It smelled funny. Acid climbed up my nose and into my skull. The sheet music swimmed in front of my eyes, blurring with the audience chairs.

This school gymnasium was so different. No one else noticed it except me.

I got up and told my parents, who were sitting in the front row, that we needed to leave. I was getting a headache. But then my classmates came. In a swarm of faces, arms, and shadows they pleaded to me not to leave. Who else would fill in for the solo?

But they were busy joking with my parents, laughing. I didn't get their jokes. I didn't understand why Tienne was crying and making me cry too until my dad shouted. Anger. At me? No, at my classmates. Under my parents' glower, they mumbled apologies and slinked away. Somehow, I could hear their conversation across from the gym: that my parents were normal, so why wasn't I?

It was raining. Water splashed and echoed down empty hallways. I passed a muffled conversation from inside the principal's office. The door was open and adults were talking, but the words gushing out of their mouths were warbled, alien.

They walked out. I stepped back, prepared to run from their prodding questions--the shaking heads, the sighs of disappointment, they were always because of me--but they walked right past me! When I looked at my hands, I couldn't see them, nor the rest of my body. Now I could find some peace for once.

The office sounded quiet. I snuck inside to see two other kids. A black-haired girl had her arms crossed. Beside her sat a boy with hearing aids, playing tetris on his phone.

Water was leaking from the office's ceiling. The girl opened her umbrella and offered it to the boy, who refused. When she gave up, I quietly stood under her umbrella.

Drops turned to rain turned into sheets of water that pummeled the umbrella. The smell of petrichor cleared my senses. I was content to stay with these people who I knew very little and very much of, even if they didn't know I was here at all.

-

MONTY: Yikes. Sounds rough. Have you given Nora a heads-up so she knows the family drama surrounding this?

TAI: Would it not make a bad impression on her?

MONTY: She'll figure it out either way but I'm sure she'll appreciate being informed. That really sucks.

After texting Nora, I sighed. This had to be the longest night ever. The bedsheets were pooled around me like frozen water, as if time had stopped at midnight after I woke up feeling sad.

Relying on Monty to walk me through the trains of thought going on in other people's minds didn't make me feel as supported as it did lost. Sometimes I wished everyone communicated in the way that made sense to me. Not that I hated being Autistic—it was the opposite. Being on the spectrum was an important part of who I was, and my family, flawed as they were, taught me that I shouldn't expect anything less than 100% love and acceptance just because of my differences. But this also meant tightrope-walking the gap between the neurotypical and neurodivergent world--if that bridge could be crossed at all.

MONTY: Your parents sound like mine. They grew up in an unfair environment where they got the every-person-for-themself mentality. Just prove them wrong. They'll accept your girlfriend eventually.

MONTY: Why?

TAI: Overprotective

MONTY: Don't get manipulated

TAI: What's with everyone thinking everyone's a manipulator?

MONTY: Just drawing upon my experiences. Been doing a deep dive into my family history so it's been on my mind

TAI: You never talk about your family.

MONTY: Jo and I've been talking about the difference between religion and culture, so I've been doing research into Hong Kong

MONTY: I can't care for my family but I don't want them to get in my way of understanding my background

TAI: Why don't you care?

MONTY: Lots of reasons. Academic pressure as the eldest, limited support when I began to lose my hearing, etc

MONTY: No one wants to have their life dictated

I bit my lip, flashing back to how I'd asked Nora the same question. Now I understood that it wasn't the question that bothered her; it was shaping my expectations into my perceived reality of her family.

TAI: I'm sorry I assumed.

MONTY: It's nothing

MONTY: If it makes you feel better, jobs aren't coming easy for me either. Interpretations and stuff aren't a big problem, but it's the working environment that sucks

TAI: That's made me appreciate being self-employed

TAI: Don't give up. You're the best coder I know

MONTY: I'm the only coder you know dude. But I *am* the best too. Not giving up yet. IDK your obstacles but you shouldn't either

We talked about our Christmas gifts--Monty liked his, whew, and promised he'd think of something for me--before we said goodnight. Texting had helped straighten out the bundle of emotions eating me on the inside. I needed help but I didn't know what would help. Not for the first time, I wished I knew how to maintain contact with other Autistic people I'd met in life.

I looked up to the window. Moonlight carved dark silhouettes behind the furniture but shone right through me. Puffy falling snow threw moving shadows on the floor. It was cold and impalpable as sleep.

--

The spider red numbers on my alarm clock read 3:03 AM when floorboards creaked. A pair of bare feet appeared under the door's gap, which could only be Tienne's.

"Tai?" she called. "Can I come in?"

Tiennese Translation: "I'm lonely. Can I come in so it'd make me feel better?"

She tiptoed around the mess of scrap paper, pencil crayons and blue that twinkled in the moonlight coming in from the window. I placed the half-complete diorama on my dresser. Usually I hated being interrupted in the middle of a project, but at some point I must have nodded off.

I rummaged my drawers for a fuzzy blanket and draped it over Tienne's shoulders. Eyes half-closed, she hugged her knees. I copied her, though really all I wanted to do was sleep and cease the relentless ruminations that often kept me up at night.

Tienne sat up like an alerted bird. "I thought you stopped doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Turning invisible. Were you sleeping?"

I looked at my non-existent hands and arms with a mild curiosity. Even if I stared, I couldn't see the shimmery outline Tienne claimed was so obvious.

"Don't disappear on me!" she said.

My invisibility didn't work properly around my family. I didn't know why, but I stopped using it to sneak around the house after Dad scared Mom into thinking our house had a bad spirit.

I once joked to Tienne that technically, I could be a ghost, if I figured out how to make my whole body intangible at the same time and float around. She didn't talk to me for days after.

I told my family more things than anyone else, even Nora. But the parts I shared of myself were fractured, scattered among a few people. I only had myself to figure out my ability.

Tienne dipped her chin. The emptiness she struggled with overwhelmed me like dunking my bones in ice. It wasn't as bad as when we were kids. As we got nightmares more often and came to each other, we worked out a system. It changed from calling Kimmy to wipe our snotty noses to texting in different rooms. And now Tienne's turmoil was more contained, while my meltdowns had decreased in frequency but were just as intense.

Doubt crept up on me. The Vương household had settled into the tepid atmosphere of waiting out until the day of judgment. The more my parents and I gave each other space, the further I was from sorting out my feelings--especially when Nora was coming tomorrow.

I refused to think that Nora had ulterior motives. She'd say something like 'I don't have time for fake relationships' and raise an eyebrow. But I could never know, could I? I was blind to the social language that played in front of everyone else's eyes.

"We're grown-ups, Tai," Tienne said, reading my mind. "It's not like high school drama where everyone's playing the bitch game."

"But you understand, don't you?" I said. She had anxiety. She knew how reality amplified fear until you couldn't tell one from the other.

"Kind of. What I don't understand is you downplaying your musical ability. You got fame at Hidden Stars and you didn't tell them that."

"I did. I'm not sure if a few articles would change their mind about this social thing though. The future." I lowered my voice. "I met a music manager. We click, like we get each other. But is it weird that I don't want to tellMẹand Ba?"

She turned to me with interest. "Tell me more?" Her voice lifted with hope, and as I told her, I reminded myself that I had to be the one sharing the details of my life. That was how she was: she needed other people to say things first, so she could exchange it with the debrief of her life.

"Hmm. It's true you've misjudged people's intentions, but suspecting every little thing only makes it worse," she said. "They wouldn't understand. To them it's for survival, you know? 'Kids raised here know how to use their hearts, not their brains,' or whatever."

"Are you still daydreaming?"

"In moderation," Tienne said. "I know it scares Dad though."

"Doctors are scarier," I argued. "They're the ones that told my parents all that crap about Autism! We learned way more by trial and error than we did from appointments."

"Má and Ba only trust what they see, so we can use that to our advantage," Tienne said thoughtfully. "When you're working with patients, you have to do a lot of intimate things to help them. It was a nightmare when I started working there because they didn't trust me, but that was because past employees were so rude.Mẹand Ba are stubborn, but they're not stupid. They'll see that the world isn't going to blow up if you and Nora kiss."

"You don't have to put it like that."

She grinned. "Not saying that's the only thing you do--"

"Tienne!" I shouted, my cheeks burning.

We glanced towards the door in case I woke anyone up. When the floors didn't creak, we chuckled.

"Tai...."

"Yeah."

She pinched a strand of hair. It shone light blue in the moonlight before clouds shrouded the room in near-darkness. "Just...don't turn invisible at every chance you have. Like, you used to be translucent to me before. But ever since you moved, if I look at you from a certain angle, you're almost gone."

"Toronto is temporary."

"Is it better than here? What's the difference?"

"I'm here."

I blocked out the other thoughts, the times I've failed to emotionally support others because I've "disappeared," either figuratively or literally. I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end. I hoped it wouldn't happen again.