I'm hanging out with my good friend James, when I hear a loud crash from the second story of his house. As I watch him stand up from the couch we're sitting on, it dawns on me that I've never been to the second floor of James' house. Not only that, but James usually visits my apartment, and I've only been to his house a few times. At first I thought it was because he's embarrassed to still be living with his parents as a college senior, but now it crosses my mind that there could be another reason for his hesitance.

"James, I thought your parents were out today?" I say, both our heads turned to the sound of the disturbance. "Y-yeah, uh they are, it must have been the cat or something; just wait here, I'll be right back." With this James quickly heads upstairs, looking more flustered than I can recall ever seeing him. I ponder whether or not to heed his request, but my curiosity soon gets the best of me; I know for a fact that James doesn't have a cat— his dad's deathly allergic.

I pad up the stairs after waiting a moment, and as I draw closer to the source of the earlier commotion I hear a soft sniffling, accompanied by James' frantic whispering. I turn the corner and see a young girl holding the broken pieces of a vase in her hands, a sorrowful expression on her demure features. James is crouched beside her trying to reassure her, his hand hovering above her shoulder but not touching it. They both look up at my approach, and the girl stops crying to stare at me intently while James looks stricken. "I told you to wait downstairs! She can't meet new people, she gets really—" he stops mid-sentence when he sees the girl has stood up, and taken a step closer to me.

Now that she's standing I can see that she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, she has long flowing brown hair, and despite the obvious lack of attention she gives it, the way it frames her pale young face is quite entrancing. I flinch back a little as she places her hand on my face, feeling its shape and texture. "Hannah?" I glance over at the utterance, and see James staring at us with an incredulous expression. "She normally runs and hides from new people, I've never seen her act like this before." I look to him for further explanation, and he speaks up after a moment: "this is my little sister Hannah, she's nineteen, and she has autism. She hasn't been to school since she was little because she gets really upset around new people."

James seems like he's going to elaborate more, but suddenly Hannah speaks, her voice slow and unsteady, "pretty." We look to her in surprise, and I notice that she's playing with my hair between her delicate fingers. "Uh, thanks," I respond, unsure of how to react to a compliment from such a beautiful girl. James seems to still be in shock at Hannah's behavior, but he finally gets a hold of himself and turns to Hannah, "come on honey, let's go back to your room so I can clean up the vase." "No," she shakes her head, and grabs my arm, clinging to it tightly. "I like him," she says, and I feel my heartbeat quicken. I know it's foolish to get excited by someone like Hannah saying this, she probably has no idea what those words mean, and has just seen them before on TV, and decided to repeat them. Still though, I can't help the flush that goes to my cheeks at the words of this lovely young autist.

James sighs in exasperation, and takes a step towards her. "Honey, you need to leave him alone, he doesn't want to deal with you." He reaches for her again, but she shakes him off, her expression souring. "I like him!" she declares defiantly, and then walks past James and pulls me along behind her down the hallway. She leads me into her bedroom and sits me down on the twin bed, before taking a seat beside me. I sit there awkwardly for a moment, watching her kick her legs happily humming softly to herself. Just as I've gathered the courage to speak, she seems to think of something, because her face brightens and she walks over to her closet pulling out a small book.

I can't help but smile as Hannah bounces happily back to me, holding out the book. It's a small picture book that appears to be filled with illustrations of animals, along with brief accompanying descriptions. She flips through the picture book until she finds a picture of a tiger. "This is my favorite animal," she announces proudly, and leans against me to better show me a colorful depiction of the big cat. "It's a Bengal Tiger!" she exclaims, her face alight with excitement as she begins to tell me more about her favorite creature.