“Why don’t you give it a chance, Mir?” Mom asks me, as if she cannot see me clenching the tablecloth in my fists, my knuckles turning white. A restlessness wells up in me, and I want to flap my hands wildly to dispel it, but I know Mom disapproves. So I gnaw my lip instead. “I don’t WANT to.” I say, but it comes out stilted and angrier than I meant. I am barely holding in a barrage of “no”s. I try to remember what my therapist said about deep breaths. I jiggle my foot under the table. I push eggs around my plate, the same scrambled eggs I always have with melted cheddar, but today they turn my stomach. “You might like it.” Mom says. Her voice is mild, but I’m pretty sure it’s booby trapped. People say things they don’t mean. How am I supposed to know whether or not they mean it? Talking to people is like walking through a mine field. I might like it. But that’s not the point. I don’t think Mom understands that it’s not that I dislike change. I’m not just a little nervous, nor am I trying to be stubborn. But change is a gaping void ready to swallow me. It’s like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, asked to jump without a parachute. It’s like I’m being dragged in one direction while my feet are glued to the ground. Change is physically painful. I’d rather stay in the pillow fort of familiarity. I’m not against trying new things. It’s just, you have to prepare me for them. Like dipping a toe in the pool, when it’s just a bit too cold. I’m not the sort of person who can just jump in. Mom keeps packing my lunch—peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off, an apple cut into eight slices, two Oreos—as if this were a normal day. It’s not a normal day. Last week I knew my school. I didn’t much like it, but I knew what to expect. “I want to go back to my old school.” I said. Mom whips around, her eyebrows drawing in. Angry, I label, remembering the flash cards from my therapy office. “Well then, you shouldn’t have gotten kicked out of it.” She yells. I yelp and cover my ears. I hate it when she yells. Anyhow, it wasn’t my fault I got kicked out. Those other kids should have followed the rules at handball. If they just followed the rules, we wouldn’t have had a fight about it. I hate it when people don’t follow the rules. It makes me uncomfortable, physically uncomfortable, like an itch I can’t scratch. Mom sighs. “I’m sorry Miriam. I shouldn’t have yelled.” She scrubs at her forehead, leaving a smear of jam. I rub my forehead in solidarity. I don’t know how she doesn’t notice the stickiness. “But you can’t go back to your old school. This new one is better for you anyway. It’s specifically for people like you.” People like me. Mom rarely uses the “a” word. But I don’t mind it. It helps me understand myself better. I fidget with my fork. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to go to a school where other people understand me too. Maybe they’ll even help mom understand me better. I still don’t like it. I wrap my arms around myself to still the trembling. “What ifs” fly through my head at an alarming rate. But I put my shoes on. I slip on my favorite bracelet, which has beads that I can slide around. I wonder how this new school feels about fidget toys. My old school didn’t let me have them, but they calm me down and help me pay attention. Otherwise everything gets pretty loud. I don’t mean just sound, either. It’s like the volume of everything is turned to 11. In the car, I slide the beads around my bracelet over and over and over again. Mom tries to make conversation, but I don’t feel like talking about anything, not even constellations, which are my current favorite. Every time we make a turn that isn’t toward my old school I flinch a little. Finally we pull up. The building isn’t too different than my old school. That helps. “Alright, Mir, here we are. Maybe someone can help you find the office? Or do you want me to come with?” I weight the options. Outside the school I see only teenagers, no parents. I think bringing a parent would be socially unacceptable. I don’t really need to start here with people making fun of me. “No,” I say, “I’ll find it.” Mom tries to hug me. I let her. I clutch my backpack as I get out, like a shield. My eyes dart from person to person. They’re not clustered in big groups like in my old school. A few are talking to each other in pairs. A lot of the kids are alone, just sort of spacing out. Some of them are flapping their hands or rocking. Nobody is trying to stop them. A little spark of hope ignites in my heart. I approach the nearest girl, who wears a fuzzy pink sweater. “Excuse me.” I say, looking at my feet. Then I remember my manners and try to meet her eyes. She looks quickly away. I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing, socially, but I’m glad she doesn’t make eye contact. “I’m Miriam. I’m new.” “Oh.” She says. “I need to go to the office.” I tell her. She brightens a little. “I can show you.” We shuffle into the building. The lights are LED, not those terrible halogens that flicker. The walls are painted with all sorts of things. I stop in front of a section that looks like the night sky. “That’s Hydra. It’s the biggest constellation in the sky.” I say, pointing to a series of dots. “It’s brightest star is Alphard. It’s an orange giant.” She says. “You like constellations?” I ask. “I like stars.” She says. “My name is Isabel. Are you scared?” She asks. “A little.” I admit. “You want to hold my squish?” She offers me a stuffed cat, about the size of my hand. I take it. It feels like a marshmallow. “It makes me feel better.” She confides. “But I think you’ll like it here.” She flaps her hands excitedly. “Don’t they get mad at you for that?” She looks puzzled. “What, for stimming? Of course not.” She frowns. “Did you have to get that therapy where they tell you to change everything to make the NTs happy?” I’m not sure what an NT is, but I can guess. Nobody ever told me to change, not in so many terms, but they certainly showed their disapproval. My neck starts to unclench. I don’t know how to answer the question so I just shrug. “Here, they let us be ourselves.” She says. “We have better things to worry about. Like astronomy class.” She smiles a little. My heart flutters. I try to keep myself from flapping in excitement, then I remember I can. I think, perhaps, that I might be happy here. Sometimes change isn’t all bad.