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Your name is John Egbert and today is your seventeenth birthday.
Your plans for this day have changed a lot in the past month. At first, you convinced your dad that the only thing you wanted was a quiet at home dinner with just him. He seemed skeptical, so you weren't exactly surprised when he came at you a few days later with a website that marked out public places where there wasn't a lot of people. It was perfect, he said, this way you could go out to eat and not have to worry about being overstimulated.
You had agreed hesitantly, because you didn't want to disappoint him and it didn't seem like that bad of an idea. At least he tried to find a restaurant that would be quiet, right?
Over time you got used to the idea, and now you're pretty excited! You spent most of the time you had to get ready bouncing on your toes and flapping your arms around excitedly. You also got a little too involved in the motions of ironing your shirt and ended up almost burning it, but now it's the least wrinkled shirt that you have! Even if it does smell slightly singed.
Now you're in the car on the way to the restaurant. Your dad let you click and unclick the seat belt for a while while he tried to find his keys. Then you had to stop, so you started to kick your feet instead. Birthday's are a lot of fun! And your dad has significantly lowered the number of cakes that he made! You like cake fine, but eventually it gets to a point where the smell and taste is really just too much for you to handle.
When you pull up to the restaurant, you're practically vibrating in excitement. It's just a dinner, but your dad does work a lot, and you don't always get a lot of time to just sit around and talk to him, especially not with how stressed you are about school. But it's not a school night, it's your birthday and you're just going to have dinner with your dad.
There really aren't a lot of people in the building when you walk inside, but your dad has a strangely self satisfied smile on his face and you aren't really sure how to react to that. You narrow your eyes in suspicion and wonder what he's planning.
The first note of dread starts when the woman at the counter tells you that the rest of your party is already here. Already you can tell that something isn't right, but you keep quiet because you don't want to overreact over nothing.
The waitress leads you to a table where three people are already sitting, your eyes narrow further because these people are really familiar. It takes a second to place them, but when you do you wonder why it took so long! As excited as you are to be able to see Dave, Rose, and Jade again in person for the first time in four years, the positive emotions practically dissolve to make way for your impending meltdown because this wasn't how it was supposed to go.
When they see you, they all clamber out of their seats to greet you, but before any of them get close you turn at a perfect 90 degree angle and surge towards the bathroom. Your dad calls out your name but you ignore him because you're pissed. Not because they're here, well, sort of because they're here, but not in that way. You're just mad that no one told you, they all know that you aren't good at handling things like surprises or changes with plans.
You lock yourself in a stall and sit on the lid and resist the urge to slam your head against a wall. Instead you shove your headphones in your ears, try to breathe steadily without losing your shit as you rock back and forth almost frantically as you slam your fingers against imaginary piano keys. You try to tell yourself that you're excited and not at all upset by this development, you fail. A knot swells in your throat and hot tears spring to your eyes.
Someone knocks on the stall door and you startle and lose place in the song you were playing, you pull out an earbud. "Son?" you hear your dad's voice filter hesitantly through the door. "Are you alright?"
"Fine." you say, but your voice comes out all garbled and you feel your face flush because you hate it when you get so messed up that you can't even talk right.
"I apologize for not telling you about your friends visiting." he continues, "I just thought that it would be a nice surprise. Would you like me to ask them to leave and come by the house tomorrow?"
"N-no!" you exclaim, stimming a little harder, "No i-i-i-i..." you pause, take a breath, enunciate harder, "it's fine. I wa-want them here, i-just... give me a ssecond to... adjust to it."
"Alright." your dad says, "I'll leave you alone then, just come out when you're ready alright? Don't try to rush, I'll tell them that you're coming eventually."
"Th-thanks d-dad." you stammer and listen to him leave before you press your headphones back on and turn up the volume.
It takes you a while, you battle back the anger that still comes at how different and wrong things are, and you have to keep drying off your face because the sensation of the tears drying on your cheeks makes your skin crawl. Eventually though, you stop crying and you can keep your hands still for more than a minute. That's when you pull your headphones free and wrap them around your ipod. You keep your breathing even as you wash your face off and dry it carefully.
Then you head back out to the dining area because now you're actually excited to see them!!
"Hey man, glad to see you've finally come to join the party!" Dave says when you set down next to him, his hand jerks off the table and snaps back down. You don't say anything, but you grin at him because he didn't try to touch you, that didn't go over so well last time, but that wasn't his fault! When you first met all three of them, you didn't say anything about your being autistic, because you didn't want them to make fun of you. Apparently, Rose pieced it together quickly once you all met up at some resort one summer, but she hadn't said anything until you were curled up on the floor in the middle of a meltdown because everyone kept touching you.
"Yeah, of course I came!" You exclaimed, wriggling a little in your seat to get settled, "Thanks for waiting! Sorry I took so long."
"AW, it's okay John!" Jade says, and wow, she's still as loud as she was when you were thirteen! "Sorry we surprised you!!"
You wave your hand like it's not a big deal that you had yourself locked in a bathroom for fifteen minutes, "It's alright! Learn from your mistakes and all that right! I'm just happy that you all are here, it's been ages!"
The dinner goes surprisingly well, you manage to keep your more wild movements to a minimum, and there aren't any awkward lulls in the conversation hardly at all! Your dad keeps out of it for the most part, looking a mix of apologetic and proud that you managed to pull yourself together to have fun.
Then the waitress comes to the table and almost ruins everything.
You don't notice her at first, and the first thing you do notice about her is the fact that she slams her hands down on your shoulders. You flinch hard and your hands fly up before you can force them back down. Everyone is looking at you in concern, but you can barely move, she doesn't move her hands.
"So!" she says loudly, you flinch again, you wonder if there's a way to throw her hands off and abscond without being rude. "I happened to overhear that it was your birthday!"
Fuck.
Shit.
Damn.
You didn't want this.
"Woah Lady!" Dave cries, "Hands off the merchandise, not just anyone is allowed to touch the birthday boy, you feel me dog?"
The waitress laughs, but she takes her hands off your shoulders with a dramatic flourish and you sag a little in relief. She claps her hands together, your relief flies out the window.
"Can I get you anything?!" she cries, and damn she's louder than Jade is, "A little something for the birthday boy?"
"N-nah, I'm guh-good." you stammer, and Rose winces. That means your syllables slurred together god dammit.
"I think we're good!" your dad says, he claps his hands together too, but at a volume that you can handle. Right now practically every cell in your body is stinging, and it sucks, you need to get out of here, and your dad knows it. "Kids, why don't you all go get in the car, and I'll take care of the bill!"
"Aw, are you sure?!" Waitress scream-asks from behind you as everyone hurriedly gets their things to try and help you out of the building before you lose your everloving shit.
"Positive." your dad says tersely, and that's the last thing you hear before you're practically whisked away.
"I'll go ahead and give you my present a little early," Dave tells you, pulling out a box from the trunk and holding it in your direction. The wrapping paper has a nice texture that you focus on while you unwrap it, inside is a pair of headphones, "Noise cancelling." Dave explains, "You can use 'em during meltdowns, go ahead and try 'em out."
You pull them on and make a face that you hope conveys your relief and gratitude, Dave nods, but you make note to actually tell him later just in case. You're plunged into blessed silence, and you're pretty sure that you sigh before you shut your eyes and start to rock in your seat. You feel rather than hear your dad get in the car, and you give yourself a few more minutes to make sure that you're good before you open your eyes and take off the headphones.
"Are you alright?" Rose asks, her voice pitched low, and you nod, grinning.
"I'm good!" you say, resting the headphones around your neck and tangling your fingers in the chord, "Thanks for the headphones Dave!"
"No problem man, I know I'm the best, no need to tell me."
You laugh loudly, and the awkward volume limit breaks. The car ride home is filled with just as much animated conversation as there was inside the restaurant only with more stimming from you now that you're not in public.
You find out that they're all going to be staying for almost two weeks, and wow isn't that exciting!!
You open the rest of your presents at home, Rose made you some sort of hood-scarf that's supposed to help you out during sensory overloads when it's too hot outside for you to wear your usual hoodies, and Jade got you a bunch of tangle toys for you to stim with. Then they all got you various Nic Cage movies, which is probably the best present out of all of them!
As you settle down to sleep finally, you think that maybe all of the bullshit you had to deal with was worth how much fun you had.