I don’t even remember what he did, but I do remember that I was mad about it. Really mad. I yelled at him. He cried. But, he was normal so it was OK.

My mom later told me it was not OK because he was not normal. My brother was autistic and that meant he wasn’t like me. I didn’t care. My family thought I was a jerk. I thought I was doing the right thing. I wrote down how I felt, sitting on the electrical box outside my house, just watching him play basketball with the rest of my family in the street. He looked normal. He had blonde hair, just like my sister. He had blue eyes, just like my dad. He could shoot a basketball just like my mom. Yet, he was not normal.

In my nine years, I had never been so angry. I sat outside, wasting a beautiful day writing angry messages on Post-It notes that I would later give to him. I hoped for an angry reaction from him, but every time I gave him my note, he just stared at me blankly. His lack of reaction made me even more furious and my notes became angrier and angrier. His reactions stayed the same. He never changed.

The last message I wrote had the word “hate” written several times in large, capital letters in pencil. This was sure to get him, I thought. I gave him the note, and, just like the last times, there was no change. That’s when I knew. There would never be change. I yelled and I cried. I just wanted him to be mad at me for being such a creep, but he wouldn’t. I sat in my room, sobbing, when I heard a knock on the door. It was him. I rudely asked him what he wanted, and he handed me a Post-It note. I rolled my eyes at him and snatched it from his hand. I stared at it. It said ‘Hi’ in big letters at the top with a smiley face drawn on the bottom. I cried and hugged him. He didn’t say a word.