Touch Me With Secrets

Bonus Chapter I: The Past Nine Years

*We're in Mal's POV*

In the past nine years, Sin and I have only managed to get alone time at least twenty times (or less). It's not the kid's fault, but Zain just always needs so much attention. He started crawling at one, and began walking nine months after that. He doesn't talk much either. One time, he and Zadie were playing in their playroom and he fell. I only knew because of that instinct that comes with being a mom, but he made no noise when he cried.

Right now, we're all watching a movie and he's cuddled between me and Sin. Zadie's lying on her stomach on the other side of the couch.

I watch as he continuously flicks his fingers and hums to himself. Not any particular tune, just random noise.

"Zain, shut up; the movie is getting good." Zadie whines.

"Zadie, what did we just talk about earlier?" Sincere calls.

"But, Daddy!"

"Don't "but, Daddy!" me. Be nice to your brother."

She sighs, "okay. Sorry, Zain."

Sin and Zadie both turn their attention back to the movie, but my eyes don't leave Zain and his hands.

"Munch." I call him.

He turns his head to me and looks around my eyes and face, but not at them.

"Yes, Mommy?" he responds.

"Why do you do that thing with your hands?"

"I can't help it. Does it bother you?" I watch as he blinks: which is rather abnormal too. He blinks really hard instead of softly like we do.

"No, baby, no. I was just curious, that's all."

He nods then turns his head back to his hands.

"Sin, I'm gonna go make a phone call. I'll be right back." I whisper.

He nods then moves his arm from behind me and puts it behind Zain instead. I walk to the corner of the living room and call the twin's pediatrician. While waiting for them to pick up, I see Sin stop Zain from playing with his hands and give him his own hand to play with instead.

It makes me almost shed a tear.

The phone picks up, "Waterson County pediatrician office, Miss. Darla speaking, how may I help you?"

"Hi, this is Malia Reed, the mother of Zadie and Zain Reed. I was wondering if you," I quiet my voice down, "knew how I could get Zain evaluated for autism?"

"I have a flyer here for an office that isn't too far from this one, I could send you the number if you'd like?" she replies.

"Yes, please." I nod.

"Okay, I'll email it to you as soon as I hang up, darling. Have a good day."

"Thank you, you too." I hang up.

Before walking back to the couch, I watch Zain again.

The people on the TV state a math equation revolving trigonometry and it says,

"Once you find what sine is of thirty degrees, then multiply that by two."

"The answer is one." he says.

Sin's head snaps to me and he looks baffled.

"Is he right?" I mouth.

Before Sincere can answer, the TV says,

"So, it's one?"
"Correct."

I scrunch my eyebrows, then slowly walk to him on the couch,

"Who taught you that?" I ask.

He shrugs, "I read about it on that iPad you gave me."

"But you haven't used that thing in two years, Munch." I say.

"I know."

Sincere sits up in astonishment, "what's a polynomial called with a degree of five?"

"A quintic polynomial." Zain answers.

Sincere locks eyes with me, "he's right, Mal. Our son is a genius!" he shouts.

Zain covers his ears in a hurry, "you're too loud." he says as he closes his eyes tightly.

Yeah, this too. He's very sensitive to noise.

"I'm sorry, buddy." Sincere says as he rubs his ears.

◷...✍︎︎...◷

We put the kids to bed, and now we're in our room. I'm sitting against the headboard, thinking.

What if he is autistic? I mean, we've already been taking special care of him, but if he is, then what'll school be like for him? We've already pulled him out of public school for bullies and Sincere and I met the parents. They genuinely apologized but at the end of the day, my son is still traumatized. The kid got expelled and has to go to an alternative school and now Zain goes to an online school (which he doesn't like, I'm not sure why though: he won't tell me).

"What's the matter, angel?" Sin asks, as he lays next to me.

"Hm? Oh, I'm just thinking that's all."

"About?" he takes and rubs my hand.

I take a deep breath, "what if he's autistic, Sin? We've been raising him specially already, but what if it's not enough? And not only that, but what if he's autistic because of what that bastard did to me when I first became pregnant? Or when he was bo-"

"Angel. Calm down." he says as he takes my hand. "There's no way in knowing for sure, but I'm positive it's none of that. You saw how he struggled with simple things when he was just a baby. He might've been gifted with it already." Sincere shrugs. "And he's super duper smart, you saw! I didn't learn that stuff until the eleventh grade and he's only in the third grade."

"What're we gonna do if he is?"

"Continue doing what we're doing now. We might have to homeschool him though, but at the end of the day, we're doing a good job. Lots of autistic children aren't that comfortable around their own family, but he's okay with us which means we're kind of killing this parenting thing."

I lean over and kiss Sincere on his forehead, "thank you, my love."

"Why didn't you kiss my lips? Are you too good for that or something?" he asks with a scrunched face.

I laugh, "no." then lean over and kiss him like he wanted me to.

Right as I crawl on top of him, one of the kids knock on the door. It's Zain.

I crawl off of Sincere and sit on my side of the bed, "come in, Munch!"

He opens the door, walks in, closes the door, then walks to the bed and crawls up the middle, just to sleep peacefully in between us.

"Well. We knew it was coming sooner or later." Sincere says with a smile.

"Yeah. He has an appointment tomorrow to," I mouth my next words, "get evaluated."

Sin nods, "what time? I have a meeting at three."

"Well, the appointment is for one, but you never know. It's fine, I'll take him my-"

"No, if I make it to the meeting, I make it, if I don't, I don't. I'm not missing this appointment."