Home alone. Amy looked over a few of the new medical journals that had come in, reading every article quickly and retaining over 90% of the information, even when the article didn't pertain to her field. She glanced out the window at the pale blue Pasadena sky. It was Thursday. Thursday was "date night". Like Sheldon she enjoyed routines, depended on routines to take away some of the unpredictable-ness of the world. But unlike Sheldon, she understood that sometimes routines took on a life of their own and would be followed for their sake alone and no longer for the original reason that set the routine into motion in the first place.
She took out a cigarette from the monkey's pack and lit it, feeling bad for doing such a forbidden thing, but she knew one cigarette wouldn't really hurt her and wouldn't cause addiction, and she was in the process of pushing the boundaries of her tiny box. She coughed and stubbed it out, and thought back to the day she answered the e-mail on the dating site, the e-mail that lead her to Sheldon. She thought about the causes and effects of the whole thing. Her mother urged her to date at least once a year and it was usually a dry affair that lead to nothing. She was never what the guy was looking for, no matter or smart or accomplished he might be. And maybe he was never what she was looking for, either.
Was Sheldon what she was looking for? She didn't know, but she did know that she was comfortable around him, that his way of thinking and acting closely mirrored her own. She liked not having to second guess his motives or his thoughts, because he was honest just like she was. If he didn't like something he told her, and didn't leave her to look for inscrutable clues of facial expressions and tones of voice. If he liked something he told her, and she didn't have to look for a certain kind of smile or some trick of body language.
She was pleased to have found Sheldon, and she put up with his roommate and colleagues, people she was getting used to. She licked her lips and touched the glossy surface of the medical journal she held in her hand. She liked Sheldon well enough, he put her at ease in the social world she found baffling at best and frightening at worst. She sucked in her breath a little and thought of the person Sheldon had lead her to, the incandescently beautiful creature that lived and breathed right across the hall from her boyfriend. Penny. She closed her eyes, seeing the shimmer of Penny's long blond hair, the shimmer of her blue/green eyes, the shimmer of her pale soft skin. Thoughts of Sheldon never caused the intense physical reactions that thoughts of Penny did.
What did it mean? Did she want to be Penny, so effortlessly beautiful and effortlessly social? But in her mind Penny was beautiful at a price, the price of intelligence. She supposed that Penny possessed average intelligence, but that level of cognitive ability would not be acceptable to her in herself. Was her own sharp intellect the reward for mousy brown hair and small dull eyes? Was it the reward for a crooked and long nose and thin lips and a long chin? Was it the reward for suffering in ignorance of almost every social situation? Was there a price for everything?
A price for everything. She didn't want to be Penny, not usually, but she wanted to be close to her because she felt something around her, she felt warm and happy. She felt a tingle if their arms brushed or if Penny brushed a stray hair from her forehead. She felt alive if she was suddenly pinned in Penny's blue/green stare. She felt like she was on a roller coaster, she felt her stomach drop, she felt the rush of wind against her cheeks.
She glanced at the clock and knew that Sheldon was on his way over here. She would be happy to see him, and she would feel comfortable talking to him about science and work and all things that were pure intellect. Sheldon didn't push her boundaries, he didn't bring her out to clubs and give her a fruity salty pink drink with an umbrella, and he didn't laugh as she sipped it and then smiled a dopey smile and said things that weren't so...smart. Penny did.
And how were they even "boyfriend and girlfriend"? Because a crazy written agreement said that they were? But there was more to life and relationships than paper contracts, she was beginning to see that. When she tried to hold his hand he tolerated it and snatched his hand away as soon as he could. When she tried to kiss him he pulled away. When he agreed to cuddle with her she could feel every stiff muscle beneath her, she felt his arms around her but just barely.
Maybe she wanted to throw herself into someone's arms. Maybe she wanted to be enveloped in someone else's essence. Maybe she wanted to be lost in the layers of emotion that she could almost sense beneath the surface of these so-called relationships.
She heard the knock at the door and she knew she would hear her name, and then twice more the repetition of that. She recognized Sheldon's OCD and high functioning autism and maybe she had a touch of that without the OCD quirks, without his absolute need for routine. But maybe she was just extremely intelligent and extremely shy and socially awkward, maybe she didn't need a label and a diagnosis quite as desperately as he did, or perhaps she did not fit the diagnostic criteria quite as neatly as he did.
She opened the door and gazed up at her boyfriend, his hair brushed neatly to the side, his jacket hanging loosely over a collar shirt, his version of dressing up.
"Hello, Sheldon," she said, opening the door and letting him in.
"Hello, Amy," he said, stepping inside but waiting near the door, watching calmly as she got her coat from the closet. She hoped their date would bring them to his apartment and Penny would be there, and she could sit near her and lean up against her and breath in the scent of her apple blossom shampoo.