Alterity

Chapter Seven

I dream about Leo. Basically, I relive our awkward interaction where he essentially tells me my attempt at signing is hilarious. I keep trying to explain that I want to learn but every time I open my mouth, no words come out. The only sound that leaves my mouth is Aiden's signature foghorn hum. Leo just keeps pointing to his ears and shrugging. The humming gets louder and I wake up with a start, Aiden standing beside me, locking his fingers together and groaning.

I quickly sit up in bed. "What's wrong, buddy? Are you ok?"

"Ughhh—ugh." Aiden groans.

I turn on the lamp on my nightstand and that's when I notice that Aiden's pants are soaking wet. While he wears pull-ups, he is generally very independent when it comes to using the bathroom when he needs to go, but sometimes—especially at night—he does have accidents. For whatever reason, whenever he is uncomfortable, particularly due to sensory reasons, Aiden always comes to me. Mom often says that he loves me the most and while I deny it, I think it's true. We get each other.

"Oh no, buddy. It's ok!" I say, stroking his hair. "C'mon, let's go to the bathroom and get you in some new pants."

Because he's tired, Aiden plops right down in the bath without a fight and does very little splashing. I think it helps that I don't try and wash his hair.

"Thanks for waking me up." I say, grabbing the body wash. "I was having a shitty dream."

Aiden claps his hands and hums, grinning at me.

"There's this guy I like a lot. Leo. I just want to be able to talk to him, you know? But he's deaf and I know like, no Sign Language. I wanna take real lessons, but you know how dad is when it comes to money." I sigh.

Aiden parrots my sigh.

I smile and tussle his hair. "I love you so much, you know that?"

He smiles back and puts his hands on my cheeks, humming.

Once he's all clean, I get Aiden changed into a fresh pair of pajamas with a pull-up underneath—just in case—and tuck him back into bed. Some people think it's silly that I have full conversations with Aiden and talk to him about things that are weighing on me, but that's because they are so focused on his differences, that they fail to see what a smart and caring kid he is. Aiden always picks up on when I'm feeling down and will try and comfort me with a hug, a pat on the back or one of his awkward kisses. But it's like I said: We get each other.

Growing up with autism is really rough. I didn't get my diagnosis until I was nine. Before then, I pretty much was just trudging miserably along in school and at home, desperately trying to find the words to explain why I was having such a hard time. The sensory processing disorder that accompanies my autism has been one of the biggest challenges in my life, far too many things difficult, and the younger you are, the hardest it is to deal with it because you don't have the vocabulary to describe what is bothering you.

Numerous events prior to my diagnosis lead up to my being sent to The Ducharme School, but bullying was one of the biggest. My peers treated me like absolute garbage and to this day, I have no idea why. I never spoke to them, or anyone, really, and always kept my head down. Yet, they still chose to target me constantly. Maybe they just picked up on my being different, I don't know. Like I said before, I still can't tie shoes, but before my family knew that this was due to a disability, they'd—primarily my dad—accuse me of not trying hard enough, at one point, refusing to help me anymore and having me go to school with untied shoes so as to experience bullying that they hoped would "motivate me." Shockingly, that didn't work.

One day, when I was the same age Aiden is now, I decided I couldn't take it anymore and spent about a week building up the courage to tell my teacher how awful my classmates were being to me, verbally and physically. When I finally got the words out, for the briefest moment I felt a tremendous weight lift off my chest, thinking that now she'd put a stop to it and I wouldn't have to be afraid to go to school anymore. Unfortunately, it didn't play out that way.

My teacher responded to my report by telling me that this was good . . . because I deserved it for being so stupid. It broke me. Then, when I got home from school and tried to explain to my parents what had happened, they didn't believe me. And that shattered me. I've kept most personal things to myself since then, preferring to talk to Aiden about it. Being both my brother and another individual with autism, I feel safe talking to him. There are times where I'd give anything for him to be able to respond back, but when those thoughts occur, I remind myself that he already does in his own way. His Aiden way—which I happen to love.

Language barriers are really tough, hence why I don't tend to let one stand in the way of someone I am interested in. I log onto Lifeprint.com on my laptop and watch as many videos as I can until my alarm goes off to get up for school.