Page 137 of Play For Me

“I came to live here when I was fifteen,” I tell her. She knows this part already, but I figure it’s a good place to start. “I think my parents had been done with me for a while, but the campaign party was the last straw.”

I can feel her gaze on my face, but I keep my eyes locked on the fire. “They’re in real estate development. Mostly San Diego, but they’re working more and more in LA. Sometimes up in the Bay Area, too.” I swallow. “They’re constantly networking. Buddying up with politicians and local business leaders, whoever might be able to help them to get the next project going.”

There’s always a next project. Something bigger, something more impressive, something that will put even more dollars in their pocket. They’ll never be satisfied.

“When I was younger, they would drag me to some of these events. I was a smart kid, and I think they liked to show me off. Or maybe they just thought it helped their image, make them look family-centered.” I don’t bother to bite back the scoff.

“As I got older, I stopped being something they could brag about. I was too nervous around people. I would say weird shit, or not say anything at all, or get upset when too many people were looking at me.” I squeeze my hands into fists and release them, remembering the way I had taught myself to do that when my natural instinct was to tap my fingers against my thighs, orflap my hands, or any one of the little stims that would piss my parents off so much.

"They had a party for a mayoral candidate when I was fifteen,” I say, just wanting to get through this part now. I feel sick, the same way I always do when I think about that party. When I think about all those years I lived with them, the long months in between my summers here at the ranch.

“They couldn’t really hide me away in their own house. Besides, the candidate had a son about my age, and they thought it would look better to play happy families.” I can still hear the demanding tone in my dad’s voice when he instructed me to behave myself, to be normal with the candidate’s kid, to not fucking embarrass them for once.

“It…didn’t go well.” I’d promised myself that I’d tell her everything, but I’m not sure I can say the words. How the candidate’s kid had been an asshole, the kind of bully who somehow instinctively can sniff out someone’s weaknesses. How he’d seen the way I shrank away from physical contact and proceeded to keep touching me all night—little finger flicks against my neck and hands, pinches on my arm, an elbow in my ribs, just enough contact to keep me on edge.

Throughout the night, he kept positioning us closer to the live band so the noise would surround us, making my ears hurt, and every time I tried to move away from him, one of my parents would be there to glare at me.

But I’d managed to keep it together until he shoved a canapé down the back of my button-up shirt. It was made with raw oyster, the kind of thing I couldn’t even stand to look at, and it felt slimy and cold sliding down my back. With my suit jacket on and my shirt tucked in, I couldn’t get at it, just had to stand there feeling it ooze across my skin.

“I was supposed to entertain the candidate’s kid,” I say, my mouth dry now, just from the memory. “But he was an asshole. Ithink he somehow sensed what I was.” Her head jerks a little at that, but I keep going before she can ask any questions. If I don’t get this out now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to.

“He did things all night to intentionally set me off. And when I couldn’t handle it anymore…” I shrug. “You saw how I got at that party. The way I shut down when I was overstimulated. It was like that…but worse. I uh, had a meltdown first. Shouting. Pacing.” I swallow hard, forcing myself to say it. “Flapping my hands.”

I close my eyes, trying to find the strength to keep going. “My parents were mortified. They had me at the ranch with all my things the next morning.”

“Solomon,” she whispers, but I can’t look at her.

“The first time a teacher used the word neurodivergent, I was seven,” I say, my voice flat. “They suggested an autism evaluation. My parents made me switch schools. It’s kind of shocking it took that long for someone to say it, honestly, but I guess my parents made sure I knew how to mask my behaviors since I was way younger than that. After that teacher suggested evaluation, my parents put me in a private school, somewhere their money could make sure no one else would ever utter anything so shameful ever again.”

“That’s not shameful,” she says, voice sharp. She sounds outraged. “So what if you have autism?”

Even now, just hearing the word sends a sick feeling through me. My parents made sure that word would always be connected to shame and rejection in my head.

“I don’t know if I do,” I tell her honestly. “I mean, a lot of the signs are there. It could be some other kind of sensory processing disorder. Maybe OCD.” My low laugh is bitter. “Maybe I’m just crippled by anxiety because I grew up with cruel monsters who liked to scream at me and knock me around when I was anything less than perfect.”

She gasps but I ignore it. I can’t get into those kinds of details right now. “The point is, they refused to have me evaluated.” I swallowed. “And I internalized their bullshit so much that I continued to avoid assessment—or any kind of professional help at all—even once I was out of their house.” I finally force myself to turn and look at her. I expect to see disgust—the same way my parents would look at me—but her expression is mostly just sad. “After I fucked everything up with you, I went to see a therapist.”

She studies my face. “Is that…do you think that will be helpful?”

I blow out a breath. “Yeah. I do. I mean, it’s scary as shit. It goes against everything my parents ever told me, opening up to someone like that.” I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “She said we didn’t have to discuss assessment if I didn’t want to. That we could just focus on my reactions and triggers without giving me a label. But she said some people find it empowering, to know.”

“Do you think you would find it empowering?”

“I think that every time I even consider it, I want to throw up.” I pause. “But maybe that will change, the more I see her. The more I manage to untangle the idea of a diagnosis with all the shit my parents used to say, the way they used to treat me.”

“Your parents are assholes, Solomon,” she says, voice so sharp I almost shiver. “Absolute assholes.”

I release a broken laugh. “They really are.” I turn more fully to face her. “It’s just hard, when I spent my whole life being told I’m broken, to think there’s any possibility that I could ever be enough for a person as amazing as you.”

“You were enough for me,” she bursts out. “Youareenough.” She slides down the bench and takes my hand. “And you’re not broken.”

“When you said you wouldn’t play in the tournament because I got in trouble?—”

“I shouldn’t have said that.” She pauses. “But I think I meant it.”

“I could tell that you did. And it sent me into a panic. Because how could I ask you to give something like that up for me? When I knew there was no way in hell I was worth that kind of sacrifice.”

“You are worth?—”