I was isolated but not ostracized, ignored but not abused.

I got lost in him, and it was the kind of lost that's exactly like being found.

But I know how this romantic stuff works: one girl's perfect guy is another girl's reject. And right now I'm glad of it.

He was wearing a plain white oxford unbuttoned over a T-shirt, but something about the way they fit made him look put together, like an Abercrombie model (well, like an Abercrombie model who had remembered to put on a shirt that morning).

I was isolated but not ostracized, ignored but not abused.

Don't think that there's a different, better child 'hiding' behind the autism. This is your child. Love the child in front of you. Encourage his strengths, celebrate his quirks, and improve his weaknesses, the way you would with any child.

No one's family is normal. Normalcy is a lie invented by advertising agencies to make the rest of us feel inferior.