Chapter 12 You Never Really Know Someone Until You Go Bowling Together
For someone who seems so intent on not revealing what tonight’s surprise activity is, Gigi sure is being the least subtle person in the world.
“I can’t tell you what we’re going to do yet, but let’s just say it’s fun to do in your spare time.
I think it will be right up your alley,” she says, heavily emphasizing the bowling puns in her sentences.
The twelve of us figured out what we were going to do before we even got on this bus, but we’ve silently agreed we cannot let Gigi know.
Still, that doesn’t make it easy to keep ourselves from laughing.
Even Sierra, who has a lot of experience hiding her smiles, is almost at her breaking point right now.
Luckily, we arrive at our destination only a minute later. We all get off the bus, looking at the building in front of us. According to the huge lit-up sign, it is indeed a bowling alley.
Gigi scans our faces expectantly. “So?” she asks.
“I haven’t gone bowling in ages,” I tell her, watching as her grin widens at the genuine enthusiasm in my voice. I might not be surprised, but that doesn’t mean I’m not excited.
“Yeah, this is going to be epic, Gigi,” Maya says, with which Sloane and Yasmeen immediately agree.
“I never in a million years would’ve guessed this is what we’d be doing tonight,” Sierra tries as well, but her voice comes out so monotone that I have to intervene.
I pinch her elbow, leaning in closer to whisper, “Please never try to lie again. Your acting is horrible.”
“Wow, thanks for making me feel so incredibly appreciated, Eleanore,” she whispers right back, her voice possibly becoming even flatter.
I laugh, putting my arm around her instinctively and dragging her into the building with me.
There, an employee quickly leads all of us to one big table as well as three separate bowling lanes since, as she explains, we can’t play with thirteen people at once.
I end up having to play against Sierra, Maya, and Yasmeen, while Liam, Noah, Sloane, and Veronica take the lane next to us.
Gigi joins the other four in the last lane.
It takes me a few turns to really get into the bowling thing, but after a couple of wasted throws, I manage to actually hit some of the pins. At least occasionally.
Yeah, no, I’m definitely losing this game.
But that doesn’t really matter because, in between turns, we all sit at the big table and drink and chat and laugh. There are almost always three to five completely different conversations happening at the same time, but it’s a good kind of chaos.
Even though some of the stuff that’s being said is, well, weird as hell.
“I’m just saying, there’s something very sexy about him!” Maya exclaims a little too loudly. Several heads turn our way, but it’s Yasmeen whose eyes are widest.
“Maya, he’s a cartoon.”
“An incredibly attractive one!” Maya defends themself. “You just don’t get the special bond between a lesbian and a fictional man.”
“Yeah, I really don’t,” Yasmeen confirms, still giving them a side-eye.
“Wait,” I say. “I’ve been wondering about how that works. Like, I always thought lesbians don’t feel attracted to any kind of man?” I repeat the words I just said in my head before quickly adding, “You don’t have to explain anything to me, of course! I guess I’m just…curious.”
“You’re totally fine,” Maya assures me. “I love rambling about stuff like this. So,” they start, “a lot of lesbians struggle to accept or realize that they are not attracted to men, since society wants us to believe we’re straight.
Eventually the belief that being heterosexual is natural gets so deeply rooted in our thinking that our brains will try to convince us we are, in fact, attracted to men.
Because we think we are supposed to be centering men in our lives.
“Being attracted to fictional men is a way for us to tell ourselves we can’t be lesbians because we like them, right?
But they’re unattainable crushes, fake feelings we can never actually pursue.
This can also include celebrities and people who you think will never like you back in a romantic way.
Hell, a lesbian can even date a guy and convince themself it’s love when it really isn’t—not in that way, at least.”
Maya takes a deep breath. “So basically, even this raging lesbian”—they point at themself—“used to trick themself into thinking they got butterflies because of men. I still joke about having crushes on fictional men sometimes, actually, but no matter what, that could never truly be attraction or romantic love for me. I can make it seem like it, sure, but in the end it’s simply a trick of my brain.
Not to give you a whole class on my personal view of lesbianism, though,” they finish with a laugh.
I blink at them. “Oh wow” are the sounds that leave my mouth eventually.
“I didn’t know about any of that. Being a lesbian sounds…
hard.” They laugh, but then I can’t help but ask, “So do you actually get butterflies now? Like, around Yasmeen? Because I always thought that was one of those unrealistic romance tropes.”
Maya smiles at me, all soft as they search for Yasmeen’s hand. “When you’re really in love with someone, you’ll know exactly why people describe it as falling.”
I go silent as I think about my relationship with Daniel.
I don’t know what I felt around him, but it sure wasn’t anything like what Maya is describing.
A part of me is still trying to convince myself it’s just because it wasn’t love yet, because I didn’t allow myself to fall for him, but another, deeper part of me wonders if I’m just lying to myself.
If I could ever like him at all, even just as a person.
But I don’t have a choice, right?
I’m still trying to answer that question when Yasmeen manages to throw a strike. Once again.
“Bitch!” Maya gasps as their girlfriend returns to the table, quite the contrast to their softness from only moments ago. “Is there anything you’re not good at?”
“Plenty of stuff,” Yasmeen says, sitting back down and putting her arm around them. “For example, I can never seem to get you to shut up.”
Maya escapes from the hug and swats Yasmeen’s arm while Sierra and I laugh, but I bet Maya is hiding a smile of their own. “You’re so rude. Now I have to beat you,” they say simply, after which it’s their turn and they manage to not hit a single bowling pin.
Of course, we all howl with laughter, earning us an eye roll from them as well as, after being stubborn for a few more seconds, a loud laugh.
We talk and talk and talk, jumping from one topic of conversation to another, until we eventually somehow end up deciding to tell each other fun facts about ourselves.
“A fun fact about me,” Sloane starts, looking around the table slowly, “is that I’m basically bi-cubed.” Before any of us form the words to ask what that even means, she exclaims proudly, “I’m bisexual, bipolar, and a bitch!”
It takes a few more seconds before the joke actually lands with me, but once it does, laughter bubbles up in my belly again. “You’re, like, the least bitchy person I’ve ever met,” I tell her.
“Oh, just you wait.” Sloane grins. “Now, why don’t you tell us a fun fact about yourself, Ellie?”
I take a deep breath. Immediately I know what I’m going to say. “My fun fact is that, for three whole years, I strictly followed a list of seven rules…”
One moment, the conversation is still lighthearted, but when I start to actually recite the rules to explain how ridiculous they are, the smiles slowly fall from everyone’s faces.
“Oh, Ellie…” Sloane says, taking my hand in hers. “I am so sorry people made you feel like you needed to do that.”
I blink my emotions away, and then, suddenly, a little laugh escapes me. “It’s okay! Genuine question, though: How did we even get here? We were laughing just moments ago!”
My brother, who sat down while I was explaining my rules, sees right through my bullshit, of course.
“Don’t change the subject now,” he says, giving me a serious look.
“I’ve told you this before, but, honestly, I’ll keep saying it until you believe it: You are not too much, and people need to stop expecting you to change and instead learn to adjust themselves sometimes, too.
It’s like…humans should be treated like the sun, in a way,” he tells us all.
I frown. “Um, yeah, you’re going to have to elaborate there.”
“When the sun is shining, nobody tells it to shine less brightly, right? We just squint our eyes and adjust. That’s what people should do with others more, too.”
It’s silent for a good second as I process his metaphor, but then Veronica asks, “I get what you’re trying to say, but what if it’s a really hot day?”
“Yeah!” Maya continues, clearly just teasing Noah. “And what about climate change, Mr. Young?”
“Simply being a human doesn’t cause climate—actually,” he interrupts himself, “I’m not finishing that sentence.
But you all know that’s beside the point I’m trying to make.
” He looks at me again. “Nobody has the right to make you feel like you have to become smaller. You have as much right to take up space as everyone else.”
I’ve always known Noah thinks of it like that, but even after the countless TED Talks he’s given me, his words have never really come through. At least, not until right now.
For the first time, I don’t look at how I’ve been treated as a given thing, something that just happens to autistic people. I see it for what it really is: unfair.
Cruel.
Something I am allowed to be mad about.
Pressure builds behind my eyes, like water wanting to break through a dam, and for a moment I think that this is it. This is the day I will finally cry again, but then I blink once and it’s gone.
The sadness and newfound anger, however, linger.