Having Melody work for me, turned out to be the best thing in the whole world. Without Melody, i never would have even dreamed of going on a date with anyone. Because of my developmental and physical delay, I didn’t get a period or have adult hormones in my body. This meant that I didn’t feel the same attraction to boys or men that most other people my chronological age felt. But I would never grow to fully be an adult, and Melody wanted to make sure I experienced every wonderful part of life.
Sometimes when Melody came to work she had to bring her two kids, Max and Jared. They didn’t have to come with her every time, but when they did I didn’t mind. Max was eight and Jared was ten. Melody would just sit them in the beanbag chairs in my living room.
“Don’t touch anything except the beanbag chairs and your Nintendo Switches,” she would tell them.
Her thirteen-year-old daughter Serena would tag along to keep an eye on them.
“Max and Jared have a lot of mental health issues. They both have bipolar, ADHD, an attachment disorder, PTSD, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder….”
I spotted Jeff halfway across the kitchen, and for the first time in my life learned what it felt like to have a crush on someone. We became best friends during my first six months at Side by Side. The more I got to. know him, the more I knew that he was the man for me. When we finally began dating he even decided to go so far as to convert to Judaism for me so that my family would accept him. I loved him unconditionally but at one point we thought he had a death sentence.
“I am head over heels in love with you,” Jeff would call to tell me every morning around 6:30 AM, “Oh are you awake?”
“I’m awake now,” I would tell him, “and I am so in love with you my heart is swollen to the size of a beach ball.”
It was all part of our morning routine.
“Did you take your Lactulose or your morning meds yet?” I would ask him
“No, I forgot, I’ll take them right now,” he would tell me. On the other end of the phone, I would hear rustling noises. Jeff was grabbing the lactulose and then opening his mini-fridge where he kept the Coca-Cola. He used Coca-Cola as a chaser for his nasty tasting Lactulose that he hated so much. I could hear gulping noises, then a disgusted noise followed by a desperate chugging of Coca-Cola.
After that, I heard the rattling of pills and more swallowing noises.
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