‘Sorry it took so long. She confiscated my phone, and I only stole it back last night. I can’t believe she said all those horrible things about you, when it was actually her. Next time, I want you to tell me your side of the story. In other news, my friend also thinks I’m autistic, and I feel like she might be right. Did the doctors tell you about this when I was born? Did they tell her anything?’ Alicia typed and saved in her Notes app
To evade her mother’s snooping, she saved it in the inconspicuous folder of ‘Chemistry Notes’, with the inconspicuous title of ‘States of Matter’.
The rabbit hole helped piece the puzzle together. But this only led to other puzzles.. For one, she now had a half-confident assessment of the symptoms she exhibited, yet couldn’t conceive how said symptoms went over her mother’s head.
Autism diagnoses were often made in early childhood, where the signs were the most apparent; signs her mother missed somehow. Or worse, her mother noticed, but refused to admit it. The thought of her daughter as disabled was too much to bear.
Another thing that confused her was the ‘spectrum’. Not gradient, as Kat clarified with a firm tone. Spectrum. The ‘autism spectrum’ did not measure the severity of autism, because no such thing exists. There are simply different types of autism.
Kat gave this analogy: Red wasn’t more severe of a colour than blue. They were simply different colours.
This broke her brain to wrap around.
Alicia called Kat every night and played Cyber-Strikers together. Her current goal was to unlock every upgrade on her sniper rifle. To do so, she needed to level up. The fastest way to level up was to replay level one over and over, which Kat referred to as ‘grinding’.
After ten runs, she had etched the level into her muscle memory, and played it on auto-pilot. This freed up the mental bandwidth for her to ask Kat questions she derived from her research.
But Kat had none to offer.
“I don’t know, man, autism is complicated! I’m not a scientist. What matters is you get a legit doctor to diagnose you.”
“What type of autism do you have?”
“I don’t know the name, and it doesn’t matter. It’s just autism. Just focus on learning to live with it.”
“How?”
“Headphones, for one, since the world is so noisy. I can borrow you my previous ones.”
“Thanks.”
Alicia still found it incomprehensible that not only there were people who didn’t find the MRT or the wet market deafening, but that they were the majority.
“And then just figure out what to say to people. I dunno. That’s how I do it.”
“Like shaking hands?”
“Yeah.”
She levelled up and placed an upgrade point on damage. Her dream Sniper was a deadly assassin that could kill anyone or anything with only one shot.
“Why do people shake hands? How does it show respect?”
“Dude, I don’t know, man. People are weird!”
They were.
Alicia looked forward to only two things in tuition. Zack and his sketches. Like clockwork, whenever Zack was waiting, he would flip to the back page of his notebook and sketch.
These sketches were photo-realistic. So realistic that they came to life when no one’s watching. These sketches came from a single pencil.
His latest sketch was of a girl. Yesterday, he finished her hair, which was tied in a ponytail like hers. Was he drawing… her? The thought of it made her hide her face.
Kat stirred the pot and wrote infinite scenarios for her to imagine. She suggested Zack was sketching her studying posture (head rested on a hand, pen tip in her mouth), and continued to do so after tuition. This meant that Zack thought of her. It was almost sadistic how much joy Kat derived from her embarrassment.
“Stop!” she exclaimed. The pot stirring broke her focus on Cyber-Strikes, which led to her avatar’s demise.
Kat gasped whenever a new scenario came to mind. “What if he uses that sketch to confess?”
“Confess what?” This scenario was odd. But the oddness helped calm the pot.
“His crush!”
“You mean like Kevin and Ying Wen?”
“Who? I only know Alicia and Zack.”
“They’re our classmates. They’re in a relationship—”
“It’s a joke.”
“Oh, I see. Ha-ha.”
Kat’s jokes were either hands-over-belly funny, or not at all. No in between.
“You like him, don’t you?” Kat giggled.
“He can tutor. I simply need to clarify what type of tutoring I need.”
“As in, you have a crush on him, don’t you?”
Like Kevin and Ying Wen? No, they were a couple. Zack was a tutor.
“No. That’s Kevin and Ying Wen.”
“Yes, you do! Have you ever had a crush before?”
“No.”
“Until now.”
Really? She reflected on it. The details were fuzzy, but the gist of Kevin and Ying Wen’s love story went like this: Ying Wen had a crush on him, and she confessed to him after school one day, and they entered a relationship.
She eavesdropped on Ying Wen a few times to learn that her crush felt like her heart was ‘going to explode’.
Alicia searched for this exploding feeling with her mind’s eye. A sensation that fit that description resided on her pulse, or rather, wrapped around it.
This was a crush.
Crushes were to be confessed. She waited until the middle of the tuition to pull it off. The plan was to plagiarise Ying Wen, the only instance of a confession she knew of. From what she heard, Ying Wen approached it with great hesitation. Beating around the bush, tripping over her words; anything to delay the actual news. Kevin did the same, followed by something, and they became boyfriend and girlfriend.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Alicia had to fill that blank on her own. Or perhaps that was Zack’s job? Having never experienced it herself (only popular students had the luxury), Kat offered little to help.
Zack arrived on the dot. Went through the same routine. Sketched the same girl. Half her attention laid on her work, while the other laid on his sketches. He was drawing the woman’s face today.
Alicia re-tied her hair, hanging her ponytail lower to match the sketch. It made her head feel unsatisfying, so she corrected it back after a minute.
That exploding feeling filled her chest again, which told her it was time. Step one, beat around the bush.
“What are you drawing?”
Zack said nothing.
“Who is that? Is that your friend?”
Nothing.
“Can I see?”
Nothing.
“Can you teach me how to draw?”, “You draw really well!”, “Do you take art lessons?”, “My friend Kat takes painting classes.”
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
But she had to delay longer. Or did she? How long must the delaying last? Ying Wen never specified how long the confession took, but Alicia’s best estimate was ten minutes.
Five minutes more.
She asked him to explain a question, which filled those five minutes, with five extra spent on completing the rest of the worksheet.
It was time.
She covered her face. “Zack, I have something important to tell you.”
He looked at her.
“I—um, have—um, a crush on you.”
“What?”
Next came the blank. Was it her job or his to fill it? She waited for his response to inform her next move. If he gave one, that was. He didn’t. Was he waiting for her? Or simply being his robotic self?
The silence was awkward, not contemplative. She extinguished it by skipping the step altogether. “Would you like to be my boyfriend?”
“No.”
She shouldn’t have skipped a step. “Sorry. I don’t know how to confess.”
“Confess what?”
“My crush on you.”
“But I just met you last week.”
“I feel like my chest is exploding, which is what a crush feels like.”
“Ok.”
Alicia changed tactics. “Your shampoo smells lemon-y, which is nice. You are very talented at drawing, and your sketches are very realistic. I like your hair and your muscles.” She tried not to flap her hands.
His face changed. The scrunched nose, the raised brow, the awkward silence… He looked at her the way her classmates did. Darkness cast over her eyes, and she returned to work, no longer spying on his sketching. It definitely wasn’t her.
Awkward silence filled the rest of the hour.
Kat’s dad invited her over the next day. It took both girls by surprise, and their reactions were diametric opposites. Alicia was eager, whilst Kat objected. But Kat obeyed nonetheless, remarking that her dad knew best.
Alicia noted the unyielding trust between the father and daughter.
Just the front door alone left her speechless. The wood looked and felt like a premium species of tree. Along the shoe stand were the potted plants Kat mentioned, with names and watering instructions on post-it note. Kat asked her to settle down whilst she watered them.
The one closest to the door was Stephanie.
Minty barged in, running lap after lap around the house and disappearing upstairs.
Stairs.
Kat’s house had two floors, laid with marbled tiles that can double as a mirror. The couches that melted under her faced the largest TV Alicia had ever seen. When stared straight on, she could only see its edges in her periphery.
A book on the dining table caught her eye. The word ‘Autism’ was on the cover in huge bold letters, like it was earth-shattering news. She flipped to the bookmarked page and read a paragraph that was highlighted in orange:
‘...have a tendency to take things literally. For example, when a parent asks the autistic child to ‘watch out for cars’, the child would watch the cars pass by literally and not inform his parent about—’
Kat snatched it away. “That’s my Dad’s book. Don’t read his annotations.”
Alicia remembered herself doing exactly this in primary school. After hearing the advice of ‘Look left, look right, and look left again’ from her form teacher, she did just that. Standing by the street, looking left and right and left and right… That same form teacher then told her to stop.
It made no sense.
“Do you take things literally?” Alicia asked.
“Sometimes. Apparently, when people ask ‘How are you?’, they don’t actually give a shit how you are. They just want you to say ‘I’m fine’.” Kat threw her hands up.
“Me too.”
“Hm.” Kat seemed amused. “What do you want for lunch? Pasta?”
“I—”
“Oh, my god!” Kat gasped at the fridge.
It had a screen. A touch screen.
That she could touch to adjust the temperature of the fridge. A touch screen. On a fridge. In the giant kitchen. With countertops that aren’t filled with baking powder and raw egg yolk. “My Mom bought button mushrooms. We have to eat pasta! We’re eating pasta. Settled! Pasta!”
Kat browsed through the shelves, picking out ingredient after ingredient like her mother while asking about it. Ham or bacon? Chilli or cheese flakes? Spaghetti or fusilli? Meaning, straight or curly?
Alicia wanted ham, no flakes, and straight noodles.
It was like the instant noodles. Kat stood an arm away from literal fire with zero fear in her eyes, as if this was part of her afternoon routine. Where did Kat learn all this? Probably her father.
While Alicia watched Kat cook, she shared the story of her failed confession. She expected, yet felt dismayed, by Kat’s response; disapproval.
“What! You don’t confess immediately!” Kat sighed. “You usually have to wait a few months first.”
“Why?”
“You have to be good friends first before you get together.”
“Oh.” Ying Wen and Kevin were best friends beforehand. A blank left unfilled.
“I guess this means Zack just doesn’t like you back.”
“Right.” How did she forget that? Both parties had to have a crush on each other simultaneously for a successful confession. Another blank.
She sighed. “Now Zack dislikes me.”
“Oh shit, really?”
“I can tell from how he looked at me.”
Kat took a break from cooking to pat her shoulder. “It’s okay. Fuck him and his shitty tuition. I don’t dislike you.”
Minty came back down, took a sip of water, and laid in his bed. He held a carrot plush in his paws and feasted on it like a slab of meat.
The pasta changed Alicia’s opinion about Western food. Thick cheese coated the noodles like fine paint. The salty goodness of the ham. The chewy mushrooms that were satisfying to bite.
She wanted her mother to cook pasta. Or better yet, to learn to cook it herself. Before this, she had to wait forever for her mother to be free for a cooking lesson, then endure her impatient temper. Now she just could come over after school.
Seeing the book on autism again reminded her of a question she had been meaning to ask. “When did you get diagnosed with autism?”
“Primary 1.”
“That’s early, and that’s good because you get early intervention.”
“Mm.”
“But what if you got diagnosed late? Is it still helpful?”
“How late?”
“Like… Secondary four?”
“Oh! You’re talking about you! Oops. Well, a diagnosis is always good, cause it gives you confirmation, and then you can get support and whatever from there. But some people don’t need it.”
Minty sat by their feet, flashing them his literal puppy-dog-eyes. Kat shooed him away and warned against feeding him human food. The whining and woofing made the shooing heartbreaking.
“Some people are self-diagnosed, which means they just say they’re autistic after doing a lot of research.”
“Why don’t they get a diagnosis?”
“Cause it’s expensive.”
Oh no. There was nothing her mother hated more than expensive things. There was no way in hell that her mother will pay for a diagnosis. Alicia rolled her eyes at this.
After lunch, the two girls watched a movie over a bag of chips. Minty sat by their side, tearing the cotton out of the carrot plush.
Hope wasn't lost yet, as there was one person left in this world who would pay for her diagnosis. Dad. With her phone back, she can now resume her search for him. The lead she last followed was her mother’s university, which she double-checked to ensure she left no stone unturned.
She didn’t.
The next lead she could think of was social media, but this was a long shot. Obviously, her mother did not Friend or Follow his account, but maybe her mother’s Friends did. Or her Friends’ Friends, or her Friends’ Friends’ Friends…
The number of Friends she searched grew exponentially, but this did not discourage her. Instead, this became part of her nightly routine.