Page 28 of Outlier
“You’reher brother, mate.” I snapped.
“Where were you whenyoursister was hurt?” Ollie cracked back, and I stiffened.
I was about to blast him for this latest blatant bullshit—I was agreatbrother, thank you very much––but another small whimper from Vicky stopped me from unleashing on the Duke of Fuckingham. I needed to make the small woman in my arms apriority. I could haul this prick over the coals for neglecting her later.
“Look, can we just concentrate on sorting Vicky?” Lottie asked.
“Right, well,I’mgoing to be the one sorting Vicky out,” I told them both.
We were now attracting a fair bit of attention, and I had a feeling Vicky would hate to be seen like this. Making a snap decision, and before either of them could say anything, I scooped Vicky up into my arms, held her tightly so that her face was still planted in my chest and hidden from the overly interested crowd, and strode off towards the exit with Ollie and Lottie trailing after me.
Once we were outside in the driveway, I went straight to my massive, ancient, mud-covered Land Rover and put Vicky on her feet to wrap her in my dinner jacket, which was so huge on her that it came down to her knees. I then lifted her up and deposited her on the front passenger seat.
Ollie blocked me as I tried to round the vehicle to get in myself.
“I’lltake her home,” Ollie growled. “You don’t know what you’re?—”
That was when my temper snapped.
“No, I don’t know what I’m dealing with becausenoneof you fuckers bothered to tell me,” I semi-shouted. “You’ve dropped this ball, Harding. It was me she wanted to go to in there. Me who held her through it, and it’ll be me that makes sure she’s okay.”
Ollie glared at me, clearly not going to move, but then Vicky’s shaky voice piped up through the now-open window of the Land Rover.
“I’ll stay with Mike,” she said, and that was all I needed to hear.
Despite my complete dickbag tendencies, she was still choosing me.
So I tuned both of them out to concentrate on her. Once in the truck, I put my arm over the back of Vicky’s seat to look over my shoulder and reverse, then tore out of the driveway.
Chapter 12
No frame of reference
Vicky
Mike’s hughad started my recovery from the meltdown, but what fully snapped me back to reality was his supremely masculine reversing manoeuvre.
I’d never found the way a man drives a car attractive before, but as Mike put his arm over my headrest to look back over his shoulder, with all his muscles flexing under his tailored shirt, I forgot about the fireworks, and my mouth went completely dry.
But now that he was tearing along the country road, changing gears with one hand whilst the other rested on the steering wheel (all unreasonably attractive manoeuvres for driving an ancient manual vehicle) the reality of the evening was starting to filter back in.
What’s wrong with her?
She’s Autistic.
I knew Ollie, Margot, Abdul and Lottie were right. There was nothing to be ashamed of. My brain just worked a bit differently. I saw the world and everyone in it in an unusual way. Not everyone can work the same or behave the same. In fact, as I’vesaid before, if the world were full of Vickys, everything would run a lot more smoothly.
Certainly, everything would be on time, and everybody would say what they really meant—it would actually be a lot more efficient and less confusing. But seeing as I was the aberrant one, and everyone else ran on white lies and subtleties, it was difficult not to carry any shame.
Abdul put the blame for that firmly on my mother and half-sister. Mum’s refusal to let anyone “put a label” on why I had difficulties meant that I internalised the idea of having a label as a bad thing.
Not to mention, Rebecca repeatedly called me a freak and a weirdo. I’d only been diagnosed a few years ago, and in general, I didn’t want people to know.
With Mike, back when I was entertaining romantic fantasies about him, I had hoped he could overlook my quirks and just focus on my above-average attractiveness level, but I guess there is a limit to how far looks can override personality, or a lack thereof.
I had thought it would be better to ease him into the Autistic label, but I had also conceded he would need to know eventually. Now that I wasn’t harbouring any romantic fantasies, but rather an intention to pursue a purely physical arrangement—if he would agree to it—I had hoped he might neverneedto know. But my meltdown tonight had well and truly outed me.
There was no hiding anything from him now.
