remember when I knew

JAI PRICE

"SO YOU JUST walked away?" Sasha repeated as she stared at her brother with confusion written all over her face. "I do not understand."

Jai Price sighed. "It's not something you should understand, Sha."

His sister just shook her head. "You wanted to tell me about this story and that means I have the right to question you about the blurry details."

If there was something with Sasha that Jai found more annoying than anything else, it was probably that you couldn't tell her something just for the sake of it. She had to understand everything and always tried to lecture him.

"Yes, I just walked away. So what?"

Sasha shrugged quietly. "I feel like you do not have the right to be upset. You are the one who walked away in the first place."

"She's the one who then stopped talking to me," he added, knowing deep deep down that Sasha was right.

"And what did you do about it?"

It's not like he could do something about it! He was socially anxious. He wasn't going to start a conversation with someone who was ignoring him.

"You are making excuses," Sasha simply replied when he told her that.

Jai frowned. He wasn't looking for excuses. "I'm not. You just don't know how it feels."

Sasha looked at him for a moment with a thoughtful expression. "I should not have diagnosed you," she slowly said. "Having social anxiety does not describe you. That means you cannot just find problems and start explaining yourself with 'but I am socially anxious'. Because it does not help. You can use it to find tricks to help yourself out on the internet, not as an excuse to stop trying to fight it."

"I'm not-"

Sasha cut him up. He wasn't surprised by that because he knew she often cut off people when she felt like she knew what they were going to say. She said she felt it was useless to let them finish when she already knew. "I always act or say things I should not. I often take more time to understand what you think is natural. Do you hear me say that 'it is because I have Asperger Syndrome'? Did I ever even say that?"

Jai softened. "No, you haven't."

"Precisely," she nodded. "A diagnose is not an excuse. It is simply an information to help you take better care of yourself."

Jai frowned. He knew that, of course. He never used it as an excuse, did he?

"You will get late for school," Sasha reminded him as she glanced at the clock, apparently deciding this was the end of their conversation.

***

"Alright, what's going on, seriously?" Lucas sighed heavily as he sat with his pizza in front of him. "Azalea ignoring us was already strange, but no morning prank from Frigg? Hell's freezing over."

His twin nudged him, probably trying to silence him. "You're an idiot," he hissed. "It's his birthday soon."

"Isn't that a happy-" Jai asked, his eyebrows furrowed. He looked at Aiden who just kept his eyes on his plate, not saying anything. "Oh," he simply let out when he understood.

It should've been his sister's birthdays as well.

Chloe looked confusedly at Reece and he shook his head quietly. "Alright," she whispered. "What do you want to do this weekend? I thought we could go swimming? You know, if the weather's nice, obviously. But maybe we could still go if it's raining and it's not too cold? I loooove swimming when it's raining."

"Saturday at two pm," Reece nodded.

No one talked after that, which was weird. Their table was always really loud. It's not like they didn't know what to talk about with Lucas and John. The subject could be socks or cows, that didn't matter as long as someone was screaming.

Jai wondered if it was Azalea's disappearance or Vivian's anniversary that had such an effect on them. Probably both.

Shouldn't you say something? Feels like you're the one who should.

But he preferred it silent, didn't he. He actually liked it when no one spoke. It made him feel a lot calmer.

But the others probably don't think this way. You should say something before they think you're weird.

Fortunately for Jai, Lucas decided to speak. "Was I the only one annoyed when I realised we have four different tests this week? Like no sir, I'm not studying that much!"

"How in the hell do you have only four?" John wondered. "We have the same classes and I have five!"

"WHAT?"

"Ooh, Reece, do you have my French assignment? You know, you were supposed to give it to me after I missed class yesterday," Chloe added on the side.

"People never tell me anything! Like, why am I always left on the side when-?"

"You're the one who fell asleep in the middle of-"

"You're supposed to tell me if I missed anything!"

"I'm supposed to what now? Especially after what you did when you-"

And there it was somehow starting again: the mess. But Jai still felt like it was missing something. Like he was missing something.

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