“Shit’s hard,” Dakota says. “I get it. You have to cut people like that out of your life. We all have to.”

  I chuckle humorlessly. “They’re, like, the only people in my life, and now I’m bored as hell.”

  “Tough shit. Get better friends.”

  I rub my eyes and finally look over at him. He’s still sketching something, but he puts his journal off to the side and looks at me. He’s about to speak, but a knock on the front door interrupts whatever he’s about to say. I faintly hear the lock jiggling.

  “I’ll get it,” Dakota says. “Just stay here. I’m sure it’s your mom.”

  I follow him into the hall anyway. He tries to usher me back into the living room, but I push past him to go upstairs. I hear him unlocking the door for my mom as she thanks him for saving her from the cold, but all I want to do is sleep.

  NEITHER OF us acknowledges what I said over the next two weeks. I have the odd feeling that Dakota might be trying to say something anytime we’re in the same room for a minute, but Matty always distracts him. Matty. The only reason Dakota is here is because he has a way with Matty that I don’t. Envy isn’t something I’d want to admit to, but Dakota interacts with Matty so easily that I feel incompetent sometimes.

  Mom leaves the car at home again on Thursday. It’s gotten warmer outside, and I go for a drive for several hours to clear my head. Windows down, music blaring, thoughts lost to the wind. I can almost ignore the sixty unread messages from my “friends” collecting dust in my phone.

  When I get back home past eleven, there’s no one in the living room. I head to the kitchen to see Dakota standing alone at the sink with his back to me.

  “Hey,” I say.

  Dakota stalls for a moment before he briefly glances over his shoulder at me. “Hi. Have a good drive?”

  “I guess. Is Matty asleep again?”

  “Yep.”

  I idle and stare down at my feet before I muster up the nerve to say, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Shoot.”

  I lean against the doorway as I watch him diligently slice into an apple over the sink. “How come you’re so good at understanding Matty?”

  Dakota doesn’t answer, and I listen to the scraping sound of him peeling the apple. I wait for a response, but he doesn’t offer me one because he’s too busy arranging the apple slices in a bowl. I’m about to repeat the question when he turns around and leans back against the counter, fiddling with the bowl in his hand.

  “I can’t stand eating unpeeled apples.” Dakota shoves a slice in his mouth and chews before continuing. “But I also can’t stand it when they get brown, so I have to eat them fast.”

  I stare at him as he chews and says nothing else. “Did you hear my question?”

  Dakota seems to ignore me again and continues on whatever spiel he has in mind while he picks at the apple pieces. “If I peel the inedible covering off a slice of ham and I accidentally nick a chunk out of it with my fingers, I’m not inclined to eat it.”

  “So you have weird eating habits? So do most people.”

  Dakota shakes his head and holds his finger up to me. “I don’t have a particularly good memory. I often can’t recall how to spell the name of a teacher I’ve known all semester, which is annoying as hell. But I can quote and dissect the vast majority of Mercutio’s speeches from Romeo and Juliet, to the point that it’s a little embarrassing and I have to stop myself from gushing about it. I’ve never been in a play.”

  I’m not sure how to respond, but he pauses to continue eating as he seems to contemplate something. I don’t know whether to say anything or just walk away, but he suddenly captivates me with more words.

  “My cats like me more than they like anyone else, because I tend to prefer their company to people. I have a habit of picking up the fat one and lying down with him on my chest because the pressure makes me feel calm. When I get too excited, I can’t always control my movements or my voice. I sound awful when I reach the higher octaves, so it’s embarrassing sometimes.”

  I squint at him and cross my arms over my chest. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  Dakota chews the last apple slice and carefully places the bowl in the sink. He takes a deep breath. “Because when you asked me why I understand Matty, I was tempted to answer by asking, ‘Why don’t you?’ Because he’s your brother, so naturally you’d be predisposed to understanding him.”

  I shake my head. “But he’s—”

  “But”—Dakota talks over me—“I know that it’s too difficult for some people to comprehend how we think and behave, even if the way I’m describing myself to you now doesn’t seem that odd. I get Matty because I have quirks and needs that I can’t explain to people, because I go through meltdowns and need to stim sometimes, because I know how it feels when the people around you can’t make an effort to understand what it means to be autistic. Contrary to your presumptions, Matty isn’t difficult for me to deal with. He’s just an ordinary kid. Like me.”

  “Wait,” I say. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what I said. I’m autistic.”

  “But you’re….” I frown.

  Dakota looks up at me with a judgmental expression. “I’m what?”

  I swallow. “You’re normal.”

  “Well,” he scoffs, “Matty’s normal too. But if by ‘normal’ you mean that I’m like you, that I can function socially without any difficulty, then you’re mistaken. I just had to teach myself to suppress the parts of myself that people think are abnormal. Granted, there’s still a ton of shit about me that people condemn for other reasons. I guess you know what that’s like.”

  I rub my jaw. “Okay. I mean, that’s fine….”

  Dakota laughs. “Of course it’s fine. I love being autistic. It doesn’t make me, or Matty for that matter, any different or less human than you.”

  “But you are different than Matty,” I say. “His symptoms are more severe, he can barely talk—”

  Dakota spreads his hands on the edge of the counter and hoists himself up onto it. “All autistic people are different, ’cause it’s not so much a spectrum as it is clusters of symptoms. Some of us are better at pretending to not be autistic than others, but that doesn’t make us less autistic.”

  “But there’s no way that you’re—”

  “None of us are the same, but for all intents and purposes, I guarantee you that you’ve met other autistic people who are ‘like me,’ okay?” Dakota says. He turns his head away with his hand latched onto the back of his neck.

  I open my mouth to say something, but I close it for lack of any good response.

  “Listen,” he sighs. “It’s pretty exhausting to explain, no matter what you’re like, to someone who doesn’t and will never understand it. My point is that I understand Matty because I’ve been where he is, and making an effort is something that comes to me more naturally. You have the capacity to understand him too. You just have to make an effort.”

  “I have been,” I counter. “I’ve been around him for seven years, and yet you’re better with him than I am after knowing him for a few weeks.”

  Dakota shrugs. “Then maybe you give up too easily.”

  “I’ve been trying,” I seethe.

  Dakota stretches his arms over his head. He sounds skeptical when he says, “Sure.”

  “I have been.”

  “Okay,” he says. “You seem tense. Maybe you should call up your friends and go do something fun with them.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Tell me why.”

  I sputter. “Because I don’t want to talk to people who make jokes at my expense.”

  Dakota nods. “I get that. They don’t know. They don’t understand. So they lash out and make jokes out of their ignorance instead of trying to communicate with you honestly. What your friend said to you may be hurting you now, but imagine having an older brother like him for your entire life. That would suck, right?”

  I turn around and storm upstairs without a word.

  I DIDN’T think I’d go from passively disliking Dakota to despising him within one interaction. I’d actually been starting to enjoy his company and almost considering him a friend. I’ve never been so committed to avoiding someone before, especially a person who’s nearly a constant presence in my house. I limit my trips downstairs to only the kitchen and don’t bother to stop whenever I walk past him and Matty.

  Dakota always has to get at least a single word in to me, whether it be “Hi,” or “Say ‘hi’ to your brother, Matty,” or “Justin, there’s extra stir-fry on the stove if you want it.”

  When he says that last phrase on Tuesday while we’re all in the kitchen, I finally snap.

  “Why are you being so nice to me if you clearly think I’m a dickhead?”

  Dakota stares at me. “Can you maybe lower your voice and not curse around Matty?”

  “Why do you care? He can’t understand me, anyway.”

  Dakota sighs. “He can.”

  I shake my head. “Whatever.”

  “Your homophobic friends came by earlier. I told them you were busy moping.”

  I whirl around to glare at him. “You what?”

  He holds his hands up in surrender. “Kidding. Chill. I told them that I’m your mom now and I grounded you.”

  I stare at him, unsure of how to respond. “Are you serious?”

  “God,” Dakota says. “I’m bad at taking jokes, but you need to lighten up too, man. Yeah, they stopped by, but I told them you’re doing schoolwork, and I happened to be holding a kitchen knife, so I think they took my vague gesture as the threat it was. And yes, this is serious. You’re welcome.”

  His statement startles me enough to make me freeze, but I force myself to grit out another “Whatever.” I go to rifle through the contents of the fridge, and I can almost feel Dakota’s judgmental eyes burning into my back. When I turn around, he’s not paying attention to me. I can’t find anything I’m willing to eat.

  “Stir-fry’s getting cold,” Dakota calls when I start down the hallway.

  I ignore him.

  IT BECOMES routine for Mom to leave the car at home on Thursdays by the time the fourth week of Dakota’s service rolls around. Procrastination takes a toll on me for several hours, and I get zero work done even before thinking about getting out of the house. I usually don’t make a habit of reading articles about political correctness and disabilities I don’t understand, but it’s more informative than my assignments. I decide to be lazy about cooking myself any microwaveables or leftovers and check the balance in my bank account. The vague sense of guilt that’s been sitting in my chest for the last week makes me contemplate several redeeming actions, but I force it out of my head. I dawdle in the kitchen to give myself time to make sure I want to eat out before I head toward the door.

  Matty’s quiet giggles compel me to stop as I pass by the living room, and I look in to see Dakota sitting next to him and showing him something on a piece of pink construction paper. Matty laughs and takes the paper from him with little hesitation. Dakota points to a blue crayon lying by his foot, and Matty reaches over to grab it, leaning on the paper and crumpling it in the process.

  Dakota notices me after a moment of me zoning out and watching them. “Hi, Justin,” he says.

  My mind takes a minute to buffer. “Uh, hey.” I gesture down the hallway and toward the front door. “I’m gonna head out and get some Chinese takeout.”

  “Okay.” Dakota nods. Matty shifts and stares curiously at a point somewhere below my eyes.

  I clear my throat. “I’m gonna grab something for Matty, since he actually likes the noodles they have there. So you don’t have to cook anything for him.”

  “Is that all right with your mom?”

  “Yeah. She left some cash for me earlier.”

  “You sure? She didn’t mention it to me.”

  I sigh. “He’s my brother. It’s fine.”

  Dakota purses his lips, but he gives in once he sees Matty’s shy grin. “Okay, thanks.”

  I slowly start toward the door before I falter. I stop and turn back toward them. The vague sense of guilt from earlier moves my mouth before I can consider my words. “Dakota, do you want me to get you anything?”

  He looks slightly astonished. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I’m trying to save money.”

  “It’s chill, I’ll pay for it.”

  “Then I’ll pass.”

  I roll my eyes. “Dude, just tell me what you want.”

  “Nothing.”

  Turning on my heel, I call out, “Okay, I’ll order something random off the menu, and if you don’t like it, then you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

  “Justin! Wait,” Dakota hisses.

  I backtrack and raise my eyebrows at him. “Tell me what you want.”

  He looks vaguely irritated and somewhat puzzled, toying with an eraser he picked up off the floor. “Something with seafood, preferably nothing with onions.”

  “Thanks.” I smile slyly, and he exhales and shakes his head. Relief floods through me as I head to the car and drive to the nearest Chinese place.

  I bring back vegetable lo mein for Matty, seafood lo mein for Dakota, and chicken for myself. Dakota opens the door for me when I’m struggling because of the bag of food tucked under my arm, and he takes it from me to let me inside.

  “Thanks for this,” he says.

  I shrug quietly in response.

  Matty’s ricocheting through the hall and flapping his arms in excitement before I can even call him over. Dakota grins when Matty latches onto his arm and reaches for the bag. I can’t force the smile off my face.

  In the kitchen, we eat in near silence, but Matty makes a mess of picking out every sliver of carrot in his food.

  “It’s one of the only food items where everything’s mixed together that he likes,” I whisper to Dakota. “This, and the stir-fry you made two days ago.”

  Dakota snickers softly. “I don’t think he liked that either. I think he ate it because I told him he could stay up later if he did.”

  I shake my head. “I think he just likes you.”

  Matty prods at his food, but he ends up eating half the portion and rubbing his tummy in anguish afterward.

  “You okay, sport?” Dakota asks him.

  “He ate it too fast,” I say. “This always happens.”

  Matty whines softly, but it doesn’t escalate into a tantrum. Dakota finishes his food quickly, and Matty agrees to be taken to bed. I sit alone at the table and finish up while I listen to their footsteps get fainter as they ascend the stairs.

  I’m washing the plastic takeout trays by the time Dakota comes back down and stands next to me. He offers me help with the dishes, but I decline.

  “Matty’s gone to bed,” he tells me. “Do you know when your mom’s coming home for sure? She gave me a loose ballpark.”

  “No idea,” I say.

  “Damn.”

  I finish washing the plastic trays and shake the water off them before tossing them into the recycling bin. I dry my hands with the towel and glance over to see Dakota staring absentmindedly at the floor.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He looks over at me. “Hmm?”

  I finish wiping my hands and hang the towel on the dishwasher handle. “Can we talk?”

  Dakota raises his eyebrows. “I’m listening.”

  “Do you mind if we go to the living room?”

  He shrugs and gestures me toward the door. I walk down the hall and sit on the living room couch. Dakota watches me before he sits down, not quite on the opposite side but not quite next to me either.

  I take a deep breath in and let it out. “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” Dakota says. “Now I’m intrigued. Please, continue.”

  I swallow my pride and shake my head. “I’ve been doing more thinking about it than I’ve probably ever done in my life because I felt so awful, and I’m sorry for the dumb shit I said. It was out of line, and I hate myself for how I’ve been behaving. I kept trying to justify it, but I always knew deep down that I fucked up, and the reason I wanted to think I hated you was because you called me out on it and you were right.”

  Dakota is gradually shifting his contemplative stare between me and the ground. “I appreciate that,” he says. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not done,” I explain. “It’s just hard for me to say things sometimes.”

  “Yeah, I know what that’s like.”

  “I’ve been really lonely recently, and you’re the only person I see around on a daily basis. And you understand Matty so much, and I think I might be jealous of that. I don’t even know why I told you my problems in the first place, but they felt like they were overflowing and about to tip me over. But it still felt good to get everything off my chest.”

  Dakota nods silently. I anxiously wring my hands.

  “I think I just lost it a little,” I say. “With how you explained being autistic, because it’s not something I understood, especially with how you compared me to Kev.”

  “That happens,” Dakota sighs. “Maybe I went overboard with it, and for that I’m sorry. But I wanted you to understand how Matty might feel about your behavior.”

  “I know. I just don’t think it’s necessarily fair to make a comparison between being gay and autistic,” I say. “I mean, they’re different things.”

  Dakota nods. “Maybe, but you’re talking to one whole entire bisexual, buddy. And on top of that,” he starts, then stops to chuckle at my perplexed expression. “God. Dude. You really don’t recognize me, do you?”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  He laughs, but his smile seems slightly askew. “I mean, I remember seeing you around in high school. You were a junior the year I graduated, but I kinda saw you around sometimes when the theater and art kids mingled with the STEM crew. You congratulated me when I won an award for an essay I wrote about intolerance and prejudice affecting young teens.”

  I stare at him. “I’m sure I’d remember—”

  “They got my name wrong,” he says. “They said my birth name in the ceremony, and I was really upset because half the reason I wrote that essay is because of how people treat me for being autistic, and the other half was because of how people treat me for being trans and bi.”

 

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