Chapter Nine Carys #2
Lina smiles. ‘Maybe not, but I’m not being cynical. Just realistic. People come into our lives for all sorts of reasons, some of them make a home in it with you. That’s the beauty of life, sharing it with someone.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ I say, assuming it must be.
I try to stop fiddling with my dress, but that turns into pressing my nails into my skin instead. My body feels alive with confusion.
It’s a very weird feeling, the sudden understanding of how other people are just out there living their lives without analysing every moment.
Most people don’t understand what masking is, and when they do they presume it’s literal – a mask you wear. And it kind of is, in a way.
What they often don’t understand, in my experience, is that mask has been built from countless hours of research.
Not just trial and error and making notes then adjusting, but literal research: pouring through magazines, books, television shows, interviews.
Seeing how people talk about themselves or understand the world.
I can’t tell you how many memoirs I’ve read.
I’ve been learning, gleaning, assessing what information I should take with me and incorporate into the palatable version of Carys I present to the world, whether it be a turn of phrase to add to my small talk script, or a way of sitting that seems elegant.
The worst part is that you worry talking to people who don’t get it might think it’s manipulation, or that it is manipulation, so you don’t talk about it. But you don’t know how else to be, either.
No one gave me the handbook on how to be a person. All I have is the one I cobbled together myself.
And Lina has shone a very bright light on a set of rules and expectations I thought were canon to all people. Born this way, straight or gay, you know from birth or you don’t, and it’s all serious.
I miss what she says at first because I’m so deep in this thought spiral, but I catch it when she repeats, ‘Is there a reason you asked me?’
In truth, I don’t know. And I don’t know why she’s asking me. But then, why was I so curious?
‘No!’ I say, far too loudly. ‘No, it’s not that. I just… I’m trying to learn more about LGBTQ+ people! I guess this was one of those “born this way” kind of moments for you that people always talk about?’
‘Maybe for me, but that’s not true of everyone. Not everyone is certain of their own attraction to each gender from birth, same as not everyone is certain of their gender.’
‘They’re not?’ I whisper.
‘Well, no. That’s how Sasha came out later.’
I shake my head. ‘Not gender, I was thinking of attraction. Sexuality.’
‘Oh no, not everyone knows,’ she says, so relaxed that she starts doing stretches. I feel so stiff that I should probably have a go too but I can’t move because a bombshell is being dropped on me extremely slowly. ‘You have to consider compulsory heterosexuality.’
‘What’s that?’
Lina gestures around us. ‘The idea that heterosexuality is the only option, or the best option, or the right option. Depends what you’ve grown up under.
It makes realising you have attraction for women as a woman much harder because you’ve just been told your whole life that men are the only option.
Unless you’ve fancied girls and known what it was or had an incredibly close childhood friendship with another girl and understood what that meant, it’s hard for women to identify that as attraction, not admiration. ’
‘How would you even tell the attraction from a friendship?’ I manage to gasp out.
‘With a woman?’ She asks this with a bit of surprise. ‘All the same crush feelings, probably with a side of guilt for worrying I was objectifying her or assuming she was into me.’ Lina laughs, and it’s not unkind, but it’s spinning me out.
I want to be sick and I don’t know why. Sweat pools in every crevice and I feel my face flushing hot. ‘Okay, thank you, Lina!’ I say, getting to my feet.
‘Are you alright?’
‘Yes, I just… need the toilet!’
Not totally wrong. I crash into our ensuite, thankful that Dolly is out on a date right now and doesn’t have to hear me throw up. Autism, for me, means that instead of identifying the feeling, my body just evacuates itself. I think I’m like a sea cucumber, ejecting my innards at any sign of danger.
I can’t help it, but I’m replaying memories of high school. Year eight, that sudden friendship with Marina that felt intense and special and like nothing else I’d ever felt before. We would tell each other everything, share a bed, walk around holding hands. Just like all the other girls.
Except… it wasn’t. I wasn’t like all the other girls, I knew that.
It probably didn’t help when someone asked if we were dating, and Marina scrunched up her perfect little ski slope nose and proclaimed loudly that she was ‘not a fucking lesbo’.
But, to me, it always felt different from any of the other friendships I’d had, and perhaps that’s why, when Marina decided that she didn’t want to be friends with someone quite so intense, it hurt so much.
Mike quickly came along and filled the hole in my heart, mostly.
For so long I’d chalked up that disaster to just autism, tragic as that sounds, but now I’m wondering if perhaps it was more all along.
After whatever that was burned up in flames, I told myself I’d never let myself get confused about a girl again. I liked boys, that was evident. I’d just got confused, overenthusiastic perhaps. Maybe watched too much Orange Is the New Black.
What if I was wrong? What if I’ve spent my life trying not to admit to myself something I’ve suspected for so long?
I think hearing someone say it so casually, like it’s not the end of the world, is just so terrifying.
Because all this time I’ve thought it was the worst thing, a terrible mistake I had to hide, else people might not like me the same, and yet Lina just said it out loud with ease.
The rules I’ve been living by might not exist and that is petrifying.
Have I been locking myself away for no reason?
And is this the reason I can’t stop wanting to talk to Dolly? Why I want to impress her, or make her laugh? Why I can’t stop thinking about the moment the Goddess stepped out into traffic…
When you mask this hard, you get used to telling yourself sweet little lies.
No, it’s not that bad. You will get over it.
It doesn’t hurt. Stop overreacting. It all adds up to a habit of lying to yourself, and just because I’m aware I’m doing it, doesn’t mean I can necessarily stop.
Sometimes it means I can’t quite follow my own train of thought.
Is the reason I’ve been thinking that Dolly would be perfect for me if she wasn’t a woman because I like her? Her caring, kind nature. Her wit. I feel like we connect in so many areas, which makes us a great friendship, even if she is neurotypical.
Fuck.
So I’ve been objectifying her in my own head, and sharing a room with her… I bet she’s felt uncomfortable this whole time. But she’s friends with lesbians. She must be used to that? God, I’m making excuses.
But then, sometimes I catch her looking at me, like she’s reading something on my skin. Could that—
‘Carys?’ Reb calls through the door. ‘Are you alright? Lina came to get me.’
Bless sweet Lina.
‘Um, no,’ I call back. ‘I’ve been sick a few times.’
That’s a bit of a lie. It was just once, and entirely bright yellow stomach lining because I’ve not eaten anything for hours (likely part of the problem).
‘Okay, honey, do you want me to call a doctor?’
I’m not sure any GP can help me with this particular existential crisis.
‘No, I just think I need to sleep it off.’
I close the lid and flush the toilet, and manage to open the door without getting up.
‘Oh, you do look bad,’ Reb says, which is not actually comforting.
‘Can I get out of filming this evening?’ I croak, admittedly hamming it up a little.
I can’t help but notice Reb’s nervous look, the way she glances down at her phone for confirmation. ‘Erm. I can ask.’
‘I think we should send her to bed,’ calls Dolly’s disembodied voice, and urgh, she’s the last and somehow the only person I want to see me right now.
‘She might be contagious, and you don’t want your entire cast of women going down with the shits and voms. Let the girl go to bed, and the rest of us can make sure we’re filling any gaps on content today. ’
She’s been looking after me so well this whole time, but I don’t want her to see me covered in vomit. Not right now. I bum-shuffle backwards so that I’m more hidden behind the door, pretending to fiddle with the toilet paper while Reb taps away at her phone.
‘Okay,’ Reb says wearily. ‘You’re cleared for tonight. Dolly, are you fine to still share the room if she’s sick?’
‘It’s not a problem at all. Then someone’s keeping an eye on her too.’ The last thing I want to think about, when I have my head in the toilet, is the possibility of Dolly watching me.
‘Do you need a hand getting into bed?’ Reb asks, and I get the sense she might collapse if she tries.
‘No, I’m just going to stay down here a little longer until it’s definitely stopped.’
Reb passes me a bottle of water. I take it and sip slowly, the cold liquid a balm to my hot insides.
‘Okay, we’ll leave you be. Everyone out,’ Reb calls, as she pulls the door behind her.
It’s only when I lean my head down on the toilet seat, pressing the cold bottle to my wrists, that I hear Dolly call through the door. ‘I really hope you feel more yourself later.’
If only she understood the irony of what she’d just said.