“My mom throws money at Zac’s autism. Best schools, best occupational therapists, equine therapy, speech therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. But I think she does it not just because it’s good for him—which it is—but because she doesn’t know how to deal with it. Sometimes I think I know more about it, and how to deal with it, than her.”

A smile broke out across his face. “It’s so good to talk to someone my age who gets this stuff,” he said on a long, loud exhale. As if he’d been holding his breath this entire conversation, waiting to let it out, and now he had.

“Yeah!” I reiterated, and also breathed out. I hadn’t realized I was also holding my breath. “I’ve never spoken to anyone like this before. Well, not to anyone who wasn’t secretly judging.”

“Me neither. It’s really, really good.” Jake paused, and I could sense there was something heavy weighing his pause down. “Sometimes I feel lonely,” he said. I sat up straight; this was the last thing I’d expected a guy like him to say. “There’re support groups and therapists for parents, but what about us? Who do we talk to about this stuff?”

My chest contracted. “I know what you mean. I have these amazing friends, Guy and Andile, and they’re so understanding and supportive, but they just don’t understand it. Really understand. Sometimes I want to tell them things, but don’t.”

He looked me straight in the eyes, as if he’d deliberately sought them out. I tried to hold on to his gaze, but let it go when the flutter reared its head again.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s start a kind of support group.”

“With who?”

“Just us.” He smiled.

“I don’t think you can call two people a group.”

“A support coupling then?” His perfectly imperfect lopsided smile grew even more.

“What will we do? Meet in some recreational hall and drink bad coffee while we share our feelings?”

“I think you’re confused, that’s an AA meeting. My dad goes to them, they also serve stale doughnuts.”

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make fun of, uh, sorry . . .”

“It’s cool. He’s been sober for twenty-five years. I’ve never even seen him drink.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, I’m proud of the dude,” he said playfully.

I waited for him to speak again. But he didn’t, so I changed the subject, still worried that I might have offended him. “So, back to our support coupling. How would it work?”

“Well, we have each other’s numbers, so we can message each other when we feel we need to talk to someone.”

“That might be often. I always feel like I need to talk to someone,” I chirped.