Scratch the part about wishing I were here with my brother.
There’s barely six inches between our sleeping bags. We both lie down parallel to each other, staring up at the tree branches brushing against the mesh tent roof. It’s a beautiful summer night, if I’m being honest. The leaves on the trees are fluffy, the crickets buzz in the distance, and the temperature has dropped just enough that the sleeping bag is the perfect amount of warmth. If I look to my left, I’d be able to see Beck’s chest rising and falling as she breathes. I don’t need to think about what Beck’s shampoo smells like up close. What it would take to find out.
“Not to be obnoxiously straightforward, but you’re queer, right?” Beck asks.
The sound of her voice alone full-body startles me, but my heartbeat returns to normal way more quickly than usual. This kind of conversation would usually give me vertigo with how vulnerable I feel talking about it. The scripts are never easy to write in my head. But after going through a day of witch talk, cut fuel lines, and missing phones, this feels incredibly wieldy. Iknowthe answers to this.
“Yeah, bi.”
“You never formally announced it or anything, did you?” Hersleeping bag crinkles as she sits up. She faces me, using her forearm as a kickstand. I mirror her body language.
Ugh.“Nothing sounds worse than talking about who I’m attracted to in a public forum.”
“That’s fair. But you’d have to hard launch if you ever got a girlfriend, so it’d happen eventually.”
I laugh. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. I’ve resigned to maybe starting to date in college. Maybe after. Whenever I figure out people. “Sure.”
Beck gives a long, almost forlorn sigh, her eyeline falling away from me. “I think about that a lot. I’ve known I was gay since I was a little kid. The tomboy aesthetic and being obsessed with animated female villains can only mean so much, you know?”
Hearing Beck say that feels like the whole universe released a breath.
And then it’s like there was never a world before she said those words.
She snickers, looking at a hand she’s pulled out of the sleeping bag. “I was such a little perv, man. I love sports, I love running around and using my body and that high of winning with a bunch of people, but locker rooms were like my ultimate happy place. Ever since I was ten, eleven, twelve, I loved how comfortable everyone felt in their bodies. It wasn’t a big deal to see. I had a crush on every teammate I ever had before I got onto varsity. Man, girls are amazing.”
“Does anyone know?”
Beck shrugs. “I mean, I’m not hiding it. I don’t know who can see this haircut, my tats, and how I treat most guys in our grade and think I’m straight.”
Before Beck approached me at the Mystic Museum, I would’ve taken that comment at face value. There’s confident, cool Beck. Butnow, I hear the tremble of insecurity laced into the bravado. I finally see when she’s throwing me a line, begging me to pull her in. She’s upset anyone’s assumed she’s straight.
“Have you told anyone, though?” I ask. “Like, I still had to tell my parents and siblings and a couple cousins. I’ve told Paisley, Harlow, and Opal. People in GSA know.”
“I guess Lizzy and Quinn on the volleyball team know, but that’s more in a ‘we’ve hooked up’ kind of way.” She forms her lips into a line. “But yeah, I guess that’s it. Maybe I could tell my dad. I know he knows, so I doubt it’d be a big deal.” She pauses, pulling her knees up to her chest. With the sleeping bag still on her lower half, she looks like a mermaid. It’s endearing. “But man, how did you get over that feeling of, like, ‘ew my parents shouldn’t think about my sex life’?”
I push myself out of my sleeping bag, my body suddenly overheating. But I keep going. “I think it’s just realizing that queerness is so much more than sex, and they’re being weirdos for assuming it isn’t. We tell people because it’s a part of us as much as religion and skin color and worldview.” A laugh escapes my lips. “I honestly still find it hard admitting anything about myself. My special interests aren’t just sexual, but sometimes I’m afraid my parents see them as these over-intense, pervy crushes. I haven’t told them that I think I’m on the autism spectrum.”
Cold shoots down my spine. Did I really just use the wordsautism spectrumwith Beck?
I wince, waiting for the questions that the forums online prepared me for. So many people said that when they admitted to others they thought they were neurodiverse in some way, neurotypical people would say they were overreacting, that they were just awkward or passionate or quirky. And telling a peer is even scarier. At least adults have a filter most of the time. Will Beck—?
“Huh. I don’t know that much about autism, but if you say it makes sense, I believe ya.” Her response puts a lump in my throat. She doesn’t need me to justify myself? “What led you to that thought?”
This is the part where, if I were having a conversation with anyone else, I would’ve shut down. But Beck has thoroughly disarmed me. I’ve never gotten to explain this to anyone outside of autism forums online. Yet here’s Beck, someone cool and beautiful who seems interested in something deeper than just my special interests. She wants to know aboutme.
I can’t resist saying everything on my mind.
“It doesn’t feel as straightforward for me as it is for neurotypical people,” I say. “I’ve taken those quizzes and I always test in the lower percentile for it being probable. Honestly, I can’t shake the fear that one day I’ll retake the test and it’ll say I’m not. That every time I can’t read people’s emotions, when I feel awkward and not like my friends and siblings, when I get so obsessed with these actresses and these movies and TV shows—that I’m just weird. Weird and unknowable and not wanting to be known by anyone.”The kind of person who gets abandoned by her friends.
Beck puts her hand on mine, softness in her mouth. Not pity. “Can I just say, even if you had a neurotypical brain and just had some unusual interests, that wouldn’t mean there was anything wrong with you. In fact, I think it makes you more memorable and interesting.”
Tears burn in my eyes. “It’s not so fun being interesting when there are so few people who like you or want to be your friend. It’s so much easier for everyone else.”
“Maybe it seems like other people have more friends, but it doesn’t mean they really know one another,” Beck says. “You feel things so deeply. You love things and people in a way that’s special. Being aroundyou feels soreal. Not like—” She moves her hand away to scrape it down her face. “So, when we were at our championship game my junior year, the girls had a sleepover the night before. We were all excited, talking about team unity and sisterhood and whatever. We talked about crushes, played truth or dare, laughed until we cried. I was exhausted, so I fell asleep first. The next day, we all got ready for the game together, and we were in the locker room, and suddenly everyone started putting on pink socks. Every single member of my team except me had the pink socks. I had to go into that game realizing they all agreed on a tradition and didn’t bother telling me.” She looks right at me, her eyes a burning blue. “That’s what having a ton of friends looks like sometimes.”
Cool Beck, popular Beck, perfect Beck.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “Why did they do that? That was before everything even happened with Paisley.”
