Eyes
“I’m sorry to hear. And you were doing so well!”
Dr. Lynch Castrgard scribbled something on his clipboard. Every stroke sounded like judgment to Casper. What was the jackal writing in there? The cat craved to find out, but he could never bring himself to sneak a peek.
Finally the pen stopped. Dr. Castrgard peered at him over half-moon glasses. “I thought we fixed this, what, four months ago now? You were doing so well with keeping eye contact. Why the regression?”
That word again, regression. Casper’s eye twitched. “I’m not regressing! It’s just… it’s just that some things we’ve fixed about me aren’t as, uh, fixed as they used to be.”
The jackal arched an eyebrow. “Cas. That’s the definition of regression.”
Was it? For an English major, Cas was pretty bad at definitions lately.. He sighed. “Whatever. Anyways, it’s just, Kathy told me that I was creeping her out.”
“Creeping her out? How, exactly?”
The cat’s white cheeks turned pink. “Well we talk a lot, and… and I’ve been practicing keeping eye contact. And apparently it’s creepy?”
The doctor cracked a grin. “Oh! Yes, it all makes sense now. I should have guessed, honestly.” More scribbles. More judgment. “Cas, making eye contact is important. But you can’t just stare people down. Too much eye contact is just as bad. Try to mix it up.”
Of course! No one wanted to be stared down during a conversation, normal people did both. Cas kicked himself internally. Why couldn’t he have thought of that? And why did it feel faintly that he’d already known that?
“Have you regressed in any other areas?”
The question caught Cas off guard, and he found his mouth moving before his brain could cover up the truth. “Yes, I’ve been stimming a lot recently.” Why did he admit that?
“Stimming. Repetitive movements or vocalizations, often to calm or express feelings.”
“Y-Yeah, that.” It sounded so much more embarrassing when read out like that. Almost infantile. Cas swallowed and tried to calm his quickening pulse “It’s… it’s just that sometimes, y’know when I, and in, or in the car, I might, at work sometimes I-”
“Cas!” Dr. Castrgard’s voice cut like steel through the fog of thoughts suffocating Cas. “I have an idea, why don’t you just show me?”
Show him? “Show you?” Cas didn’t want to humiliate himself further. “S-Sure, sure I uh, I kinda go like…” The cat rocked back and forth in his seat, gently at first but increasing in intensity. He flapped his hand against his thighs and drummed out a frenetic beat. The beat and the rocking adjusted to match the other’s tempo, and when they both finally fell in sync, all the stress and anxiety flooding Cas’ mind slowly leaked out.
He closed his eyes and sighed. Without seeing Dr. Castrgard observing and jotting down notes, it almost felt as if he were alone. He let himself sink into the slow, sticky embrace of the tempo and felt his thoughts and pulse slow down, down, down…
And he was calm.
For a while he was able to just enjoy the stillness in his mind. All those anxieties brushed away.
A prod on his shoulder jerked him out of it. “Cas, are you listening to me? You pay by the minute, you know.”
“What?” Cas shook himself alert. “Oh, sorry, I um–”
“You calmed yourself by stimming for me.”
Ah, there’s that embarrassment he’d been missing. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
Dr. Castrgard shrugged as he scribbled on his clipboard some more. “I told you to, after all. It’s interesting though. I’ve never seen someone with your, uh, condition add new expressions. Your file says nothing about stimming. A setback to be sure.”
If it was a setback, why did Cas detect the hint of a grin? “Enough of that for now. Let’s work on your eye contact again. Shall we do the exercise?”
Cas groaned. ‘The exercise’ was simple enough, just returning the doctor’s eye contact for a certain amount of time. He’d spent months staring at the jackal, and he’d had quite enough of it.
“We’re going to do the exercise. Are you ready?”
He wanted to say no. He was allowed to, after all. But as he looked up towards Dr. Castrgard, instead of voicing his concerns, he found himself staring into his therapist’s eyes. They were such an interesting shade of emerald, they seemed almost like jewels. They drew him in. They were deep, deceptively so. Cas might have been looking at a pair of eyes a few feet away, or he might have been peering down a bottomless pit.
Dr. Castrgard’s mouth moved, but not a word registered in his mind. They were like bugs coming at him, pests to be ignored, mosquitos to be swatted while he immersed himself in those deep green depths. The words weren’t important. Just like his thoughts weren’t important. Why can’t I stop looking? Why do I feel so strange? All of them he swatted away as if they were nothing. All that was important was Dr. Castrgard’s shimmering eyes. He felt as he could just… jump… in…
—
“Cas? Can you hear me?” Lynch paused a moment. No response. “Cas?”
Nothing.
Good.
“You’re doing such a good job tearing down those walls you built up, aren’t you lil buddy?”
Cas nodded slowly. “No more masking.” Every syllable came out like honey, sticky and slow. “Just like you said.”
“Just like I said,” Lynch said with a nod. “Good. I’m proud of you, you know that?” Cas smiled briefly at the news, but did nothing otherwise. “I’m especially proud that you managed to pick up stimming so quickly! And the eye contact? I didn’t even tell you to do that. I’m so impressed.”
His voice dripped with saccharin condescension, but the cat still gave a lazy grin to the compliments. “I’m… impressive,” he repeated.
“You sure are, lil guy. Now, let’s get down to business. Do you remember what our next big goal was?”
Cas’s face screwed up as he struggled to form an actual thought. “...was it, uh… ha-han…handling…”
Lynch huffed under his breath. “Handling change,” he finished for Cas. “That’s right! Now I know you’re staying up all night reading the journals and studies I send you. Have you gotten to the part about typical reactions to change?”
Cas nodded. “Frustration… and emotional outbursts… expressed in tantrums, pouting, and… and…”
“And fits.” Lynch’s impatience won out again. “Tantrums, pouting and fits. They have no idea how to express their frustration or handle it maturely, so they cry, or they pout, or they throw a fit. Isn’t that right?”
A silent nod. A strand of drool spilled over the cat’s bottom lip. Lynch watched it dribble down his chin and onto his shirt. What a nasty creature.
“That’s your homework for next week. Work on your stimming like a good boy, and on top of that you’re going to start losing your emotional maturity. Work on crying, pouting, and just generally being unable to handle changes to your precious, precious routine. Understood?”
Cas nodded again. “I understand.”
Lynch smiled. “And I really am proud of you for regressing in regards to eye contact. A real treat and a genuine surprise. It isn’t often that I’m surprised.”
“Oh, and one more thing! This isn’t supposed to be until later, but I just think you’ll look so cute with it. A lot of boys like you have a comfort object they take everywhere, they need it to feel safe and stable. Did you have one growing up?”
“Yeah…” Cas had to think for a moment. “A… a bunny.”
“Good. Take this.”
Lynch handed an overstuffed bunny plush to Cas, who held it at arms length with a look of vague confusion. “He’s your comfort object. Don’t you love your comfort object? Don’t you love Bnnuy the Bunny?”
The confusion on Cas’ face turned to a smile, and he hugged his bunny to his chest.
“There we are, good boy!”
— —
“...nine, ten.”
Cas blinked as the exercise finished, then blinked again as he found his eyes burningly dry. “Gah! Why- gosh, my eyes burn. Were we, we were… how long were we doing that?”
Dr. Castrgard tilted his head. “Do you mean the exercise? Three sets of ten seconds, just like always. Do you need eye drops or something?”
Thirty seconds? He really must need them if they’d dried out in just thirty seconds. “I’ll talk to my eye doctor about it,” Cas promised. He glanced at the clock. It was just minutes before his appointment was due to end.
Hadn’t they started the exercise near the beginning of the session? The thought buzzed around Cas’ head like a mosquito. One he dutifully smacked away. No reason to follow that line of thinking. No reason at all.
Cas shook his head. He’d zoned out again. “Well, uh… it looks like I should get going.” He put his hands on his knees to stand up before offering Dr. Castrgard a shake. “As always I appreciate you working with me, and I promise to do my best to follow your suggestions.”
Dr. Castrgard took his hand and shook it firmly. “Always a pleasure. Don’t forget your plushie on the way out!”
Plushie? Cas stumbled to a halt, then turned around to find Bnnuy slumped on the floor next to where he’d been sitting. He frowned. When did he start taking Bnnuy around in public? Wait, did he even–
Another pesky mosquito that Cas immediately shooed away. He grabbed Bnnuy and hugged him close. The plush’s soft velvet fur radiated comfort and relaxation as Cas stroked it. Of course he’d taken him, why would he not?
“Thanks for reminding me, I dunno what I’d have done without him!” Cas gave a chipper wave and strolled out the door.
“Oh, and Cas?” The cat stopped and poked his head back in. “I was thinking, let’s move our appointment an hour earlier next week. Is that okay?”
Cas nodded. “Oh I can make that work easy, no biggie. See you then.”
Lynch grinned. Was that a hint of a scowl on Cas’ face? Change could be so annoying sometimes.
The jackal turned to his filing cabinet and thumbed through his case folders. ‘Shilva’, ‘Alex’, ‘Emmett’... ah, Cas! He pulled the folder out and turned to the cat’s official diagnosis page. Scanning through the list of possible diagnoses, Lynch searched until he found the right entry. Dr. Jane Goodall had left a note there long ago. ‘Patient does not meet the criteria of diagnosis for ASD. Patient is well adjusted and socially mature.’
He scribbled out the old therapist’s note and replaced it with one of his own: “Definitely autistic.”
