Jacob had asked her, last week, Have you ever heard of stimming? and after his explanation, she’d wanted to ask something back. She’d wanted to ask, Is that what I do? Am I stimming right now?
But she’d also wanted to figure things out for herself.
So she picked up her tablet, settled back against the cushions, and typed a few words into the search bar. Autism in adults brought up countless hits. She was mildly overwhelmed for a moment, but then she closed her eyes and thought, What would Chloe do?
Chloe would isolate key, reliable sources. Rather like Jacob. Rather like Dani. The three of them shared a lot of similarities in that regard, but Eve and Jacob shared other similarities—silly ones that probably didn’t mean anything. Yet, those similarities kept nibbling at her brain like insistent little mice with big, sharp teeth.
Eve clicked on two links: one by the National Health Service, and one by the National Autistic Society. The NHS had an abrupt list of “symptoms”: signs of autism that made her smile because they brought Jacob to mind. The same well-known signs she’d seen in TV characters, the kind that didn’t apply to her in the slightest. She was never taken as blunt or rude. She didn’t find it remotely difficult to express how she felt, and routine had never been her strong suit.
Then she read the words, Noticing small details, such as patterns or sounds, that others do not.
Well. That didn’t mean much. Not even if it made her heart jump with nervous recognition. Not even if the thought of having a reason for that slight difference—the difference that had led to her obsession with music—made Eve feel strangely . . . known.
She ran her tongue over the inside of her teeth and kept reading.
You may get very anxious about social situations. You may struggle to understand social “rules” or to communicate clearly. You may find it difficult to make friends.
It can be harder to tell you’re autistic if you’re a woman.
She could feel her pulse thumping against her throat, which was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if this bothered her—she was smiling, for God’s sake, though she couldn’t explain why. A dawning surprise swept over her, and all she wanted to do was catch it in her hands like a warm, bright star and hold it quietly until she’d absorbed it a bit. Reading this stuff felt like climbing, inch by inch, up to the top of a roller coaster; it stirred a thrill of anticipation in her stomach, along with a hint of fear at the unknown. The giddy, uncertain kind of fear that made a sudden drop all the sweeter.
Eve switched websites and found a much more personal, detailed approach from the National Autistic Society, one that discussed the benefits of diagnosis and what it all meant. There was a section called Coming to Terms with Your Autism, which Eve found she couldn’t relate to. She’d had to come to terms with the fact that hormonal breakouts weren’t limited to one’s teenage years (horribly unfair, if you asked her), but she didn’t need to come to terms with the signs of autism listed on these websites. She knew very well who she was and who she wasn’t, and she’d already spent a long, difficult time learning to like herself despite those differences. Having a possible reason for them didn’t change much.
But then, she also couldn’t see herself following the steps on this page that described how to secure a diagnosis. Whereas plenty of other people might want to. So perhaps this was different for everyone.
No, it almost certainly was.
Satisfied, Eve locked the tablet and tucked this latest development safely against her heart. She was still ruminating over what she’d found—and painting her toenails, of course, which was the best way to ruminate—when someone knocked on the door an hour later. Jacob. Would she tell him?
No. Not yet. These thoughts were just hers, for now, until she’d explored them fully.
That decided, she heaved herself off the sofa, her toes spread for maximum safety and minimum smudges, and waddled over to answer the door.
It swung open to reveal a disgracefully tall and alarmingly attractive woman with hair like a thunderstorm, or a ’50s lounge singer, or a ’50s lounge singer who was also a thunderstorm. Not Jacob, then. The woman flipped her dark, riotous waves over one broad shoulder and said in a low, throaty voice, “Hi.”
Eve blinked. Gosh. She’d very nearly blurted out, You’re pretty, like some sort of overwhelmed toddler.
“We’ve come,” the thunderstorm ’50s singer went on decisively, “to take you out.” By the set of her sharp jaw and the flint in her doe eyes, that was not a request.
“For God’s sake, Tess, you sound like a hitwoman,” came an irritable voice from the hallway. “Maybe start with the fact that we’re Mont’s sisters.” The goddess was thrust aside by an equally tall, brown woman with razored short hair and narrowed eyes. While the first woman—Tess?—wore a tight gold dress with enough sequins to confuse air traffic (Eve approved), the second wore jeans and a crisp, white shirt that made her look rather dapper. “Hi. I’m Alex Montrose and this is Tessa. You’re Eve, yeah?” She held out a long-fingered hand, and it took Eve a heartbeat to reconnect her brain to her . . . other brain and realize she was supposed to shake.
“Erm,” she said. “Yes.” She squeezed Alex’s hand limply, murmured, “Enchanté,” then wondered why the bloody hell she’d said such a thing. Oh, well. She was alarmed, she was taken aback, and her toes were still slightly wet. Under such circumstances, she could not be blamed for a little ridiculousness.
Alex arched her eyebrows, one of which was sharply bisected by a pale scar, before continuing. “We are here to bully you out of the house.”
“Well,” piped up Tessa, “the B&B.”
“Which is a house, Tess.”
“And if I called a camper van a—a car, you’d be horrified.”
“I wouldn’t give a flying fuck,” Alex said calmly, and somehow sauntered past Eve into the room.
“Liar,” Tessa said, and flipped her hair some more, and followed. She turned to Eve, who was still standing, slightly dazed, by the door. “Do you like my hair? Roller set. Twenty-four hours and seven different YouTube tutorials! I had to sleep on the rollers. What a nightmare. Anyway, get dressed.”
“You’re doing this all wrong,” Alex told her. Eve noticed that Alex had made herself comfortable on Jacob’s weight bench, of all things, lying back and propping up one knee, staring at the ceiling with her hands over her stomach. She had a thick, dark scar wrapped all around her wrist like a bracelet.
“I’m doing it wrong? You’re lying on the furniture,” Tessa said, but by now Eve had noticed their bickering held zero heat. As if they were simply annoying each other for the fun of it. “Now, Eve, I know this is all very sudden, but Jacob told us you urgently needed to socialize, and we are his only friends aside from Mont—”
“Friends?” Alex snorted.
Eve found herself suddenly scowling. “Jacob’s only next door, you know. He can probably hear you.”
“Good,” Alex grinned, raising her voice, at which point Eve realized this was a gentle in-joke, as opposed to actual Jacob-hating, and felt rather silly.
“Well,” Tessa said thoughtfully, “we’re probably not his only friends. He gets on very well with that older lady who runs the cheese counter at the supermarket and also the man who washes out the wheelie bins, but you know what I mean. He wanted to show you a good time, and he decided we were the best option. Obviously.” She swished the hair again, leaving a trail of hibiscus and coconut in the air, and flashed a rather beguiling smile. “So. Are you in?”