Intermission - Being yourself.

That next Tuesday at university, Sarah parted ways with everyone at the top of the stairs and began heading to her classroom.

It was early in the morning and quite cold, so she’d chosen to wear both a sweater and a jacket. Alice was taking it even worse because she was really bad with the cold. Her friend had to wear a wool hat, mittens, a scarf and at least four layers of clothes. The weather report said it would be like this all day, too.

Sarah entered her classroom and found most of her classmates already inside. They were in their seats, talking among themselves before the professor got here. The moment some of them noticed her, though, the glares came. At least eight or nine out of the fifteen people in the room seemed to silently groan at her arrival.

Sarah could’ve laughed. It was almost nostalgic. Both middle school and high school were the same way.

“Morning Sarah,” one girl greeted her with a friendly smile. Sarah returned it.

“Morning, Yasmine,” Sarah said, sitting next to her. “Josh’s not here yet?”

“He texted me five minutes ago saying he overslept. He’s on the bus now,” Yasmine said, groaning. “He was complaining that I didn’t call to wake him up.”

Sarah snickered. “Are you serious?”

“Where do you think that dependent behaviour comes from?” Yasmine asked in a clinical tone. “Do you think he was like that with his previous girlfriends or is it something about me?”

Sarah shrugged. “Hell if I know. Maybe he’s a momma’s boy still not used to being away from home,” Sarah joked.

Yasmine didn’t take it as one, though. Instead, she held her chin in contemplation. “Damn, you might be right. I haven’t met his mom yet, but he does mention her a lot…”

Sarah swallowed a sigh.

Yasmine and Josh were Sarah’s closest classmates so far. They knew each other from high school but apparently only started dating some three months ago and after finding out they’d both be taking psychiatry at the same university. Nice people overall.

The professor arrived some ten minutes later and started the class. Sarah brought out her notebook and tuned the rest of the world out as she took notes. The only thing that broke her concentration was Josh’s arrival some ten minutes after that as he quietly said hi to her while walking past her to sit next to Yasmine. Sarah nodded her greeting but the professor didn’t acknowledge him, something for which she was grateful. He just went on with his explanation as he wrote something on the board.

Oldschool, this professor. He would write on the board instead of using digital tools most of the time. He had warned them about it last week and almost all her classmates complained, likely because they wanted the professors to just share their slideshows instead of taking notes themselves.

Sarah, however, preferred it this way. It was harder, yes, and she hated writing by hand, but she had found that doing it like that helped her things more. It was how she got by in high school without studying too much.

By the end of the class, her hand hurt a bit. The professor basically gave them a full intro to the course. It would be helpful as an outline, to know what to ask…

…

Right. She wasn’t living with her dad anymore, so she couldn’t just randomly ask him questions about human psychiatry or behaviour. She groaned at that. She’d have to study more at home, too. She couldn’t afford to just wing it now.

Ten minutes until their next class. They’d have to change classrooms and go to the computer lab for this one. It was close, just on the floor below them, so Yasmine, Josh and Sarah walked there together.

Once there, they sat together on a row of three computers, with Sarah by the wall, Yasmine in the middle and Josh by the aisle. There was still time until the next class started and the professor hadn’t arrived yet, so all the students were talking, some of them standing. Three guys, Josh’s friends, were standing next to him, so Sarah overheard their conversation.

“I’m serious, dude. I think she has autism,” one of the guys said, whispering. The four guys subtly glanced towards one of the girls. She was clueless, scrolling down her phone without paying attention to anything else.

“I mean, she might…” Josh said carefully. “But can you really say after knowing her for a few days?”

“Dude, she totally does. She doesn’t make eye , always looks bored, never talks to others unless they talk to her, AND her notebook is super clean and organized.”

Sarah wanted to scoff.

“You might have a point… What do you think, Sarah?” Josh asked her, catching her by surprise. Now five pairs of eyes, Yasmine’s included, were on her.

“...” Sarah sighed. “Textbook signs of autism, sure, but those don’t mean a thing. Rushing into a diagnostic like that is irresponsible and can narrow your outlook on the patient’s condition. Not to mention that she’s not a patient, she’s a classmate. You haven’t run any tests and have only watched her from afar like a creep. Trying to diagnose other people like that is just rude, especially from dumb freshmen like us. We don’t know anything yet, so stop playing doctor.”

It was like she was surrounded by people like this. Even Yasmine was guilty of it to some extent. Hell… Sarah would be lying if she said she didn’t at least have those kinds of thoughts from time to time. Plenty of people here were… ionate about their studies, or thought they were ionate. A lot of talk about mental illness, opinions on the use of medication, background analysis… The issue was that they were all too happy to talk about it and psychoanalyze others like they were ‘cases’ instead of people.

“Damn… Chill out, woman,” one of the guys said.

“No, she has a point,” Josh said, shaking his head. “We shouldn’t be talking about someone else at all, let alone assuming things.”

“Well… Yeah, but she didn’t have to say it like that,” another guy said.

“Dude, you’re diagnosing someone with autism behind their back,” Yasmine said. “How else do you want her to answer?”

The three guys around Josh left, muttering and grumbling.

Sarah sighed. It was always like this.

She’d always been blunt and brash to the point of being annoying and pissing other people off. Something inside her pushed her to just say things straight out, and that understandably pushed people away. She’d always had enemies in middle and high school, and it seemed like it wouldn’t be any different here in university.

The weird thing was that, despite that, some people still gravitated to her. Yasmine and Josh, for example, were on her side on this little argument. Other classmates, while not exactly friends yet, still got along fine with her. She had plenty of friends in school, too, and of course there were Mila, Grace and Alice, her sisters who stood by her no matter what she said or did. Crazy girls.

But if they were crazy, then Oliver was insane.

How could he even love a rash, rude and tactless girl like herself?

Sarah found herself smiling.

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