Going to that pub turned out not being a complete waste of Jyri’s time. At least he had a chance to hang out with Jessica outside of working hours. Although being near her friends made him slightly nervous. He always felt awkward around new people. And there were three of them. Alyssa, Sheryl, and Marie.
“Where are you from?” asked one of the women. Jessica had introduced her as Alyssa.
Why oh why did everyone have to ask such a personal and complicated question upon meeting him? “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“You look Scandinavian,” Marie said. “Like, Finnish.”
Jyri furrowed his brow. “Finish what?”
Marie laughed, and glanced at Jessica. “He’s funny. You should keep him around.”
Great. Her friends made those assumptions too. Jyri had to keep himself from rolling his eyes.
“Yeah,” Jessica said, shooting her a look. “He’s been a good friend.”
“Friend. Right. How have things with Cliff been going for you lately?” Marie asked.
Jessica groaned. “Can we not?”
“Do you want a drink?” Alyssa asked Jyri. “Or food?”
“No thank you.” Jyri hoped nobody would push it.
Surprisingly, no one did. Already it was an improvement over the work group. Everyone else had finished drinks. An empty basket of something sat on the table. The group must’ve been at the end of their stay.
“We’ve been celebrating Sheryl’s 29th birthday,” Jessica said to Jyri.
“My last year in my 20’s,” Sheryl said. “God, we’re all getting old. I remember when I turned 24 and I thought that was old!”
Jyri, being 24 himself, was unsure how to respond to that. So he nodded along.
“We were all about to head to my place for cake and presents,” Jessica told Jyri. “Are you fine with coming over? If not, I can drop you off on the way to my house.”
“Sounds fun.” Cake was one of the few things Jyri actually liked, and he hadn’t eaten it in what felt like years.
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Everyone had piled into Jessica’s car, and she drove them to her house that she described as a duplex. Apparently she rented it with her boyfriend, who was out camping with friends.
The group sat in a large room Jessica called “the family room.” There was a couch and an armchair. In front of the couch was a table and a TV. Behind the couch, was a kitchen table with more chairs.
Everyone congregated around the kitchen table, while Jessica did something in the kitchen. After a few minutes, she came out carrying a cake with little sticks in it. She set it on the table, pulled out a box of matches, and lit one. She held the flame against one of the sticks. The sticks turned out being tiny candles. Fascinating. Jyri watched on curiously as Jessica lit the rest of the candles, and blew out the match.
Nothing prepared him for what happened next.
Everyone started singing a song about a happy birthday. All together, in unison. As though it had been rehearsed. Jyri had never experienced such a thing. But clearly, this was a perfectly normal ritual he would be expected to participate in. Since he didn’t know the words, he moved his lips as though he were singing along with everyone else.
It only lasted about fifteen seconds. Sheryl blew out the candles in one go, and everyone applauded and cheered. Alyssa pulled out the candles, and Marie brought over a stack of plates and forks, while Jessica began cutting slices.
Everyone sat in the family room, eating cake and talking about things Jyri didn’t understand. Jessica sat next to Jyri on the couch, and the two had a conversation about Jyri’s outing with the office men.
“We should do presents now,” Marie said, after Jyri had taken his last bite of cake. “I have to go home soon.”
Everyone had finished eating, so Jessica collected the plates while Alyssa brought over colorful boxes and bags. She piled them next to Sheryl, who sat at the armchair.
Gift-giving on one’s birthday was common in Jyri’s universe, and he was grateful for this bit of normalcy. He didn’t know what some of the objects were, other than a book and a shirt. But he was grateful to be observing something familiar.
Marie was the first to leave, followed shortly by Alyssa. Sheryl stayed a little longer to help tidy up, then left. Jessica collapsed on the couch.
“I’ll take you home, but I need to rest for a few minutes,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’m sorry, I know it’s late.”
“It’s fine.” Jyri would rather wait than get into a car with a tired driver.
Jessica checked her phone. “Christ, it’s past 10!” She sat up, clutching her forehead, and apologized again. “I wasn’t expecting them to stay so long.”
Jyri sat down next to her. “Are you okay?”
“Just a headache, nothing to worry about.”
But Jessica had her eyes closed as she said it, and hadn’t let go of her forehead. “It looks like a bad one.”
“I can take something for it.” She got off the couch and walked to the kitchen.
Jyri followed, watching her open one of the lower cupboards. “Are you sure you’ll be okay to drive?”
“Yeah...” Jessica pulled out a small bottle, then poured herself a glass of water. “It’s, just… It’s been a long day. Had to go to work. Then a loud, noisy bar. And then entertain guests here. I’m overwhelmed. It gives me migraines sometimes.”
Driving with a migraine sounded like a terrible idea. He chewed his lip as he watched Jessica take a pill, wondering how long it would take to kick in. Wondering what they’d do if it didn’t. Ran was probably getting worried about him, so he wanted to get home as soon as possible. But not if Jessica wasn’t feeling up to driving him.
Jyri followed Jessica back to the family room, where she laid back down on the couch. Not quite knowing what to do with himself, Jyri took a seat in the armchair.
“You probably think I’m a total baby for this,” Jessica said, arm flopped over her eyes.
“Not really. It has been a long day for you.”
“True. But none of my friends get headaches and burnt out over it.” Jessica fell silent for a moment. “Can I share something personal with you?”
“Sure. That’s what friends do.”
“I think I might be autistic.”
Autistic? What did that mean? Was it good? Bad? He scratched his head, and noticed Jessica had removed her arm to stare at him. Jyri apologized. “I’m sorry. I don’t know much about that.”
“That’s okay. There’s a lot of misconceptions about it. Plenty of people, especially women, go undiagnosed because of it. I might be one of them.” Jessica put her arm back over her eyes. “Times like this I really think I am. All this sensory overwhelm. Feeling burned out from masking all day. All week, actually. I’ve had to make extra effort because of this new customer I keep having to meet with.”
“Masking?”
“I have to force myself to be a certain way, to fit into social norms. Like, in a perfect world, I wouldn’t look at people during conversations. I won’t make any facial expressions, or worry about coming off as bitchy because I didn’t say something the right way. But people will get the wrong idea of me if I act how I want to act. So I get, hyper aware of everything during conversations. I focus on making sure I’m displaying the right body language. I watch the tone of my voice. I force myself to make the correct reaction to what a person is saying.”
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
Jessica smiled. “I’m glad someone thinks so. On top of that, I’m sensitive to bright lights and loud noises. I hate going to bars. But my friend group wanted to go, and at least I have the weekend to recover from it all.”
Jyri still didn’t quite understand what autism was, but he didn’t want to make her talk any more than she had to. “You don’t have to… mask around me. I don’t care about those kinds of things.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, but it’s such an automatic thing for me to do. I used to not even know I was doing it.”
The sound of rain hitting the roof filled the air. Jessica squeezed her eyes shut. “Please tell me it’s not raining.”
Jryi walked over to the front door, opening it a crack. Rain poured down. Hard.
“When does your boyfriend come back again?” Jyri asked as he closed the door. He’d rather not stay the night, but he’d rather stay the night than make Jessica drive him home in the dark and the rain, with a migraine and exhaustion on top of it. Those car things were scary enough in the best of conditions.
“Sunday morning.”
How to explain to Jessica that he would rather stay over without sounding like he was inviting himself?
“I hate to ask this of you,” Jessica began. “But would it be okay if we wait until morning?”
“Yes. I’d feel safer doing that.” Then, to make sure she wouldn’t get any ideas, added, “I can sleep on the couch.”
“Okay, good.” Jessica studied him. “My boyfriend has sweatpants he rarely wears. You can borrow those to sleep in. I don’t have any spare toothbrushes though.”
“That’s fine. I’ll brush when I get home.” Jyri stood up, and followed Jessica to her bedroom. He stopped at the doorway, glancing at the furniture and walls, while Jessica dug through a dresser. There were a couple of framed pictures of Jessica and a man. Probably her boyfriend. His eyes landed on a framed poster hanging on the side wall, across from the bed. It was of a group of five men standing in a row. All dressed in black leathery outfits. Above them were the words “Imperial Wolf” in fancy lettering.
“Imperial Wolf,” Jyri read out loud to himself.
Jessica looked up at him, and followed his gaze to the poster. “Yeah, they’re this band I like.”
“You must like them a lot, to have them on your wall.”
Jessica shrugged, pulling out a pair of sweatpants. “They’re kind of my favorite band.”
“Really?” Jyri walked over to the poster to get a closer look. “What do they sound like?”
“They’re symphonic metal.”
“Symphonic metal?”
“You know. It’s, metal. But with classical elements mixed it.”
Jyri hadn’t the faintest idea what metal was. But he did enjoy classical music. “Sounds interesting.”
“Yeah. A lot of symphonic metal bands have a woman singer. Imperial Wolf is an exception though. Although they do have a few songs where there’s a guest woman singer joining in. Like the song, ‘Shadow in the Moonlight’ has Diana McCrow singing some of the vocals. She’s from this other band called Within the Night. She actually also collaborated with them on another song called ‘Death Within.’ It’s on their third album, ‘Darkest Way.’”
Jyri nodded. To his surprise, Jessica kept talking.
“They’re from Finland. That’s Timo.” She pointed to a bald man on the far right. “He’s their drummer.” She pointed to the next guy, with short black hair. “There’s Jukka. He plays the keyboard.” Before Jyri could wonder what a keyboard was, Jessica pointed to the man in the middle, with hair identical to Jyri’s. “That’s Niko. He’s the singer. My favorite member. His birthday is tomorrow. He’ll be 32.”
“Interesting,” Jyri muttered to himself.
“That’s Vilppu, the guitarist. This picture is from when his hair was long. It’s short now. And that’s Gabe, the bass player. His hair is short in this picture, but it’s long now.”
Jyri couldn’t help but appreciate that all these men had normal-sounding names. He was also impressed with the amount of knowledge Jessica had about them. “You must’ve been following them for a long time now.”
“Since college, yeah.”Jessica turned pink. “Sorry for info-dumping about them. I’ll shut up now.”
“Don’t be,” Jyri said. “I like that something makes you happy.”
Jessica let out a breath. “Seriously? Because everyone else gets bored of hearing about them.”
“Well, I don’t mind hearing about them. I mean, if that’s all you talk about, I’d get bored of it. But you have nothing to apologize for.”
“Thanks.” Jessica handed him the pair of sweatpants. “Hope these fit.”
Jyri took them. “I’m sure they will.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoS0ftjLBCc
and then Add to home screen.