The Unseen Connection

I wake with a start, sound blaring from my phone as the screen shows 6:00. I never had an issue waking early, that is until I started my first full-time job out of college. A mere two months into my new marketing job and each morning as I listen to my alarm ring on, I can't help but ask myself how I will manage waking up every day to my 6:00 o’clock alarm for the next forty years of my life. What will motivate me day after day to leave the warmth of my bed on cold mornings, only to commute on an overcrowded subway and sit at a cubicle for 8 hours, just to commute home on the same overcrowded subway. 

Despite my pessimistic thoughts and yearning to snooze the alarm, I roll over to silence the loud noise and I lumber out of bed. I let out a long yawn as I scratch the stubble on my chin and carry my heavy body to the washroom. I blindly reach against the wall to flick on the bright overhead light and I lean against the musty granite counter to look at my tired, half-open eyes in the mirror. 

My green eyes always elicited compliments. For years, teachers and classmates alike would comment on how green my eyes are. I think of my grade school best friend, Ruth, who may be the only friend of mine who never commented on my eyes. In fact, I've since realized that she never really looked at my eyes at all. This never bothered me back then. As kids, the only thing I cared about was how fast she flew down the soccer pitch at recess and her spirited excitement to race to the big colourful playground after the final school bell sounded, her orange curly hair bouncing after her as she ran. When I think of Ruth, I can’t help but remember the way she would constantly twirl her orange curls around her forefinger, her signature move. After our grade six year, Ruth’s family moved away and we inevitably grew apart and eventually lost contact. It wasn't until years later that I reflected on how odd it was that Ruth would look towards me as we talked and played, but never quite at me. I often think of Ruth when I walk by kids gleefully yelling on a playground, and occasionally she crosses my mind when I look into my tired green eyes in the early morning. 

After showering, dressing in my best attempt at corporate attire, and smoothing my short brown hair, I race out the door to join the morning commuters. Since I began working downtown two months ago, I've gotten into the habit of stopping at a local coffee shop just a few blocks from the tall brooding skyscraper I work in. The cozy feel of the coffee shop helps ground me before I walk into the dull building that fills me with anxiety and a hint of imposter syndrome. As I wait in line to order the simple black coffee I'm trying to train my taste buds to enjoy, I recall my first day at work when I brought a vanilla latte and all my coworkers and bosses poked fun at my drink choice, saying I wouldn’t last five minutes in the business world. I never understood the issue with a vanilla latte, but I swore that day that I would become a black coffee drinker like everyone else I worked with. 

After I place my order, I glance around at the interior of the shop like I do every other morning. My eyes graze over the abstract artwork hanging on the walls, taking in the burst of colours that mesh together on the canvases. I appreciate the warm lighting emitting from various lamps strewn throughout the small space that contrasts the fluorescent lights of every office building surrounding the little shop. I admire the well-used couch in the centre of the shop, its brown velvety fabric riddled with coffee stains from countless work meetings and first dates and catch-ups with friends. Its pillowy cushions deflated from holding so many conversations, looking as though a person would sink right down if they were to sit on it. I yearn to be one of the people I often see sunk into the couch’s embrace, clutching a steaming mug as words and laughter fill the shop, secrets and gossip passing between two friends or lovers. I’ve been lonely since I started my new job, with little time after work to meet with friends. People-watching in the little coffee shop has become my favourite pastime and the closest thing I have to a social life.

After the barista hands me my black coffee and I take my first sip of caffeine - it really does taste terrible - I open the glass door of the shop and stride onto the busy sidewalk to join the flow of foot traffic heading down the gloomy street towards my office. I take one step out of the coffee shop and - WHAM! I’m on the ground, dark coffee spreading across my white dress shirt and splattered across the cement, my back aching from its collision with the hard ground.

“Oh gosh! I’m so so so sorry!” A woman’s voice shrieks.

I look up towards the frantic voice and squint through the sunlight blinding me through the overcast sky. All I can make out is a mass of tight orange curls erupting out of the woman’s head.

“Ruth?” I manage to say, holding a hand up against the light blinding my sight.

She grabs my hand, mistaking my shield from the sun as a request for her to help me up. Our hands fumble for a moment as she tries to help me up and I pick myself off the ground using my free hand that held my coffee seconds ago. 

“Oh, look at your shirt, it’s ruined! And you were probably just on your way to work! Oh I’m so sorry, I just looked down at my phone for a second because I’m on my way to my work and it’s my first day so I wanted to make sure I was early but I don’t really know where I’m going and I’ve never been downtown and there’s just so much going on and I didn’t see the door open and gosh I feel so bad!” She rambles, expressively throwing her hands around as she recounts the events leading up to our collision.

“It’s okay, I’ll figure something out. It’s just a little coffee, afterall,” I say unconvincingly as I look down and get a good look at the brown stain covering most of my front. I conclude at that moment that I absolutely cannot go to work like this.

She lets out a sound between a groan and squeal as she bounces between her two feet, looking at my more-brown-than-white shirt with a painfully sad and guilt-ridden expression.

“Ruth, it’s really okay-” she grabs my hand before I can finish my sentence, pulling me into the coffee shop I had just been in and leading me in a brisk walk to the well-used couch I’ve long admired and never sat in, until this moment.

She pushes me onto the couch and I sink right into its soft cushions, thinking it’s just as comfortable as I thought it would be. She sits right next to me, so close our thighs are touching, and I wonder if she purposefully sat uncomfortably close to me or if the lack of cushion structure pulled her in closer to my weight than she anticipated. I look at her, opening my mouth to say something when she pulls a dark scarf from around her neck and wraps it around my own, tying and draping it in a way that hides the coffee stain entirely.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, how will I get it back to you?” I ask while reaching up to detangle the scarf from my neck.

“Don’t be silly,” she says firmly as she swats my hands away from the scarf and tightens the knot around my neck for good measure. “I ruined your work outfit, you can’t go to your fancy downtown job looking like that.”

I shift my weight on the deep-set couch to look at her, and I get my first good look at this woman that interrupted my mundane morning like a hurricane. I look at her orange curls that are undeniably reminiscent of Ruth, who chased me around the schoolyard as we played tag at recess. I look at her face and notice the freckles she had as a kid still covered the better part of her nose and cheeks. Her eyes flit to mine and away again, her focus just over my shoulder. She’s ten years older than the last time I saw her, but she’s definitely Ruth.

“Ruth, do you remember who I am? It’s so good to see you, it’s been so long!” I say.

“Yes, I remember you,” She says simply. She pauses, still looking somewhere behind me. After a moment she cocks her head to the side and smiles, as if lost in memory. “We played on the playground together,” She says fondly. “I could always beat you at tag.”

I laugh, the sound filling the shop in the way I had heard and felt other’s joyous conversations fill the small space every morning for two months. I stop abruptly at Ruth’s wince, as if the sound of my laugh had pierced her ears.

“Sorry,” I say sheepishly. “I guess I laughed a little too loud.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Ruth replied, pulling a pair of over-the-ear headphones from the large handbag she carried. “I’m sensitive to sound, I’ll just pop these on. I’ll still be able to hear you.”

I sit perplexed as she pulls the headphones over her ears. Sensitive to hearing? I don’t remember that when we were kids. She looks at me, her eyes quickly making contact with mine before moving away again. She sighs.

“I see you look confused,” she states matter-of-factly. “I’m autistic.”

There’s a silence that grows between us as I digest this information. Autistic? I never thought Ruth was autistic. I rack my brain for all the information I have about autism and recall a cousin of mine that came over to my house years ago for an afternoon with his parents. I vividly remember when he dropped to the floor screaming and crying because we didn’t have the same brand of apple juice he had at home. I recall how my mother explained to me that he had autism when he wouldn’t calm down and his parents decided they better go. But Ruth has never been like that. 

As if reading my mind, Ruth continues talking. “I didn’t know I was autistic when we were kids. I received my diagnosis just last year, actually. I’m still learning what it all means, but for me, being autistic means that I experience the world a little differently than other people. I have sensory differences, like sensitive hearing, and I don’t make eye contact with people. Sometimes I need a little more time to think and respond, but otherwise, I’m just Ruth.” She flashes me a cheeky smile at her final words.

“Oh,” I say. “Well, that makes sense. I always wondered why you never looked in my eyes when we talked.” She laughs the same laugh I heard on the playground all those years ago and I can’t help but smile.

“Yeah, people always ask me why I don’t look them in the eye. I’ve even had people tell me I’m disrespectful for not making eye contact,” she says with a scoff. “I think it’s disrespectful that I’m expected to make eye contact! Who made that rule anyway?” 

We share a laugh and I consider her rhetorical question that I had never considered before.

“You know, I always appreciated that you played with me during recess and after school. And that you never questioned why I wouldn’t make eye contact,” She says, her eyes again flitting to mine and away again. “I was bullied pretty bad when I moved schools in the seventh grade. I was the ‘weird kid’ and suddenly I had no friends. It was hard, but I always considered you my friend, even years after I moved away.”

I consider this. I supposed she was a little different than the other kids, but that’s why I liked her. She was brazen, vivacious. When all the other kids started worrying about how they looked and how to act, Ruth was always just Ruth.

Ruth stands from the sunken couch suddenly. “I have to get to work,” she announces. 

I place my hands on the fabric of the couch beside my thighs, preparing for the effort to rise out of the couch’s deep cushions, thinking of all the questions swirling in my head. 

“There’s a tag on the scarf with my number on it. Text me and we can meet so I can get my scarf back.” She says as she turns towards the door and stalks away. I’m just standing from the couch as the door jingles with her swift exit. I stand, slack-jawed from the abrupt end of our conversation, watching as she joins the morning foot traffic.

As I watch my childhood friend walk further and further down the bustling downtown street, I can’t help but think how different she is from the girl I once knew. That is, until she reaches a hand up to her vibrant orange hair and selects a curl to twirl around her finger, a motion I’ve watched Ruth do a hundred times before. I smile at the familiarity of it all. Of Ruth.

I walk up to the counter to order another coffee, this time a pumpkin spice latte. Screw fitting in. I step out of the small coffee shop for the second time today, sipping my sugary drink as I walk down the bustling street towards my office building. Perhaps the only thing that has changed about Ruth, I consider as I walk, is that she understands herself a little better now.