wrong with you?”

  Marietta straightened, stiffening. “I think that’s a little harsh—”

  “He’s not gay,” my mom snapped. “I didn’t realize your son was or that he was so poorly controlled—”

  “Stop.”

  They turned to me all at once, and the looks on their faces—rage, surprise, wariness, disgust—made me want to run and hide, but I couldn’t let them talk that way about Emmet, couldn’t let them believe that about him.

  Drawing a ragged breath, I forced the words out. “I am gay. I never told anyone because I thought I’d never find a boyfriend. Except—”

  I stopped. I wanted to say then I met Emmet, but shame cut off the words.

  My mother filled them in for me, her disgust dripping from each syllable. “Except then there was the poor retarded boy who wasn’t smart enough to say no to you?”

  “Emmet is not retarded,” Marietta snapped, all her gentleness gone. “Nor is he stupid.”

  My mom waved this away. “Yes, he’s an idiot savant or whatever. He’s certainly not normal. I should never have let him associate with Jeremey in the first place. Certainly he won’t any longer.”

  I recoiled, her casual remarks harsher than a slap across my face or a punch to my gut. They weren’t going to let me see Emmet? Marietta began to argue more pointedly, but I saw the expression on my parents’ faces, and nothing Emmet’s mother could say would change their minds. As far as my mom and dad were concerned, Emmet and I were through.

  I pushed off the wall and stumbled out of the room, ignoring them as they shouted after me. I took the stairs two at a time, slammed the door shut and dragged the edge of my bed over to block the door from opening. Climbing into bed, I pulled the covers over my head and stared into the darkness.

  Emmet was gone. From my house and from my life. No more walks to the store or around the block. No more meeting him at the train tracks. No more texts, no more Google hangouts. No more kisses. No more touches.

  No more Emmet.

  I played the argument from downstairs over in my head. I should have fought for him. I should have shouted back. But I was weak and worthless. I couldn’t fight. I could barely get out of bed on a good day.

  Emmet deserved so much better than me. And I didn’t deserve anyone or anything at all.

  I sobbed quietly under the blankets, mourning my ineptitude, my impotence, my failure. But more than anything, I mourned the loss of Emmet.

  Chapter Nine

  Emmet

  A lot of things about autism are unfair, but the worst is people on the mean have a double standard about autistic people’s behavior. I have to practice facial recognition charts and controlling my anger, and when I make a mistake, I get scolded and punished. But when Gabrielle acted bitchy because she didn’t like that Jeremey was gay, did anyone yell at her? Did they say, Hey, maybe you shouldn’t be such an asshole to your own son? No, they didn’t. They apologized, they sent me home, and then they acted as if I’d done something wrong. They told me I had to calm down, got upset with me when I couldn’t control my anger.

  Worse, I couldn’t simply be angry. I couldn’t wallow in my feelings. I couldn’t put on my Dalek shirt and bang my foam hammer until it broke. I couldn’t pout or sulk. I had to get myself together as soon as possible. I’d seen Jeremey before I left. He was so upset that for the first time, I couldn’t see the light in his face. I couldn’t always read his face, but I could read his light, and his light had gone almost completely out. I remembered what he said about the voices, about how they were always loud and negative in his head, and I worried what would happen when he had his mother’s angry voice and his bad voices. I worried so much it made my stomach hurt. It’s not logical for Jeremey’s voices to make my stomach hurt, but it still happened.

  I tried to go to him, to put the light back, but Althea said I had to wait for Mom. I wanted to use the sign to say I was going to stop talking, but if I did that, I couldn’t explain about Jeremey.

  “Althea, you have to listen to me.”

  “You have to listen to me. You’re in big trouble. Mrs. Samson is really upset.”

  I stared at her shoulder. “Jeremey is upset. He’s very upset, and I have to go to him. He’s my boyfriend. I’m supposed to comfort him.”

  Althea made a funny noise, so I looked at her face to see if I could read it. Surprised face. Very surprised face. “Your—” Her mouth opened and closed several times. Then her face got complicated. “Oh, Emmet. Oh, sweetie, that’s totally not okay. You can’t just decide you’re someone’s boyfriend.”

  Why was everyone so dumb? “I didn’t just decide. We discussed it together. We decided to be boyfriends, and then she came in and started screaming because we were cuddling. Good thing she didn’t see us kissing.”

  Her face kept changing so fast it was hard to keep up. “Peanut, did…did Jeremey make you do something you didn’t want to do?”

  It took so much work not to be angry. “Jeremey wouldn’t ever make me do something I didn’t want to do. He couldn’t. He’s way too shy. He has depression, and it makes him overwhelmed. He doesn’t have any modifications, either, and no medicine. He’s sensitive. Much more sensitive than me. His mother makes him feel bad, and I think she’s doing it now. We have to help him. I have to help him.”

  I spoke calmly and slowly, but she didn’t understand. My dad didn’t say anything, but he frowned at Althea a lot. I didn’t know what that meant. When my mom cam
e back, she made me almost as angry as Althea did.

  “Sweetheart.” She stood in front of me, looking worriedly at my face. “What’s going on?”

  Why was she asking me? How would I know what was going on at the Samsons’? “I need to see Jeremey. Right now. He’s my boyfriend, and he’s upset. I need to make him happy again.”

  “Boyfriend? Emmet—”

  I didn’t have time for this. “Mom, stop. I have a boyfriend. Jeremey. Why do you think I’ve been hanging out with him so much? But I can’t talk about that right now. He’s upset. I have to fix it.”

  I started toward the front door, but she grabbed my arm. I hate it when people grab me, and I started to swing my arm to hit, then made myself stop. I pulled away from her and made an angry face instead. “Mom, get off me.”

  She blocked the door with her body. “Honey, you can’t go over there right now. You can be angry with me, but you cannot go to the Samsons’ house. It’s not safe for you. Mrs. Samson is very angry.”

  “Mrs. Samson is a bitch, Mom.”

  She made her lips flat, which means she didn’t like what I said, but she didn’t tell me it was rude not to say it. Because she knew I was right.

  She shut her eyes and let out a slow breath. “You can’t go over. We’ll talk about this later, but right now I need to speak with your father.”

  “I need to speak with my boyfriend. I’m an adult, Mom. Stop treating me like a baby.”

  We argued for fifteen minutes, but I’m sorry to say I didn’t win. I didn’t hit, or hum, or have an episode, but in the end I still went to my room. I whaled on my bed with the foam hammer and said bad words about Mrs. Samson, loud enough they had to hear me downstairs, but nobody came up to tell me I had to stop. I called my mom a few bad names too, but it made me feel uncomfortable, so I quit.

  My mom might be bossy, but she’s not a bitch like Gabrielle Samson.