February, 1891. Ray = 22, Jack = 14, Louis = 12 1/2, Mush = 12, Crutchy = 11. Only two days ago I was writing about the four kids being under the age of 10. They do grow up fast. Dang my story has only been up for two days? Anyway. Here we are, moving forward, I hope I have some sort of plan. I got myself so psyched for future chapters that I kinda am less motivated to get through this one haha. But I need to finish this one before I move on. I think this is the first chapter with any real Antonio acting out. Gotta put that in sooner than later I guess. Anyway. Enjoy! :)

"Do you think Antonio is old enough to become a newsie?"

"I mean, Crutchy was a newsie at what, age five."

"But is Antonio ready for it?"

Ray really needs to think about this. He understands that the others are just curious, and they are rightfully so. Antonio's been living with them close to six years now, and hasn't carried the banner once, which is also understandable. They weren't going to make someone who could barely talk go sell newspapers. But he's older now. Aside from some of his oddities, he's growing up like a normal kid. But to Ray, he's still just a little kid. True, Jack, Louis, Mush, and Crutchy had all been selling newspapers when they were Antonio's current age, but he's not like them. His mind...it works differently. They still don't know how it works, but he's still just a little bit behind. Ray wants to wait a year, see what he's like then. When he's 8, he'll probably be ready.

"I'm gonna give him some more time," Ray decides aloud. "I think that now's not the best time. Before next year ends, though, he'll be a newsie. That's what I know."

The others nod, satisfied with that answer.

"Speaking of Antonio, where is he?" Henry asks.

They look around, and once they find him, they go back to just talking.

Across the room, Sheeny sets down a set of cards on the table in front of young Antonio. "Anyone ever showed you how to play with cards yet?"

Antonio shakes his head, not taking his eyes off the cards.

Sheeny picks them back up. "Well, there are many ways you can play with cards," he explains. "But no matter what, you still have to shuffle them real good." And so he demonstrates.

With wide eyes, Antonio watches the cards practically fly through Sheeny's hand. And the sounds those cards make ... it's amazing. He can tell that Sheeny has had some practice. His fingers are so dexterous and graceful. No one could make cards shuffle that smoothly if they didn't have at least some idea of what they were doing. Antonio can't wait until he can shuffle cards like that.

"Can I try?" Antonio asks Sheeny. He really just wants an excuse to hold the cards.

"Of course. Here." Sheeny gives him half the deck. "This should make it a little easier." And then he begins to talk and demonstrate. "What you wanna do is split the cards in half--don't have to be even, just around the same. Yeah. Just like that. And you create an arch like this--" Antonio is following pretty well, but then others come over and start their own conversation with Sheeny, throwing Antonio out of concentration, causing him to get mildly annoyed. They had something going here!

"Remember yesterday?" Snoddy asks Sheeny.

"Yeah. Who wouldn't?"

What happened yesterday? Nothing that Antonio can remember. But everyone else is saying things too.

"Do you think he knows?" Buttons adds.

Sheeny and Snoddy shrug.

Are they talking about me?

"Who?" Antonio asks. "What happened?"

Then, for a brief moment, they realize he's there. 

"Nothing important to ya."

Then they turn away and start going off talking again.

They're talking about me, I'm sure. But he can't 100% know.

Now this is getting a little annoying. He asks again what happened, but no one's doing more than glancing at him. 

"Hey!" he raises his voice. "No one is telling me anything!"

"Relax, Antonio," Buttons tells him.

"But why? Are you talking about me?"

"What? No," Sheeny tells him.

"Yes you are!" Antonio argues, his temper rising. "Why can't I at least get an idea of what you're talking about?"

"Antonio, really, it's not that important-" another newsie tries to tell him, but is interrupted by Antonio throwing down the cards he had held in his hands, causing the cards to fly everywhere.

"Hey!" the others exclaim, slightly startled.

"Hey Antonio, can you apologize?" Sheeny asks him nicely.

But Antonio isn't having it. "Mm-nn." True, it's not directly Sheeny he's mad at, but he's stubborn. So the collective group will get him shaking his head instead of saying anything.

"Hey Antonio," Buttons says in a more warning tone. "There are times where you have to say sorry for things you do. You can't just throw cards at people like that."

But Antonio can't speak. All his words are lodged in his throat. His mind is racing. He just needs a few seconds. He needs to play things back in his head. He wants to-

"Antonio, Buttons was talking to you," Snoddy interrupts his thoughts impatiently and unsympathetically. That was no where near enough time to gather thoughts or anything.

But it's clear that Antonio isn't welcome here anymore. They all hate him now. They're all judging him.

"NO!" Then he storms off. He doesn't know where he's going. Just somewhere. He just needs to get away. He needs to escape. To hide from the world. It's all closing in on him, suffocating him. He needs a way out.

Out of sight from everyone, he glances around, panicked. He needs someplace small where he can hide...

There! Under the stairway!

Without a second thought, he crawls underneath the stairway and brings his knees to his chest. He rocks himself back and forth. It's all to help calm himself down. He likes it here. It's cozy, feels safe, no one knows where he is, so they can't bother him. He still doesn't want to talk, though.

Stay here. He tries comforting himself. His nerves are still high.

Just stay here.

It's not often that Antonio has temper like this. There have been a couple other times when he was younger, but they were under the impression that he'd grown out of them.

Those around the table turn back to each other.

"Can you believe that?"

"Now we have to clean up the cards left everywhere."

"At least it's only fifty-two cards."

"I didn't know you knew how to count."

"Hey!-"

Before the two could get into any more heated arguments, Sheeny sits up. "Hey guys? Did any of you catch where Antonio went?"

They look around. Somehow they'd lost Antonio.

But now he has the ability to open the front door if he wanted to.

They all stand up.

"Antonio!" they begin to shout.

"What's happening? Where's Antonio?" Ray asks as he comes over with Jack beside him.

"What's going on?" Louis, Mush, and Crutchy join them.

"Antonio got mad at us for gettin' mad at somethin' he did and 'e left us," Sheeny explains.

"And then we lost him," Snoddy adds.

"That was your fault," Buttons says.

"HEY-"

"No. None of that," Ray intervenes. "It doesn't matter who said what or who did what. We just need to find him."

And with that, everyone goes off in separate directions, a couple out the door, looking for the child who is still currently the youngest newsie of the Manhattan newsies lodging house.

They're all gone now, Antonio thinks as he hugs his knees.

"Antonio!"

That was Mush and Louis.

Antonio freezes.

He's conflicted.

Does he reveal where he is? Or does he let them find him? Or does he stay there, doing nothing?

"Where could he be?"

"He couldn't have gone far, could he?"

Mush sounded worried.

Antonio doesn't want to worry him. But he can't move.

"Wait a second."

Suddenly, Louis pokes his head under the stairs, and looks really relieved at finding Antonio.

Louis ducks out and shouts, "I FOUND HIM! YOU CAN STOP LOOKING NOW!" and then gets back under the stairs, now accompanied by Mush. It really would be odd to see one of them without the other close by.

But still, Antonio can't help feeling a little bit disappointed that they found him and therefore lessened the sacredness of his little hiding spot. He pushes those feelings down as he tries to pay attention to what they're saying.

"Hi Antonio!" Mush smiles brightly. Antonio can see the brightness even in this dim light underneath the stairs. "We're glad we found you!"

"Wanna come out with us?" Louis asks him gently.

"Everyone's worried about you," Mush adds.

Everyone? Really? They are? No. "Everyone" can't be right. Sheeny and Buttons and Snoddy don't like me.

"Hey, Antonio?" Mush says worriedly. "You still with us?"

Antonio just looks at them, silently. I'm here. But he can't say that out loud. He doesn't know if it's because he doesn't want to, or he can't.

Mush and Louis frown.

"Where'd you say he was?" Antonio hears Sheeny call from a distance.

"Down here," Louis answers.

No. He wasn't supposed to tell others that I'm here!

But it's too late.

"Hey, Antonio."

He's faced with the three he got in an argument with. 

Do they still want him to apologize? He doesn't know. In the time he was in his mind, he totally forgot what he was mad about. He's just ... locked himself out of that part of his mind. And locked himself in another part. But the outside world is still wanting something from him.

"Hey, we're sorry for earlier," Sheeny begins.

"Yelling at ya wasn't the best thing to do," Snoddy adds.

"So we're saying sorry," Buttons finishes.

That's all great and all, but...

Antonio plays through his head what had actually happened. Their faces when he threw the cards. What they had said.

They must hate me now.

It doesn't matter that they've apologized now. His mind only sees them how they were then in that moment. He can't move forward from that.

He bites his tongue a little. He just wishes that they'd all leave him alone. Not that he can communicate that.

"Can you say anything to us?" Sheeny asks gently.

Antonio tries. He opens his mouth. No sound comes out. What would he say, anyway?

In his mind, words are building up. Words that wouldn't make sense to them. They make sense to him. But he can't get them out. So they're building up. It's like trying to get marbles out of a bottle, and the bottle is open, but there is a big marble, or something else, blocking their path.

He closes his mouth. Then he shakes his head. His leg bounces a little. Another way to try to comfort himself.

The three, plus Louis and Mush, exchange worried glances. Why isn't he talking?

"Wanna come out with us?" Louis asks again.

Does Antonio want to move? No, he doesn't. He shakes his head.

"Come find us when you want us, okay?" Sheeny tells Antonio. He puts his hand on Antonio's shoulder, briefly. Then he, Buttons, and Snoddy leave.

Antonio rubs away the sensation on his arm where Sheeny's hand was.

Louis and Mush move in closer to him.

"You know you can tell us anything," Mush coaxes him.

I know. 

"We won't ever judge you," Louis assures him.

I know.

And he wants to express his gratitude for them. But he still stays silent throughout it all.

Louis and Mush stay silent with him under the staircase, just being there for him. And together, they stay like that, at least for some time. They don't pressure him to talk. Once again, Antonio retreats inside his mind. It's a weird place for sure, but it's all he knows. And the source of all the emotions he's feeling right now: heaviness, happiness, and everything in between.

Neither Louis nor Mush have ever seen someone shut down like this before. Antonio has no clue just how different he is.

After more time passes, no one is quite sure how much, Mush and Louis hug Antonio, and say, "we're gonna go now. Come look for us when you're ready to talk again, okay?"

Antonio nods.

And then, hand in hand, they leave him.

On one hand, he wants to cry after them for leaving him alone. On the other, he's relieved that now it's just him by himself again.

It's late now. How late? He has no clue. No concept of time at all.

But as far as he's concerned, he can stay down here forever.

As soon as Louis and Mush walk away, Ray comes up to them. "Where's Antonio?"

"Underneath the stairs."

Without any more questioning, Ray thanks them and heads over to the staircase.

Quietly and carefully, Ray makes it to the stairs, then crouches down by the closest steps to the ground, which Antonio has tucked himself under.

"Hey, Antonio."

Ray.

His voice, so kind, so soothing, so...everything nice, brings back Antonio from inside his mind.

"Can you come out for me?"

He hasn't moved in forever. But for Ray, he can try.

With a lot of effort, he scoots little by little, until he and Ray can make eye contact. He stays there. Ray sits down fully.

"Hi."

Now Antonio can't just hear Ray's kind voice, he can see his kind eyes and kind face. He waves back to him. Then looks away. Eye contact has never been his thing. Especially now.

"Can you tell me in your own words what happened?"

That's the question, isn't it?

Can he?

He bites his lip. He stays silent.

"They aren't mad at you," Ray assures him. "They want you to know that. They understand what happened. Everyone gets mad now and then."

Oh no no no no no. In truth, Antonio actually hasn't thought about the actual dispute in ... he doesn't know how long. But now Ray is bringing it back. No no no Antonio wanted to move on from that, but unless he can communicate any of this, he has to sit through this.

He opens his mouth, wanting to explain parts of this, but nothing comes out. He closes his mouth and whines a little, frustrated with himself.

This doesn't go unnoticed by Ray, who frowns, and seems to at least kind of understand Antonio's struggles. "Do you want to talk, Antonio?"

Antonio nods.

"But you just can't?"

Another nod.

"Yes? That's it?"

"Mhm."

"Any idea why you can't talk?"

Antonio shrugs. He wishes he knew.

"Is it because we're talking about something hard?"

Maybe. He shrugs again.

"Maybe?" Ray guesses.

Antonio nods.

Good thing he has Ray. The others ... don't try to understand him as easily. But Ray? Ray understands him. Even when he doesn't, he tries really hard to.

"Wanna maybe try to talk about something different?" Ray asks.

I mean, sure. Antonio kinda scrunches up his shoulders in a shrug, and then looks at Ray again, waiting to see what he says next.

"Do you wanna know what they were talking about in the first place?" Ray asks.

Sure. That might help. Antonio nods.

"Last night, in our room, we heard someone snore," Ray begins. "That's why they didn't think to include you in the conversation. Because you weren't there. They still could have told it to you, though. We all make little mistakes everywhere, and once they're made, we can't change what's been done. Anyway, we wanted to figure out who was snoring, but we couldn't see because it was dark, right? Anyway, we turn on a light, but one person keeps sleeping, and snoring: Itey. Everyone crowded around his bunk, asking each other, does he know? Does he know he's snoring? then he made a real loud noise, and everyone thought he was about to wake up, and we jumped back away from him since everyone was crowded around him, and Henry bumped into something hard behind him and it made a noise--and so did he. Everyone was trying not to laugh, so as not to wake the poor boy up. But Itey? He just kept on sleeping, and snoring."

He and Antonio are both chuckling now.

"Really?" Antonio asks in a small voice. I have a voice again. That thought fills him with relief.

"Really," Ray tells him with a smile. "It's a silly story, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Wanna talk about something else now?"

"Okay."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Hmm." Antonio thinks about it. "How did you get your newsie name?"

"You wanna know more about my newsie name?"

"Mhm."

"Well how about you come out of there, and I'll tell you all about it?"

In slow movements, he holds out his hand. Antonio look up at Ray's earnest and kind face. Slowly, he takes Ray's hand, and lets Ray pull him out of there. Hand in hand, Ray walks Antonio over to what they now call their chair, where Antonio sits on Ray's lap and Ray holds him close, and tells Antonio stories, some from the day, some from old memories, others from fairytales.

And together now, in the quietness of the night, just the two of them, they talk quietly together.

I love wholesome endings.

This chapter, again, has a lot of meaning for me. Here's the different parts of it.

When Antonio thinks that the others are mad at him, and even after they say they're not, he's convinced they still are and that they hate him, that's Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD), a lesser known trait that comes with ADHD. I have really strong Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria. Sometimes, if someone lashes out, to any degree, I think that person is mad at me. If someone doesn't want to talk or spend time with me, I think they hate me. I can go on and on about that. RSD is real, and it really can do numbers on a person's mentality.

Now on to the title of this chapter: Antonio's not-talking, as I call it. There's this term I found: selective mutism. And, in some ways, I think it fits. But I still don't entirely understand it. Sure, it's when you can't speak in certain circumstances, like actually cannot speak, which happens to Antonio and I, but it's caused from trauma, or only happens in really specific places. Since that doesn't fit Antonio, I don't use the term. But social anxiety is close to it. And nonverbal. But since those terms don't really fit Antonio either, I'm sticking with not-talking, and have hopes that maybe someday Antonio and I can figure out why this happens to us. Because everything running through Antonio's head came from my own experiences. And this doesn't just happen when we're young. I'm a little over twice Antonio's current age and it still happens to me.

(Edit: it's been a year, and I've learned more. I learned that saying an autistic person "goes nonverbal" is okay. When I wrote this story, I didn't realize that being partially non verbal is a thing. I think I'll still leave up the original explanation I have in the paragraph above because it was my truth at the time I was writing this, and I want to show that even though I've grown, I had to start from somewhere, and that's where I was.)

(Another edit: it has been another year and I've heard a lot of mixed things. On one hand, saying "goes non verbal" is okay. On the other hand, it is using the term non-verbal in a way that does not reflect the true meaning of the phrase and it's driving a further lack of understanding about everyone on all parts of the autism spectrum. So, for now, I am sticking with my term not-talking, because that's the truest word for me, and Antonio.)

I really want to study cognitive psychology. I like psychology. And neuroscience is neat. But it's cognitive psychology that studies how the brain works and why we have neurotypical and neurodivergence. Now that is something worth studying. There needs to be much more research on it than there already is.

If you all need an autistic role model, look at Temple Grandin. She was born in 1947 (and her birthday is actually on August 29th, which is coming up soon), and lived in a time where people thought that autism was caused by a lack of care/attention from parents. People would blame the parents for their child's autism. And life wasn't easy for her as a young child. When she grew up, she knew she wanted to work with animals. She understood them in a way that neurotypical people did not. And she made slaughterhouses more humane. And she's contributed research. And she talks about her autism. And she does so much more. And she's still alive, and still going. In short, she's awesome. Anyone else know anything really cool about her? Tell us!

(Edit: I'm sad that I found out that Temple Grandin is not as great a person as I thought she was. She is ableist and has no respect for "low functioning" people, in her words; using outdated and harmful terms. This is not all the details, but I'll leave it up to y'all to look for more on your own if you are interested in more.)

If you want a list of famous people with ADHD and/or autism, just ask, and I can make one! :)

I don't want to make this about me. But the way I write Antonio ... I'm writing me. You can ask me about it. You can ask me about any specific detail, if that was me projecting onto Antonio, or if I was making it up. And most of time, I'll probably say that it's from me.

I'm so, so glad that Ray is a figure in Antonio's life like this. When we're inside our minds, any of us, all of us, who are too far in, we need someone like Ray to ground us, and bring us out of our storms. Treasure the people in your life who ground you. And, when you can, be that person who will help another through their storm. It's these things that are important and will never be forgotten. In this situation, Ray was supposed to be like all of the people closest to me who look out for me in these ways. They'll come find me after sensory overload. They'll repeat my sentences. They'll fill in the blanks. Their brains don't work like mine, and they sure don't understand mine, but they're there, nonetheless.

Alright, that's enough long paragraphs haha. Kudos to those who read through these things! :)    Honestly if you skipped over them or just looked at them briefly I wouldn't blame you. Who's the interesting one? Not me, that's for sure. Just as long as my story is more interesting than me, that's all I need.

Please, no homophobia, profanities, hate etc in the comment section at any time.

Best,

~Your Beloved Author (who wonders how they can be someone called both an old-soul and a kid-at-heart, which are kind of opposites, but somehow both fit me)