Sixteen #2
Before Beck approached me at the Mystic Museum, I would’ve taken that comment at face value.
There’s confident, cool Beck. But now, 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 words autism spectrum with 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 about me.
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 around you feels so real. 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.”
“Probably because that was right after I punched Brendon in the school parking lot for being a misogynist asshole.”
“Did they know that about him?”
Beck raises her eyebrows. “They don’t care. All they care about is that I did something too ‘out there.’ Not ladylike, as my mom would say.”
I shake my head. “What you did was incredibly brave.” She opens her mouth, but I put my hand on her hand this time to silence her. “No. It was brave and a little wild.” I swallow. “I wish I could be that wild.”
Beck chuckles. “I wish I could be as authentic as you. Being around you makes my breath slow down. You’re just so…
gentle.” She brushes her fingertips against my knuckles.
“You’re even-keeled. We can have real conversations and I’m not worried you’ll weaponize what I say if I don’t say it exactly right.
You’re not a narcissist and you weren’t raised by them and it just shows.
” I laugh, blushing. “I love seeing the shine in your eyes when you talk about these topics I’d never think to look into.
You make me want to talk about random movies and my pets and just stuff that my family and the rich girls on the volleyball team would call me childish for talking about.
” Beck settles her hand on my thigh. “Bottom line is most people suck and I’d pick you over a hundred volleyball girls. ”
Beck keeps looking at me, her fingertips hot on my leg. Her gaze flickers lower than my eyes, flooding me in warmth and kickstarting my heart.
But then Beck drops down onto her sleeping bag, her hands returning to herself. The warmth inside me drains. “You’re cool, Emma Tedesco.”
Which makes more sense. Beck might be serious about liking me as a friend, but I can’t get delusional now. She dates athletes. She dates neurotypical people. Still, maybe it’d be okay to be a little silly with her.
I scoot back into my own sleeping bag. “Amazed you know my last name.”
She smiles. “We go to the same twenty-person school.”
“You’re cool, too, Beck,” I say.
It might just be the lighting in the tent, but I swear she blushes. “Also, just so you know, I am already so cold and cannot guarantee that I won’t try to sleepwalk into your sleeping bag.”
I laugh. “If you’re cold, we can zip our sleeping bags together.”
Beck’s eyes widen. “You can do that?”
“Yeah. These two are compatible.”
Before this conversation, I never would’ve had the confidence to do this. But Beck is totally into it, egging me on. Within a minute, I’ve made Beck and myself a sleeping bag nest like Owen and I made when we were little kids.
Beck rubs her hands together as we settle into the combined sleeping bag. “Is it supposed to be this cold?”
She scoots in closer to me.
“Yeah,” I reply. “It’s always cold at night in the mountains, even in the summer.”
I scoot in closer to her. We’re so close I can see the individual hairs on her eyebrows.
I turn my back to her. I can’t handle anything else right now. Not when every movement of her fingertips and body gives me too much hope.
“Alrighty then,” Beck says. “This is about as cold as I can handle.”
We fall asleep with our backs pressed together, the weight of our words still hovering in the air.