Puddle Jumping(7)

I was just there.

But life isn’t really about just getting by. Right when you’ve lulled yourself into a false sense of security, it likes to throw in a plot twist. Keep you on your toes.

I had specifically not looked into Colton’s ‘condition’. And yes, I’m using finger quotes.

There was something inside me that didn’t want to know. Something that made me think if I knew exactly what it was he was experiencing, then it would change my memories of him or sway me to look at him differently. And I didn’t want that because the ones I did have of him, even when coupled with my near-death experiences, were pretty good. I felt good when I thought of him.

To have the knowledge of what was ‘wrong’ could have caused me to second-guess and analyze every last move he’d ever made. My interactions with him. His mother’s sanity.

I was really, really good at pretending and ignoring things.

Weren’t you?

Anyway. I’d had this misconception it meant he was handicapped. Obviously there would be a stigma attached to him, right? What I didn’t know at the time was there are so many people on the spectrum that we’re familiar with.

Like, celebrities.

You can look it up.

Would you ever know it? Probably not. But if you did, would it make you look at them differently? Would you scour their body language and everything to see if you can say, “Oh, yeah. That totally makes sense.”

This is why I didn’t want to know. I thought maybe I’d never see Colton again, and therefore, didn’t need to spoil any of my precious memories of him.

I was a moron who feared knowing the truth would make things different in a negative way instead of positive. That it would be more than I could handle. But something I forgot about myself is that I’m pretty stubborn and loyal. Tenacious to a fault, in fact.

Later on, I figured out very quickly I’d do anything for him.

Anything.

I know it to be fact, because as soon as I’d nearly forced myself to forget about him, Colton Neely stepped through the doors of my high school on the first day of my senior year.

With a locker just a foot away from mine.

And he was even more beautiful in real life than he’d been in the faded picture I’d kept of him in the back of my mind.





He was standing a foot away and I swear I almost passed out. It was like he was some sort of hallucination, but I had done one of those weird age-progression things they do on the news and my creative lobe took over making him much taller and so much more attractive because that would be exactly how my teenage fantasy would have played out.

Except he was so real.

I just stared at him for a second; breathing out of my mouth noisily and waiting for my alarm clock to sound, but it never came.

“Colton?” It had to have sounded like a question because I could hear the end of his name kind of lilting upward as it left my mouth and I sure as hell wasn’t trying out a British accent, so . . . yeah, it must have been a question.

His eyes flicked to me and he nodded once, turning back to a paper in his hand.

“Hello.” His shoulders were stiff and his chin was almost tucked into his chest as he took a moment to think. And just as abruptly as he appeared, he turned and walked away, holding his backpack strap tightly with one hand as he squeezed his other fist around the piece of paper.

Now, I had that little almost-stalking incident the last time I saw him, so I couldn’t exactly fight my genetic makeup. So I tailed his ass, walking a couple people behind him until he veered off into a room I’d never really paid attention to before. There were already quite a few students inside, sitting at desks and chatting among themselves.

Well, except for Colton, who seemed to stall for a moment before finding an empty desk in the back corner.

Before I could gather my nerve to wave at him from the door to see if he would meet me in the hallway, I heard heavy footsteps behind me and turned just in time to see one of the senior football players rounding the corner, stopping before he almost slammed straight into me. He had hair that was almost white blond and big eyes that were crinkled with laughter at my slack jaw.

“Excuse me.” He smiled and blushed a little, slipping by to walk into the room and be greeted by a couple friends.

I was so confused. Why would Sawyer Grant, football god, be in the same class as Colton? It didn’t click with me that Sawyer could be like him, too.

Of course, now I know that’s not the case.

Now I know he’s dyslexic and has a hard time learning in regular classes.

I know the skinny brown haired girl who zipped by me to take her seat next to him is Marissa, and she has ADHD.

But that day I didn’t know any of it until the bell rang and their teacher walked over to the door and shut it, proudly displaying the room name: Resources.

To say I was shocked would have been like saying boys like to touch boobs.

An understatement.

All of them looked fine.

I just remember wondering why Colton’s mother had sent him to school just so he could be in a special class. She homeschooled him, didn’t she? Which shows exactly how little I knew about anything, given the fact I was very self-absorbed and was always concentrating on doing good things to look like a nice person. But I was still judgmental and critical on the inside if I was having those thoughts.

Because not every kid who’s in those classes is a stereotype.