Carry the Ocean: The Roosevelt, Book 1 by Heidi Cullinan Page A

the blankets, mourning my ineptitude, my impotence, my failure. But more than anything, I mourned the loss of Emmet.

Chapter Nine
    Emmet
    Alot of things about autism are unfair, but the worst is people on the mean have a double standard about autistic people’s behavior. I have to practice facial recognition charts and controlling my anger, and when I make a mistake, I get scolded and punished. But when Gabrielle acted bitchy because she didn’t like that Jeremey was gay, did anyone yell at her? Did they say, Hey, maybe you shouldn’t be such an asshole to your own son? No, they didn’t. They apologized, they sent me home, and then they acted as if I’d done something wrong. They told me I had to calm down, got upset with me when I couldn’t control my anger.
    Worse, I couldn’t simply be angry. I couldn’t wallow in my feelings. I couldn’t put on my Dalek shirt and bang my foam hammer until it broke. I couldn’t pout or sulk. I had to get myself together as soon as possible. I’d seen Jeremey before I left. He was so upset that for the first time, I couldn’t see the light in his face. I couldn’t always read his face, but I could read his light, and his light had gone almost completely out. I remembered what he said about the voices, about how they were always loud and negative in his head, and I worried what would happen when he had his mother’s angry voice and his bad voices. I worried so much it made my stomach hurt. It’s not logical for Jeremey’s voices to make my stomach hurt, but it still happened.
    I tried to go to him, to put the light back, but Althea said I had to wait for Mom. I wanted to use the sign to say I was going to stop talking, but if I did that, I couldn’t explain about Jeremey.
    “Althea, you have to listen to me.”
    “ You have to listen to me. You’re in big trouble. Mrs. Samson is really upset.”
    I stared at her shoulder. “Jeremey is upset. He’s very upset, and I have to go to him. He’s my boyfriend. I’m supposed to comfort him.”
    Althea made a funny noise, so I looked at her face to see if I could read it. Surprised face. Very surprised face. “Your—” Her mouth opened and closed several times. Then her face got complicated. “Oh, Emmet. Oh, sweetie, that’s totally not okay. You can’t just decide you’re someone’s boyfriend.”
    Why was everyone so dumb? “I didn’t just decide. We discussed it together. We decided to be boyfriends, and then she came in and started screaming because we were cuddling. Good thing she didn’t see us kissing.”
    Her face kept changing so fast it was hard to keep up. “Peanut, did…did Jeremey make you do something you didn’t want to do?”
    It took so much work not to be angry. “Jeremey wouldn’t ever make me do something I didn’t want to do. He couldn’t. He’s way too shy. He has depression, and it makes him overwhelmed. He doesn’t have any modifications, either, and no medicine. He’s sensitive. Much more sensitive than me. His mother makes him feel bad, and I think she’s doing it now. We have to help him. I have to help him.”
    I spoke calmly and slowly, but she didn’t understand. My dad didn’t say anything, but he frowned at Althea a lot. I didn’t know what that meant. When my mom came back, she made me almost as angry as Althea did.
    “Sweetheart.” She stood in front of me, looking worriedly at my face. “What’s going on?”
    Why was she asking me? How would I know what was going on at the Samsons’? “I need to see Jeremey. Right now. He’s my boyfriend, and he’s upset. I need to make him happy again.”
    “ Boyfriend? Emmet—”
    I didn’t have time for this. “Mom, stop. I have a boyfriend. Jeremey. Why do you think I’ve been hanging out with him so much? But I can’t talk about that right now. He’s upset. I have to fix it.”
    I started toward the front door, but she grabbed my arm. I hate it when people grab me, and I started to swing my arm to hit, then made