Where Should I go?

Bella was glad Kylie wasn’t home when she arrived, tearfully unloading all the alcohol and organizing it into a nice display to try and show that she could be a good co-host. Bella had spent a lot of the week cleaning the house for the party, even telling Kylie each time she saw her cleaning that she wanted the place looking nice for the party. She’d hoped it would invite Kylie to talk about the party with her, but apparently her roommate had deliberately been avoiding the conversation.

With the bottles displayed, Bella numbly shuffled into her room, stripping naked and falling into her bed. Bella didn’t drink or do drugs, but she wasn’t viceless. Pornography was as close as Bella got to human intimacy and so engaged with it often. Things made a lot more sense in porn, the logic was simpler. Often motivations were commonly shared or at least obvious. Arousal was an easy justification for behavior in pornography. People could do anything in porn and it would at least make sense because arousal was the driving force.

She was a lesbian and had never felt reason to feel shame for it. She wasn’t ever bullied or pressured due to her sexuality. In fact, her sexuality was often the only thing she could find community in, granting her an easy in with other lesbians. Often she would nod along or make up her own stories of homophobia just to fit in. The truth was, people preferred ignoring her to bullying her.

Consequently, porn was the only way she ever got to really explore her sexuality. She’d never had a girlfriend or even kissed another girl. But her porn never told her to shut up, or that she was annoying or clingy. In fact her porn encouraged her to stay. To keep giving her attention and focus. And it numbed her out. Made her feel less alone and awkward. Her porn told her exactly what it wanted from her without implications or veils: keep watching, and keep rubbing.

“Good girl.” One caption read above a gif of a woman furiously masturbating in a living room occupied by other people. Her porn told her what kind of woman she needed to be for validation: a goonette. But eventually she would cum and slump in her bed, feeling its emptiness and remember how hollow it all was. She wished life could be so simple. So validating. So sexy.

Why did she have to be so socially inept? Why couldn’t she just be normal? Or at least, why couldn’t life be like her porn?

There was a knock on her door and Bella’s heart sunk even lower. “Can we talk about tonight?” Kylie asked. Bella wiped her eyes with her t-shirt and forced on a neutral expression as she opened her door.

Kylie was everything Bella wanted to be. Pretty, self assured, social. Bella had hoped when they moved in together that some of that would rub off, but it hadn’t. Bella was still plain, self conscious, and awkward.

“Hey.” Kylie flashed her always polite smile. The one she always put on when she needed to talk to Bella—a task she did only out of necessity. “You didn’t text back, so I just wanted to clear the air.”

“Oh, no, really, it’s nothing.” Bella faked a chuckle. “I just assumed. But yes, it’s uh, your party.”

Kylie flashed her eyes. “No, it’s ok if you want to come, obviously!” Kylie always spoke to Bella slowly and cheerfully as if she were a kid. “I just didn’t think you’d want to since you’re not a big groups kind of person and it’s all my friends from school for spring break…”

“Right, I just thought I could meet people from… not work.” Bella looked down at the floor before realizing what it looked like she was doing. “That’s not a guilt trip. I just…” She buried her face in her palms, very suddenly feeling overwhelmed. Kylie always made her feel even more socially incapable. “Look, can I just get the quiet part out loud, please? You’ve been ignoring me all week whenever I tried to bring this up.”

“I’ve not been—“ Kylie scoffed in disbelief before stopping herself and thinking for a moment. She wasn’t going to deny it and Bella actually felt better that way. Everything made sense if ignoring her was deliberate. “Ok. I’m sorry. I’ve been really stressed with school and work and just thinking about how to talk about this with you just felt… I don’t know how to talk to you.”

Bella nodded, hurt that Kylie didn’t just say that at any point in the past three months of living together. They could have figured something out. Because apparently just saying what you meant how you meant it was a foreign language. “Just be direct?” Bella shrugged, a frustrated tear rolling down her cheek, which only made her more frustrated. “These aren’t… look, just ignore the crying, ok? It’s not a you thing.”

Kylie seemed put off by this, clearly struggling to find words to say to diffuse the situation instead of just saying what she wanted to say. “Just, would you rather I help host or call my friend and cancel.”

Kylie’s eyes widened. “Help host.” She blurted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you invited someone.”

“Yeah, my friend, Emma. From work.”

“And she’s actually coming?” Kylie asked, before suddenly becoming aware of herself. “Didn’t mean it like... Ok, I failed to communicate, and I’m sorry. Obviously, at this point, it’s your party, too. Would you like to help me decorate, co-host?”

Bella didn’t mention that Emma was almost certainly not coming to the party. Nor that she would probably not classify herself as a friend to Bella. For the first time since knowing each other, Bella didn’t feel the usual tension she did in Kylie’s presence.

It was a little awkward at first, mostly on Kylie’s end. She would tell Bella to do something and try to explain or add politeness to it. But eventually she noticed Bella was complying without complain before Kylie began her explanation, finishing the task before Kylie finished her sentence.

“Could you lift that side a bit higher so that— uh, yeah. Now they’re even.” Soon Kylie experimented with just stating what she needed, fighting her urge to add some sensitivity. It was clear to Bella that Kylie had a certain image of autism in her head. Not a particularly malicious one, but one born out of an experience with a poorly regulated family member or classmate.

Soon Kylie was talking to Bella in the same way Bella talked to her. “I need this.” “I’d prefer that.” “That way’s not wrong, but let’s do it my way.” It was clear Kylie kept waiting for some meltdown or for the tears to start again. Even correcting something Bella was doing seemed to be uncomfortable to her at first. Yet, slowly, she started to ease.

Bella liked helping with things. It felt like a video game, where you did nice things for someone and it would mechanically improve your relationship with them. She new real life was more complicated, but still, she figured people still liked gifts or help. If she couldn’t be pretty or funny, she could at least be liked for being helpful.

“Hey, I kinda like working with some music. Would you mind if I put some on?” Kylie asked, tossing a few bags of balloons onto the dining table along with some hand pumps.

“Sure. I’ll tell you if it’s too loud.” Kylie opened her mouth, but then just smiled. Bella knitted her brow. “What I just said was rude.” She intuited. She normally kept such statements internal, but decided to externalize it. She wanted to understand. Nobody ever helped her understand.they didn’t think she could.

Kylie thought for a second, smiling. “I guess it’s not.” She grew more thoughtful. “Idunno. It just seems like an unnecessary clarification. Like, yeah, that’s what you do when something’s too loud.”

Bella grew thoughtful. “I thought it was obvious, too.”

“Everything’s obvious to you, isn’t it?” Kylie didn’t say it sarcastically. More like she was recontextualizing a lot of stuff.

“I guess.” Bella shrugged, beginning to pump a balloon. “Not everything. But I think things are one way and then they’re not. And I’m ok with things being one way or another way. I just hate when it isn’t clear it’s the other way until after I did it the one way.” She paused. “That didn’t make sense.”

Kylie shook her head. “I think I get it…” The two sat quietly inflating balloons and listening to Kylie’s pop music. Bella was comfortable with the silence but was afraid that Kylie wasn’t. She always heard Kylie talking to her friend nonstop when they were over. Was the silence between them an indication that Bella was wrong to assume they were developing a friendship?

“H-hey, what superpower would you choose to have if you could?”

Kylie adopted a quick smirk. “Flight, I guess.” She looked up. “Can I ask you a question that I swear is just curiosity and not judgement?”

“Please!”

“What is it with you and those hypotheticals?”

“Can I give you an answer that I swear isn’t a pity party?” Bella waited for Kylie’s nod, though did see her face get a bit more serious. “They’re the only things that sometimes work when I try to start a conversation with someone.”

They fell back into silence for a moment. Bella afraid that she’d fucked up, but decided to keep inflating her pile of balloons and wait for Kylie’s reaction. “Lay another one on me. A Bella original.”

Bella couldn’t help but smile. Hypotheticals didn’t take long for her to formulate at all. Her problem was usually not blurting them out from the hip. So it was only a few seconds before she had crafted one she thought would be interesting.

Kylie complained about men constantly. But she also complained about their absence. Thrashing her exes or men generally, then also discussing crushes or plans for dates. “Would you rather this party only be attended by male guests or female guests.”

“Female, because this was originally a girl’s night until we decided to make things bigger to celebrate spring break.” Kylie tied off a balloon and then reached for her phone, beginning to type. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She scoffed.

“Doing what?” Bella asked, looking up to see Kylie typing with furious speed and an increasingly annoyed and confused face.

“Uninviting all the men.”

“What? Why?” Bella felt concerned. Was she making fun of her? Was it supposed to be a shared joke?

“Because I would rather it just be the girls, tonight.” Kylie snapped.

Bella sat in stunned silence for a moment, studying Kylie until she clicked a send button and slammed her phone down on the table. She was angry, but also seemed confused.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I don’t know why the fuck I just did that.”

Bella didn’t know how to respond. The solution was obvious, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? “Just say you were kidding.”

“But I’m not.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I would rather it just be the girls.”

Bella didn’t understand. Where was this coming from? “Wouldn’t you rather it be a big party than a small one?”

“Yeah, I would.” She picked up her phone again, beginning to type out a new message before suddenly pausing. “Fuck, ok, I need to make some calls and a few posts.” She stood up, looking overwhelmed as Bella often got. “Can you finish up with these? I’m going to get us some help to prepare.”

Kylie stomped off without another word, lifting her phone to her ear. Bella could feel her mind spiraling, wondering how what she said could have caused her reaction. Calm down, Bella. She knows she can just tell you that you went too far, now. So instead of chasing, Bella doubled her efforts on the balloons to show she was still committed to reducing the stress her roommate was feeling.

It was probably a joke, anyway. There was no way Kylie was uninviting half her party four hours before it started and then inviting a whole bunch of new people. Especially not because of one of Bella’s silly hypotheticals.

Thirty minutes later, with all the balloons inflated, she realized she didn’t know what was next. A knock on the front door drew her out of her seat and answering it revealed Kylie’s three best friends: Rachel, Alyssa, and Jenna. The three girls were common visitors at their house, though Jenna was the only one who usually made an effort to talk to Bella. The others weren’t rude, they just didn’t make it a point to bring Bella into the fold.

Each of them carried a few bags and a change of outfits. “Hey, Bella.” Alyssa, the tallest and stockiest of them flashed a quick smile. “Kylie asked us to come help set up.”

Bella opened the door and stepped aside, granting them entry. “I thought she was kidding.” Bella knitted her brow.

“Lot of that going around.” Rachel rolled her eyes as she draped a sparkly red dress across the back of a chair. She then turned to face Bella with a concerned look. Her voice was quiet and conspiratorial. “Is she ok?”

Bella only shrugged and nodded. “I think so? We were just talking about the party and I asked what she’d prefer and then she got… I don’t want to ramble, you know her better than me and should probably talk to her.” Bella stopped her run on sentence. She always had a tendency to just start describing her story in detail with no real direction of the important elements, making it boring for the listener and functionally useless in parsing out relevant info. Rachel was usually the quickest to grow frustrated with Bella.

“Ok,” Rachel nodded, lowering some kind of defense she’d apparently had up, eyeing Bella warily. Not suspicious, but surprised. “Thanks. I’ll go talk to her while you girls start setting up?” Jenna and Alyssa flashed a thumbs up and Rachel disappeared down the hall.

“Hey Bella, mind helping me with the chairs?” Jenna asked, giving a smile and disarmingly gesturing to the driveway. Bella nodded, returning the smile and walking out. A chance to be helpful!

Jenna was really pretty. Auburn hair falling in waves down past her shoulders, skin so smooth it looked almost like wax, and milky brown eyes. She was always nice to Bella and even though Bella knew she wasn’t romantically interested in her, she kept romanticizing their interactions ever since she found out Jenna was Bi.

“I have one for you!” Jenna beamed, opening the trunk of her car where a bounty of mismatched folding chairs resided. “Would you rather have your tongue made so that all liquid tastes like hot dog water or have all music be turned into country music?”

Bella yanked a few chairs from the trunk and paused, giving Jenna’s question serious thought. Hot dog water was gross, obviously. She couldn’t imagine showering in water that tasted like pork. Or, even worse, if all liquids with water as an ingredient would be tainted by the taste of wieners. A hotdog coca-cola sent shivers down her spine.

On the other hand, though, music was everywhere. Sure, Bella didn’t mind country music, but film scores? House music? She couldn’t imagine the horror of playing something like Dark Souls only to hear a threatening thrum of a banjo instead of an orchestra. Not to mention the economic and cultural implications. If all music was country music, then it not only erases entire cultural heritage, it replaces parts of people’s identity.

“Hot dog water.” Bella answered definitively.

“Really?” Jenna laughed, leading Bella with her own armfuls of chairs back into the house. “You hate country music that much?”

Bella smiled. She liked talking to Jenna. Even though she was decidedly Kylie’s friend instead, Jenna still went out of her way to talk to Bella one on one at least once whenever she visited. And seemed content to indulge in Bella’s favorite topic: absurd hypotheticals.

“I mean, not really. But I don’t want to erase, like, idunno, Indian music and just replace it. Feels more selfless to just suffer through the hotdog water than to replace something so important and distinct with one monoculture.”

Jenna stepped inside and leaned her chairs against the wall alongside Bella’s. Both of them began on a second trip for the last set of chairs. “I hadn’t even thought of that! My answer was the same but simply because I hate country music that much.”

“Yeah?”

“Girl, truck, beer/support the troops, fuck the queers.” Jenna made up a mocking little song she sang with exaggerated twang.

“Fucking queers is something I could get behind.” Bella’s eyes suddenly flashed wide, realizing that she’d just said such a joke out loud. In front of Jenna! Panicked, she turned around to see Jenna snickering. “I’m gay! I swear, I’m not…”

“Relax.” Jenna shook her head, giggling. “It was funny.” This statement made Bella blush. If Jenna wasn’t just being polite, then Bella had made a funny joke. She made the other gay girl laugh! That was flirting, right? They brought the last chairs inside and got to work setting them up, finding Alyssa in the kitchen unwrapping a package of disposable red cups. “You were always better at them than me. Why don’t you hit us with one?”

Alyssa shot Jenna an annoyed look, which she returned with an eye roll. Alyssa shook her head. “I’m not in the mood for those stupid little games. I thought I was getting laid, tonight and now I don’t even want to come to this stupid party. I’m sure you’re thrilled, though. Kylie’s been pressing hard trying to get as many college girls here as possible. Gonna be a target rich environment for you.”

“Come on, you always complain about men at parties.”

“Yeah, but she does this the one night I actually want attention?”

Bella felt like a child watching two adults bickering. It was like she’d just suddenly been ejected from the conversation she’d been a part of. After a minute of nodding along and awkwardly smiling, she realized that there wasn’t a place for her in it and that Jenna was not, in fact, trying to steer it back to Bella’s hypothetical.

Bella went back to fussing with bags of chips, silently moving between the two girls to grab bowls to pour the snacks into and then taking them to the living room. “Just grow up.” Jenna said, low. “Kylie might be going through something right now. There’ll be other parties.”

Bella heard a can crack open and Alyssa give a sigh. “Bella?” Jenna called out, peeking out into the front room. “Where’d ya go? Ready for a hypothetical, now.” She gave her normal overly enthused smile she only gave to Bella to clearly communicate enthusiasm. Alyssa followed, leaning against the wall and sipping a White Claw.

“Make it dirty.”

“Alyssa!”

“What? We’re not kids. I’m a bit pent up, make it dirty since my mind’s already in the gutter or I’m not playing.”

Jenna looked back at Bella apologetically, leaning over the pool table by the front window. “You don’t have to do that.” She assured her, encouraging Bella to ignore Alyssa. But neither of them knew that dirty questions were Bella’s favorite kind.

Bella bit her lip thoughtfully and after a moment summoned a question. “Alright, Alyssa. Would you rather resolve your tension with bad sex tonight at some man’s house, or the best sex of your life tonight at the party but with another girl.”

“I’ll try the best of anything once.” Alyssa sipped her drink. Her eyes looked quizzically at Jenna. “One to ten, how good can lesbian sex be?”

Jenna shrugged and smiled. “I’m a fan.”

“Cuz normal sex can be pretty damn good.”

“Normal?”

“Oh, shut up, you know what I mean. Bella, do I get to pick the girl?”

Bella shook her head, visualizing everything. “I guess would you rather pick someone you know or have a stranger seduce you?”

“Stranger, definitely. Wouldn’t want to make things awkward with anyone. No offense, Jenna.”

“You’re not my type.” Jenna rolled her eyes. “I’ll take a dirty one, too. If you’re comfortable dealing them. No pressure.”

Bella took a second to think. She didn’t want to reveal how much of a pervert she was to Jenna. But every scenario she crafted had her fighting her thighs just thinking if Jenna locked into a perpetually arousing existence. Bella knew that she had no shot with her. But something inside her still wanted to impress Jenna.

Jenna usually liked mean hypotheticals. Forcing someone to choose between two bad options rather than two rewards. “Would you rather have all your sneezes replaced with loud, insuppressible pleasure moans, or replace your coughs with actual involuntary orgasms?”

“Oh, definitely the sneezing. I’d choke to death creaming my brains out if I get food lodged in my throat or something.”