by C. L. Donley
He hoped Bryan gave him a good punch to the financial gut. Dale was probably giving him marching orders for now.
Grayson envied him. Because he’d risked getting fired to help Amara. He’d risked a big part of his life to help her; something Grayson had never done.
Did she reward him with a smile? With a hug? Something else?
He sighed. Whatever. It was done. He didn’t need to hold on anymore. Amara deserved someone like Bryan.
Grayson always turned into Yoda on the other side of these meltdowns. Except for the last time he’d convinced himself that death was sure and hopeful.
It wasn’t. So he had to be careful.
He’d been in the hospital two weeks before he got a visit from Dale, who looked terrible.
“You look like shit, dude,” Grayson said.
“I feel like shit.”
“Sorry, man.”
“What?”
“For having to put you through this. I know the press is probably a nightmare right now. And the board…”
“Actually, the press believes you’re getting help and that you and Amara are still together.”
“Oh,” was all he said.
“Did you just apologize?” Dale asked perplexed.
“Yes.”
Dale left it at that for the moment. “The doctors think you have a high functioning form of autism.”
Grayson rolled his eyes.
“The same doctors that thought I was bipolar. And dyslexic.”
“More like a completely different set of doctors entirely.”
“What life sucking drugs do they recommend,” Grayson chided.
“None and I actually agree with them.”
“Dale Abernathy, M.D.”
“I should receive an honorary one for living with you, dipshit.” Dale continued, “It makes sense, Grayson. The behavior, the social…challenges, your strengths, your meltdowns—”
“Because the spectrum is so vast. Everyone seems autistic after reading a laundry list of random symptoms.”
“So you think fuckin’ bipolar is a better fit?”
“No, I think they’re all quacks and I don’t want them anywhere near me.”
“Grayson—”
“I’m just overworked.”
“So am I, but I’m not trashing my hotel room after I dump my girlfriend.”
“That’s because all your girlfriends are dogs, bro.”
“You can’t just joke this shit away anymore, Grayson. You’re wearing a hospital gown right now.”
“I’m not going to hurt myself or anyone else,” he sighed, exasperated.
“Normal people don’t have to use that caveat,” Dale said.
“It’s not emotional at all, you know that. You’ve seen it. It’s just stress. It’s been, what, almost ten years since the last one? It’s getting better.”
Dale was silent for a moment before he began with the real reason for his visit. “The board had an emergency meeting. They want you to step down as CEO.”
“Dale—”
“I’m gonna take over. The workload is obviously too much for you,” Dale continued, not listening.
“You came here to tell me you’re muscling me out my own company? You’re fucking Steve Jobs’ing me?”
“Dude, I can’t save the narrative,” Dale raised his voice. “It’s fucked. Something has to happen.”
Grayson was silent as he continued.
“You have a disorder. One that no one knew anything about when we were kids, but now, you actually have a chance to find out about yourself.”
Grayson let his head roll to one side against the pillow.
“Or, you can insist that you’re normal, and be the creepy guy that every girl on Webster is frightened of, who freaked out because he couldn’t handle that his girlfriend left him.”
“She breached the contract,” he said.
“I don’t want to fuckin’ hear,” Dale shook his head calmly.
“Two days left! She wouldn’t listen to reason. I even offered to double it.”
“I said I didn’t want to hear.”
“…An expectation was set.” Grayson justified.
Dale got up to leave. “You’re fuckin’ autistic dude. And that’s the angle we’re going with, you no longer have control of it.
“Fine,” was all Grayson said.
“Get ready to donate to every fuckin’ autism foundation there is, bro. Don’t be offended if they don’t invite you to any summits.”
“I’m sure they’re used to it,” he said.
The two men looked at each other. Dale, as usual, was the first to laugh.
Dale rubbed his brow in fatigue. “I got another flight to catch.”
“Take the jet.”
“What will you do?”
“I can fly commercial, Dale. I’m not a recluse.”
“Since when did apologizing start happening?” Dale suddenly resurrected the subject.
“I don’t know, since… Amara, I guess.”
Dale was taken aback.
“Wow. ‘You guess’?”
“I had a lot to be sorry about,” Grayson breathed.
“You love her.” Dale stated. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” he blinked, as if admitting he was terminal.
“What are you gonna do?” Dale asked.
Grayson slowly shook his head as though the prospect wearied him.
“I really… messed up. I knew this was coming I was just, trying to get her out of there before the worst of it and—”
“And lemme guess: you threatened her with breach of contract and she left anyway.”
Grayson sighed. Dale knew him too well.
Grayson closed his eyes. “I’m gonna pay her, I just…”
“Why don’t you just ask her to marry you?” Dale sounded confused.
“She… doesn’t want that,” Grayson explained.
“She’s the only one that has ever been able to put up with you,” Dale protested.
“Not anymore.”
Dale was frightened. What was so bad that even he knew he’d messed up?
“Oh my God, what did you do…”
“I sent her an invoice.”
Dale stared.
“An invoice.”
“Yes.”
“An invoice… for what.”
“For… services rendered. And why she owes me,” Grayson answered dryly.
Dale sat back down for that one. Grayson continued.
“It was… extensive. Twelve pages.”
Dale completely lost it at that.
He laughed, until he had tears in his eyes, about his hopeless friend. He was going to be stuck with this crazy bastard forever.
“Well good luck with that, dude.”
“When you were on the plane with her…” Grayson began.
Dale was earnest. “Grayson… I would never—”
“I know that,” Grayson interrupted.
“Do you?” Dale’s tone was accusing.
“She seems to think the two of you are friends.”
Dale smiled. “You’re a greedy bastard, you know that?”
Grayson suddenly felt sheepish. “You fuckin’ had your hands all over her in Malibu.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Dale laughed to hear that description, to hear his friend being possessive about a woman. And also to think of his stupefied look again. So priceless.
“She looks at you differently. I thought it was attraction at first, but… I think maybe it’s trust.”
Dale scoffed. “She shouldn’t. I warned her about you, but I didn’t know you’d fuckin’ pay to sleep with her.”
Grayson felt emotion flood his chest, regret chief among them.
“It seemed like a good investment. At the time,” Grayson flatly admitted.
“I would judge you, but I threw money at her too. More than once,” Dale shook his head. “She knows that I know. About the deal,” he continued. “At my house—”
&nbs
p; “When you were on the plane did you tell her about…” his voice trailed off as if he couldn’t go on.
“I didn’t bring up the past. At all.” Dale assured him. “Literally all she talked about— all we talked about— was you.”
With that, Dale was up out of his chair again.
“I’m sorry, Dale,” Grayson stopped him as he stood in the doorway.
He didn’t turn around as he asked, “About what.”
“That you had to be the one to cut me down. At Christmas.”
Dale didn’t move. He took a long deep breath.
“It’s all right,” he exhaled.
“I don’t want to die anymore. I haven’t for a long time.”
“I know.”
And with that, Dale was gone.
He knew that he and Dale understood each other. But the apology had affected him, Grayson saw.
When he sighed in the doorway, it was as though every bitter moment built up over their lives had been shed.
Plus, Grayson indeed felt absolved, and it felt like a sanctuary after a decade-long storm.
He suddenly wished he could’ve seen if some of the fatigue in Dale’s face had somehow instantly lifted. Just to drive the point home.
But there was no need. The experience was enough.
Perhaps there was something to this apology stuff. Yet another valuable piece of information. Strenuously attained.
By the end of week three, Grayson was regularly meeting with doctors as he agreed to therapy. He’d spent the week reading multiple research articles from medical journals. He color-coded the list of symptoms, dividing them into categories of Used to Have, Rarely Had, or Still Have. Once he confirmed with his mother that he indeed had speech delays as a baby, he found that he either had or once had every single symptom on the list.
Amara’s birthday had passed during the fourth week.
For her birthday, he called Bryan and had him wire transfer Amara a million dollars worth of shares in Webster stock.
He’d never stopped thinking about her. In fact, in his weeks of solitude, he was starting to wonder if his entire life was a culmination of a singular moment of meeting her. He said himself he would’ve never approached her. And he hadn’t, she’d worked at his company. He probably never would’ve called her into the conference room if he hadn’t known of her obsession with him. And he would never have assumed that she could be interested in him at all if he hadn’t already known it from her Webster page. And he wouldn’t have visited her Webster page if he hadn’t spoken to her on the phone. What were the odds that she would be the one to answer? Not that astronomical to his calculations, only about 1 in 88. But still.
What were the odds that she would be an employee at all? At the heart of it, they were just two people in the wide world that needed a reason to meet, and the world had provided one. It was the single most serendipitous moment of his life. Because now he was here, the most uninvited, uncontrolled trajectory of his existence. In a hospital bed, being in love and getting help. Love! It had caved in on him and made a spectacular mess of his life. He handled it about as poorly as a man could have.
He respected her, almost more than he loved her. He was a miserable son of a bitch, and she navigated him and his universe like a fuckin’ world-weary sea captain. It made him emotional whenever he thought about how strong she was. What did a girl like her need all that strength for? He wasn’t good enough for her. But it occurred to him that he could try to be if he was truly inclined, and he was. He’d accomplished a great deal in his life, to be honest. Quite frankly he needed the challenge, and this one was sure to last his entire life. And it just so happened to be right around the time that a major puzzle piece to his life’s context had fallen into his lap. He wanted to tell her everything he’d learned about himself. Face to face.
Amara, who made him laugh. Who cried at sunrises and job interviews and good sex. And hand-holding. Amara who was a visual feast he felt himself starting to crave again.
He would have to risk her either giving him the outcome he’d already accepted or freeing him from this jail of his own making.
He had to try and get her back.
But how?
How did neurotypicals win the love of their lives back?
Sixteen
Chapter 16
It’d been two months since Amara had last seen Grayson Davis, and it was not the way she liked to remember him.
But every time she remembered that day they met in the conference room, those eyes, that laugh, that instrument of exquisite torture that was his body, she inevitably would remember that night in the lobby of the hotel in Montenegro. The sound of his voice quaking in anger and tearing her down. The defeated way he’d apologized to her, had begged her to stay, in his way. It’d been a cry for help, she now knew. He was breaking down, and he’d needed something constant, something familiar. And instead, she’d upended his entire world.
Since Webster had released the personal statement about Grayson’s health and eventual resignation, Amara had looked up everything she could find about Asperger’s Syndrome, and she researched in disbelief.
There he was, in black and white.
He didn’t fit an abuse pattern. He fit an autism pattern.
His mood swings, his inflexibility about plans, the blunt way he spoke. The meltdown at the hotel. Even the way he would twirl her hair incessantly in bed, or the nights he didn’t want to make love, he just wanted to look at her at night or in the early mornings. She wondered if it was his way of regulating his sensory input.
She wasn’t quite sure where the amazing sex fit in, she thought as she smirked dumbly at her computer screen. But she’d been glad of it.
“Amara, stop daydreaming about Grayson Davis’ schlong, we have a pitch meeting,” her new MeTV co-worker Alec startled her.
“I’m gonna have to review that sexual harassment section of the employee handbook,” Amara said.
“I hear the code of conduct was much more lax at Webster,” he said, before crossing his forearms to block Amara’s feeble attack.
“Does he know you flirt with me?” Alec said.
“He’s not threatened by you,” Amara deadpanned.
No one ever released a statement saying they’d broken up, or that said relationship had only ever been a sexual contract. Whenever she was asked about it, either at work or by the occasional media outlet, she just shrouded it in the same request for privacy that the company had.
It was far from a clean break, but now that she was working for one of his good friends, Bel Hafiz, she’d already prepared herself for the eventuality of running into him.
She just hoped someone would give her a heads up before she’d have to lay eyes on him again and, God forbid, whatever new young thing he was with.
If it was a blonde, she wasn’t too worried, but she sometimes got a wave of nausea at the idea that she may have converted him. That there’d be some leggy, skinnier, lighter skinned black girl on his arm. With good hair.
Barf.
Neither party pursued the terms of the contract or its breach.
Amara was too tired and embarrassed, and likely he was too. When Kim went behind Amara’s back to contact Grayson’s lawyers, they were oblivious.
The invoice had been… thorough.
He’d fairly acknowledged that she had more than fulfilled the contract and actually added $300,000 for what he branded “pain and suffering.”
But the breach of contract was a whopping $1.8 million as if putting it in big bold red letters could somehow justify the amount. So according to him, when it was all said and done she would’ve owed $150,000.00.
When she received it, she was horrified at first. He’d listed every sexual thing they’d ever done and assigned them monetary values.
All except her virginity, which had been cataloged “Misc: loss of virginity, Cost: $0.00.”
“Ugh,” was all she could say. What a bastard, she thought.
Many things she hadn�
�t remembered.
“Eggs Benedict breakfast nook.”
What?
Then she remembered he went down on her during breakfast once, and he had made her eggs benedict for the first time.
“I can’t concentrate with you doing that,” she’d told him.
“So don’t,” he’d said.
Why was he putting things he’d done on the invoice? What a noob.
She missed him.
She found herself reading through the invoice often.
A lot of things weren’t sexual, and she was surprised that he’d remembered them, let alone valued them enough to put them on a spreadsheet.
“Hand Holding, Qty. 37, cost: $3700.”
It was purely Grayson-esque. It was sweet.
“Is Amara the only one with good ideas around here?” she suddenly heard, her train of thought dissipating like a cloud.
Just now they were in her Project Manager’s office, a colorful, pop culture shrine of organized chaos, coming up with ideas for original content.
Each team member was given a camera and told to create their own channel for MeTV. The channel creator with the most views would become the team leader, but only for the quarter until they had the opportunity to compete again. Amara had won that quarter with her channel, which was just called “Dad Reacts.” It was merely edited and uploaded clips of her father reacting to lynchpin episodes of popular TV shows. Her dad was quite a character, and not only did she win the team lead position but her channel became one of the top 500 most watched. And generated revenue. She already had a few talk show ideas that she was holding back for herself that would likely ensure her team leadership for the rest of the year.
Amara. Loved. Her. Job.
And her job loved her. She goofed off the entire day and got pats on the back for it.
“Amara has a rich boyfriend why is she even here,” her friend Maggie spat out.