[ WP ] You are an actor , hired by parents to pretend to be a troubled boy 's imaginary friend .

How long does it take to really know somebody? 
 
 By the eighth week, Fin and I had become close. Closer than I ’ d ever been with anyone in my own family. Certainly closer than my brother who I ’ d caught stealing from our mother as she faded into Alzheimer's. 
 
 In a lot of ways, Fin was family to me. He was strange. That ’ s why his parents had to hire me in the first place. I felt sorry for him the first time we met. 
 
 When you learn a new language, you learn the rules, the spellings, the usages. But you don ’ t really learn the meanings. Not at first. You think you know what the words mean, but you don ’ t, because you ’ ve never needed to say anything with those words. You ’ ve never had to beg for help with those words, to scream out in frustration with those words, to admit some primal love that realigns your every thought with those words. 
 
 Meeting Fin was like learning a new language. Everyone knew about his problems. They knew he had Aspergers—so severe he couldn ’ t even coax his own imagination into empathizing with his loneliness; so severe the kids at school would part to opposite walls like he was Moses walking through the halls—but beyond what everyone thought they knew about him, about his miswired mind, about his crippling bouts of anxiety, there was a person who asked real questions and pondered real thoughts, more real than anything most of us have ever asked ourselves. 
 
 On the very first day, he didn ’ t seem to question my presence at all. He asked me plenty of questions, but none of them about why I was there or where I ’ d come from. He didn ’ t even ask me who I was. It was as if he just accepted that I would be part of his life from now on, and just skipped past all the bullshit. 
 
 He asked me if I was afraid of being alone. 
 
 I wondered if he ’ d meant socially or physically, so I asked. He asked me what the difference was. 
 
 Fin liked to play a game where we ’ d point out some random object and speculate as to how it came to be. Like the lamp on his desk. We ’ d wonder if the aluminum came from some mine in the DRC or if it was pressed by some large machine in China. He was fascinated—or perhaps obsessed—with the story of how things came to be. 
 
 One day, Fin had been picked up from school by his parents for throwing his desk over and screaming in class. They said that he wouldn ’ t explain why or what was wrong. The teacher claimed there had been no provocation. The other students were in fact being very nice to him, just making polite conversation. 
 
 I asked Fin what had happened. I ’ d known him long enough that I he felt comfortable telling me the truth about things that he couldn ’ t tell other people. I was sure one of the other students must have said or done something, pushed him in some way. But when I asked, he told me that none of them had done anything wrong. That it wasn ’ t their fault. I asked him to tell me the whole story. 
 
 It turns out, some of the kids were playing some new game on a smartphone. One of them asked if Fin wanted to try. Apparently Fin got a high score on his very first attempt, which impressed a lot of the other kids. They started to talk to him and ask him questions. I asked him what kind of questions. He said the nice kind. And when I asked him what happened next, he said, “ Nothing. ” 
 
 Nothing else happened. I didn ’ t understand. Something else had to have happened, but he said that was it. I asked him why he threw his desk over and screamed at them. He looked at me and asked what I would have done. I told him I didn ’ t know, but I wouldn ’ t have thrown the desk over. He said he didn ’ t want to talk anymore and asked me what I do when I don ’ t want to talk to a nice person anymore. I told him I would just say I did n't want to talk anymore. He asked if that was true. 
 
 Was I lying? Have I ever told anyone I didn ’ t want to talk to them anymore? Has anyone ever just told a perfectly nice person they just didn ’ t want to talk anymore? I mean, I ’ ve made plenty of excuses. I've lied about places I had to be, told people I had to use the restroom. 
 
 But I ’ ve never told somebody I just wanted to stop talking to them. Why? I ’ ve felt it plenty of times. I can ’ t even count how many dull, pointless conversations I ’ ve been stuck in. But I ’ ve never told anyone I wanted them to stop talking. Why? Because it ’ s not how normal people act? But Fin isn ’ t normal. People know that. He could have told them he didn ’ t want to talk to them anymore. 
 
 I asked him if that ’ s how he felt, like he just didn ’ t want to talk to them anymore, why didn ’ t he just tell them that? 
 
 He said because they would n't understand. 
 
 Understand what? 
 
 That it was n't their fault. 
 
 Continued...
