This Could Be Us (Skyland, #2)
Kennedy Ryan
To those of us who never quite fit into the spaces they made for us.
May we find our people. May we make our way. May we find our home.
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.
Tap here to learn more.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
There are parts of this story I’ve been writing for the last twenty years. More accurately, there are aspects of This Could Be Us I’ve been living for the last twenty years, since the day my son was diagnosed with autism. He is a mold-breaker. A one-of-a-kind supernova who manages to convey so much compassion and kindness and curiosity even without many words. He’s a big guy, over six feet tall now, and everywhere he goes they call him “gentle giant.” LOL. He doesn’t talk much, but he speaks. His life speaks, and I wanted to depict a character navigating the world in my pages of fiction the way he does every day. When they call autism a spectrum, they ain’t lying. It’s everything from my son, who requires intense supervision and has very high support needs, to someone who may have a lot more independence and appear pretty typical from the outside. Those folks have unique challenges of their own. Both “ends” of the spectrum and everything in between deserve respect and dignity.
Can I be honest for a second? I can? Good. It took me a long time to write about autism because I was concerned that I would get things “wrong.” I’ve written a lot of stories that weren’t my lived experience, always with interviews and research and sensitivity readers. But this, my lived experience as a parent and someone who loves an autistic person, kinda intimidated me. The last thing I wanted to do was misrepresent or inadvertently harm the community that has embraced my family and my son so beautifully his entire life. But as I started thinking about Soledad’s story and her passion for her children, I knew these two boys you are about to meet in This Could Be Us would play a pivotal role, so it was time.
For this story, I interviewed several autistic people and parents, hoping to capture a broad range of experiences. There’s no way everyone will see themselves exactly as they are, but my hope is that many will feel resonance—will feel seen, cared for, respected, and hopeful.
Many things in the autism community become “hotly debated.” Even how those on the spectrum should be addressed. Specifically, someone “having autism” versus “being autistic.” I have chosen to use “autistic” for this story, and I respect those who choose otherwise. I also reference level 1 and level 3 as clinical classifications. There are some who don’t embrace that language and some who do. I reference it in the story merely as part of their formal diagnoses. If you are autistic or a loved one of someone who is, we are all navigating the tough parts and, hopefully, celebrating the terrific moments when they come. However it looks for you, however you are managing, I extend you grace and wish you the very best.
I hope I’ve written the twin boys in this story with the same compassion I always want to see extended to my son. I hope you love them as I do.
As you begin this story, I want to mention that there is discussion of a parent’s death, in the past, off the page, and of cancer. Please take care of yourself as you read.:-)
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
—Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
PROLOGUE
JUDAH
I’m sure I loved her once.
And she loved me.
I remember the fluttery emotions early on, the quick-burn passion, the commitment that felt like it was anchored in cement. It became something that required little thought or feeling. What had once been a groove carved between our hearts settled with dismal comfort into a rut. Seated across from Tremaine now as we “mediate” the end of our marriage, looking into her eyes, I only see the remains of that love—mutual affection and respect.
We failed each other epically. Not through cruelty or infidelity, but through neglect. The idea we had of a love that would last forever, it’s a casualty of hardship and indifference. This should hurt more. I should be more disappointed that my marriage is over, but instead there is a sense of relief that almost overwhelms me. A breath that has been lodged behind my ribs, maybe for years—I released it when Tremaine finally asked for the divorce. What should have felt like a slice through me instead felt like a sigh.
Yeah, this should hurt more, but it doesn’t. So all I can think about now is the end and the new beginning, whatever that means for her, me, and our twin boys, Adam and Aaron.
“Custody,” says Kimberly, the child specialist, glancing up from the small stack of papers on the coffee table in our living room. “We need to create the parenting plan.”
“Right,” Tremaine agrees, uncharacteristic uncertainty in her eyes. A small frown knits the smooth brown skin between her brows. Her hair, in two-strand twists, billows around her face like a weeping willow, softening the keen features. “I don’t know how much they understand.”
“Adam gets it,” I say. “He’s been asking about divorce nonstop. He told me today it derives from the Latin divortere, which means separation. He can’t always wrap his emotions around things, so he leans more on facts.”