I look out across his property. It’s so quiet. The only sound is the bugs humming in the grass. The sky is still full of clouds, but the heat is rising again. I miss the city, a lot. Still, I don’t hate this. I do hate the emotions I can feel rolling off him, though. I wait. We can talk when he’sready.
“She knows who you are,” he says after a longwhile.
“What do you mean? Your mom knows who I reallyam?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Scott.”
“What?—that—”
He looks at me then. His eyes are totally bloodshot and I can see the blotchiness of his cheeks. “What?”
“Nothing, I just—Scott never talks about his family. Ever. He just doesn't mention you guys. It makes sense ’cause showing human emotion at our firm is like chumming the water, but even when it’s just the two of us. He knows about my sister, but he… I just can’t imagine him mentioning me to yourparents.”
“Apparently when you two met he fell really hard for you. He called my mom, asked he what he should do. You were coworkers and he didn't want to screw it up. He showed her pictures of you. She remembers faces real well. We bothdo.”
I don't know what my face says, but this is genuinely news to me. And not good news for a whole host ofreasons.
“She thought that you found out about the farm and were trying to grift me out a bushel of peaches or someshit.”
“What the fuck?Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“What else did shesay?”
“After I explained everything she told me to tell her the wholetruth.”
“What did she mean by the wholetruth?”
“She wanted to know if I have feelings foryou.”
“What did you tellher?”
“Yes.”
“How did she handlethat?”
“She didn't loveit.”
“Because ofScott.”
“Because she thought I knew about you too and she thought I was trying to get back at Scott. She thought I was trying to steal you fromhim.”
“Does she understand that I was neverhisto begin with? Scott is a good friend to me, but I have never had feelings for him and he never told me that he had feelings me.” I close my eyes against the sick feeling in my stomach. I think about every conversation Scott and I have ever had. I think about the lengths he went to help me. How he brought me to his family farm in the middle of the night. I'm grateful butI…
“This doesn't change the way I feel now,” I sayslowly.
“I didn't think itwould.”
We sit there in silence for a while and watch the dogs sniff around the yard. Morty spots something in the grass and bounds after it. Gala follows him. They take off out of sight, then come runningback.
“I’m pretty sure I’m on thespectrum.”
That was not what I was expecting him to say next. I turn to him. “Have you… looked into talking to someone about adiagnosis?”