The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient #3)(35)

Things with Julian aren’t looking great, however, and the fame isn’t lasting. I’m getting upstaged by a twelve-year-old. I admit I watched videos of her playing with trepidation. I didn’t want to be impressed, but she’s genuinely amazing. I’ve never seen bow work that fluid. She deserves the accolades. Still, now I don’t have anything to show my parents, no great news, no fresh accomplishments, nothing my mom can humble-brag about to her friends, and I know she craves it. I don’t know if it’s better never to be successful at all, or to have success for a short while, only to lose it.

“I will visit next weekend.” I sound peppy and excited as I say it. I even smile. Because that’s how she wants me to be—easygoing and eager to please. Like a golden retriever.

“Good. They’ll be happy to see you,” she says.

I almost laugh at that—a bitter, disrespectful kind of laugh—but I manage to hold it in. If they find out about the shambles I’ve made of my life, they most certainly won’t be happy. There’s no more Julian. No more publicity. The tour is over. My career is circling the toilet drain because I can’t get my act together. I’m in therapy. There’s this thing, whatever it is, with Quan. (What’s worse? Trying to have casual sex with a stranger or failing at having casual sex with a stranger?) And then the latest development …

An odd impulse grabs hold of me, and without actively deciding to do anything, I hear myself saying, “My therapist told me something the other day.”

“Yeah, what did they say?”

“She said I have autism spectrum disorder. I’m autistic with low support needs.” The words sound strange falling off my tongue. They’re too new. But they’re mine, and I want her to know. They explain so much about me—the trouble I had when I was little, the things I’m going through now, everything.

Even so, I hold my breath as I wait for her to respond. It feels like my heart pauses its beating. Will she be ashamed? Will she walk on eggshells around me now?

Will she still love me?

“No, you’re not,” she says with conviction.

For a moment, I’m too flustered to speak. Disbelief wasn’t a reaction I’d foreseen. “My therapist told me this. One of her specializations is—”

She makes an impatient sound. “None of that means anything. People get diagnosed with all kinds of stuff nowadays. It’s a scam to get your money. Don’t let them take advantage of you, Anna.”

My jaw drops as her words seep into my brain. How she can so easily disregard a professional opinion just because she doesn’t like it? How can she be so certain?

“Autism often looks different in women,” I try to explain. “It’s due to a phenomenon called masking, which is when—”

“Trust me, you’re not autistic,” Priscilla says.

“I think I am.”

“Don’t use this as an excuse for your shortcomings, Anna. You’re minimizing the struggles that real autistic people face when you do this.”

“I’m not trying to minimize anything for anyone,” I say, horrified by the accusation. “Autism can be different from what you’ve seen. They call it a spectrum for a reason. There are people who have more obvious impairments, but there are also people like me. Just because I look like I’m doing okay doesn’t mean it’s always true.”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re even discussing this. You’re not disabled,” she says in an exasperated tone.

“I didn’t say I was. I don’t think I qualify, personally. But it’s true that there are certain things that are harder for me to—”

“I have to go. Let’s talk about this later.” The line disconnects.

I lower my phone from my ear and stare ahead without seeing anything. That didn’t go at all how I thought it would, and a deep sense of disappointment and frustration grips me. I told her because I yearned for her to understand me. But it’s never been more clear how much she doesn’t.

Self-doubt takes control of me. I must be wrong. Jennifer must be wrong. Those epiphanies that I had were fake. That sense of identification was misguided. It is human to struggle. If there was a diagnosis for every difficulty, they wouldn’t mean anything.

My intercom buzzes, and I scramble to my feet and run to the front door to hit the button. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Quan says. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I say, but I don’t really know if it’s true. I’ve done a lot of thinking about tonight, and I haven’t found a way around my issues. I can’t do the things he wants. I can’t. But we put this thing in motion, and I want to see it through. I finish what I begin. If I don’t … it fills me with suffering. “Come on up.”

When a knock sounds a short while later, I take a second to collect myself, paste a smile on my face, and open the door.

He’s dressed similar to the first night we met—motorcycle jacket, dark pants, boots. His helmet is tucked under his arm, and he’s smiling at me, that smile that makes it hard for me to think. Once he gets a good look at me, however, his smile fades.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing.” I shake my head and shrug my shoulders.

He gives me a skeptical look, so I explain, “I was just on the phone with my sister. I told her about … you know.”