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Chapter 2

Friend

[noun]

A person you like a lot. Not usually a member of your family.

She’s my best/oldest/closest friend – we’ve known each other since we were five.

He’s a family friend/friend of the family.

My friend enquired how my holiday was.

Shaznia has been my friend at school and out of school too. We’d met up over the holidays and some Saturdays too.

And this is not easy for me.

I have to plan and need notice to prepare myself and to choose my clothes, organise my travel arrangements, and when these are in place I can meet my best friend! Yay! (I’m not sure she’s actually a best friend. I would like that but…)

We’ve been over to each other’s houses too. Shaznia lives at 67 Bluecoat Lane, Sevenoaks, Kent and it’s not easy for me to go there but I make the effort to visit her home, with smells, colours and shapes very different to mine. And of course Anxiety always comes along too. Dragging out of me… And I try to shake it off or prise out its claws that dig and cut into me and I try to ignore it because you see, when you have a friend, you do things to keep the friendship going. You have to make an effort and nurture it, as it explains in the feature “How To Tell If She’s A Real Friend,” Cherry Magazine, The Friendship Special.

Sometimes your friend will want to go swimming and sometimes you’ll want to go drink caramel café lattes at the local coffee shop! But remember, make the effort to do things she loves too! Nurture that friendship and watch it blossom!

I never talk about having autism with Shaznia. I’m not ashamed of it…but sometimes I am… Often her aunt is in her kitchen and says things like, “Is she the little one with the criminal’s disease?” Shaznia and her mum tell her to be quiet and of course I don’t have a criminal disease, I know this. But sometimes I catch a flicker, a flash, a change cross Shaznia’s face and I worry that it’s doubt or fear about our friendship, so I try to make small talk to make her feel better. I say,

“Shaznia, I’m enquiring about your holiday and how it was?” Like it says in the dictionary, and her aunt will see I am a good friend, not a criminal.

But her aunt BANGED the table and laughed and her mum says,

“M, that’s very sweet of you to ask. Our last holiday was in the Lake District and we had a very enjoyable time. You girls go upstairs and I’ll bring you some lemonade.”

I don’t like Shaznia’s aunt one bit but I don’t say anything to my mum in case she stops me seeing Shaznia. However, I try not to go to her house that much or I ask if she’ll be there and Shaznia says “yes” and “sorry” and that she feels bad about her aunt. It’s nice that Shaznia cares. Also, we have “lots in common.” Another definition in “How To Tell If She’s A Real Friend.” We both love clothes! We love trying on combinations of shoes, skirts, jewellery, socks, bags, etc… She really listens to my advice about what to wear and how to apply make-up and I really like this. It makes me feel really good about myself.

I understand colours and textures and shapes much more than other girls my age do and I can match shoes and nail polish and all the little details that really bring an outfit to life!

I also copy Skylar, The All-American Girl. Pop star and icon for the 21st century. She always looks so beautiful and is so popular and often has an American twist to some of her outfits like the Star Spangled Banner skirt she wore in season 7, episode 15 in which she visits the American President and discovers that the White House domestic supervisor (we would call him a cleaner) is a spy for another presidential candidate, Newton Layburn Senior. Skylar uncovers this “threat to democracy” and ends up performing on the 5th of July, in Capitol Hill, and the American President closes the episode saying,

“You really are our all-American girl Skylar!” And she cries and looks up at a shooting star travelling across the night sky. I probably wouldn’t wear that outfit, unless it was for fancy dress, but usually I copy the clothes she wears when relaxing on the tour bus or visiting children’s hospices in Oklahoma or Florida.

Another thing me and Shaznia have in common is we like to talk about LOVE.

Love – the most exciting, joyous, beautiful part of my life!

When Shaznia talks about boys and love, I have to sit on my hands or hold them tightly and breathe deeply, so I don’t flap or tap my face and I am elated that she talks to me about these things. In fact I can hardly believe it. I’m like one of those girls in Cherry Magazine, sitting in a coffee shop, laughing with their friends. Shaznia must think I am cool enough, and that acceptance gives me joy much bigger than the world! Shaznia does talk a lot. Mum asked if she talks “too much,” but I love it because I don’t have to do “small talk,” which inevitably causes me a lot of problems. It is excruciating and pointless. Toby calls Shaznia The Gob. Mum laughs but then stops and says,

“Stop it Toby. That’s not nice.”

I sit on the edge of her bed, as the bean bag is very strange and Shaznia’s bedroom is so cool. She has a double wardrobe and we go through each item assessing if it suits her or what she can combine it with to create a successful outfit. And I love that her mum brings us lemonade and cake and says,

“Shaznia isn’t going on about her clothes too much, is she M?”

And I look at her silver and pink clock and watch the hands go round and round, amazed at how much time can have passed, and I feel so included and part of real teen life. But the best bit is when we talk about boys and how much we love Lynx and Jake. Lynx and Jake are in Year 10 and are best friends. They are always with each other, which, as Shaznia says, would be perfect for a double date!

And we plan trips up town to see if we can meet them and then pretend it’s an accident. I don’t understand why we would pretend it’s an accident but I don’t want to disturb our friendship in any way. When Mum collects me in the car she always asks,

“Does Shaznia ever ask you any questions?”

And I say,

“Yes, she asked me if her sky blue top and grey leggings matched.”

“But does she ask any questions about YOU, M?” And I go a bit quiet because she doesn’t but I really like it that way, and Mum tightens her lips and shakes her head and I say,

“What are you doing Mum? What does that mean?”

“I just think you could do better than Shaznia as a friend.”

“Are you disapproving of my friendship?” I ask, and she shrugs her shoulders and says,

“Why don’t you spend more time with Joe? He’s a good friend.”

But I think Mum just doesn’t understand. We are friends. It may not be a friendship like her and Jackie, who drink white wine all the time and sing along to old songs and then start crying, but it’s the kind of friendship I want…although it is…tiring but I won’t tell anyone that. I put on my friendship mask and I am a friend! A good friend! I can do it!

For my birthday last year Shaznia bought me the kind of card I’d always dreamed of receiving. It was a big card – 20 cm × 30 cm – and had a pink, sparkly tassel in the middle. On the cover it had a teddy bear dressed in a prom dress, wearing high, silver heels and wearing lots of diamonds and she/it was holding a heart-shaped handbag. She/It was climbing into a pearl coloured limousine and inside the card it had a poem printed in pink:

Friendships are precious!

Friendships are special!

Which makes you special and precious to me!

Happy birthday Style Queen.

And wrapped in pink heart paper was a bottle of Skylar, Jet Set perfume. (Toby said it smelt like the day the drains burst on our street – it didn’t.) And I’ve placed it on a shelf in my room, with the card, one of Dad’s guitar plectrums, a photograph of my grandad who died and a Buddha Mum gave me. And they are all on that shelf because they are important to me.

And also, if I hang out with Shaznia, there is more chance I will get to see Lynx, the juicy-lipped, hair-gelled love of my life.

Lynx

The first time I saw Lynx I was struck by love. STRUCK. It’s the day I realised how I am merely a vessel for all these emotions and how they lie dormant in my body and I lug them around all the time and then they burst or crash or slide or burn or smash out of me.

My love for Lynx is like Skylar’s love for Ewan. She loves him because she feels “connected” to him. That’s how I feel about Lynx! Connected… But Skylar and Ewan can’t be together because they both have to play concerts with their really cool bands and tour different parts of America and the world! In season 5, episode 4 she says,

“Ewan, I love you, to the moon and back, but, baby, I need to sing. The world needs to hear my voice and I just can’t see how I can commit to a full-time relationship.”

And then he fights back tears and says,

“I’ll wait.”

He hands her a gold heart necklace and says,

“When you look up to the night sky and see a shooting star, think of me and know that I am always here for you Skylar. We are connected. Souls connected for ever.”

And then he walks up the steps to a private jet because he is in a band too and is playing Chicago that night.

Sometimes at the end of an episode she falls asleep, on a hotel bed, crying tears of love (Tears of Love is also the name of her album), gripping the gold heart, and then a shooting star crashes across the sky to where Ewan is in Mexico or San Francisco or Ontario and he looks up at the star and knows…he knows that Skylar is thinking about him…but they can’t be together right now…but she really, really loves him. And I think it’s the same way that I feel. Stars crashing, Love as big and epic as a night sky!

I am sure he is my Ewan. I’ve never actually spoken to Lynx.

My anxiety is like an alarm that never, ever stops.