One of The Boys

“When are you heading home?”

“Around eight. My mom wasn’t too happy when I came home at midnight last week,” Coco replied.

“I guess there’s no way they’d let you stay overnight, then.”

“Yeah.”

Today, Coco sported a farmgirl look with her messy bun, and a pair of overalls over her T-shirt. If she was wearing any makeup, it sure was subtle.

The two of us were driving her parents’ polished sedan towards our city’s closest national park. Even though Coco wasn’t allowed to sleep over at the campground, she wanted to hang out with us as much as possible during the day.

I, on the other hand, chose to ride with her in the late afternoon so I could sleep in. My morning was unusually refreshing, as my body compensated for all the weekends I woke up early for our roadtrips.

Now who was this pair of amateur day campers riding on the highway, preparing to talk about their feelings through an intense session of car therapy?

You got it—it was me and my homegirl.

“Is it FOMO?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Fear of missing out. Is that the reason you’re coming today? Even though you can’t stay for the entire time, and it’s a two-hour round trip.”

“…I guess so.”

“…”

“What about you? Everyone’s celebrating the end of finals right now. Aren’t you missing out on your own friends by hanging out with these guys?”

“I don’t have many either.”

“Ah.”

Motion-blurred scenery flew past my transparent reflection in the window. As I was pondering how to push the topic, a few fenced-in animals caught my eye.

“Oh hey, there’s cows.”

My seatbelt struggled to keep me to my seat as Coco proceeded to slam on the brakes.
“Where?!”

“Chill… they’re just cows.”

She took out her phone and started taking pictures.

“Isn’t this distracted driving?” I asked.

“It’s okay, my foot is still on the brakes.”

“Switch the car to parking mode. Right now.”

“It’s fine, I got a video. Let’s go.”

After seeing Coco’s cheeky childlike grin again, I reaffirmed to myself that this girl was one of my best friends. It was okay to ask her a personal question. She’s pretty much one of the boys.

“Do you mind if I ask about your high school?” I asked carefully.

“…What about it?”

She seemed hesitant to answer.

“You said you didn’t have many friends,” I explained. “I just thought that felt a little weird. You seem like you’d be really popular in school.”

“There was a bit of drama,” Coco said.

“Is that why you transferred back to the city this year?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Prius told me when I first met him.”

“What do you mean by ‘you met him’?”

“Ah. None of us talked to each other until last month.”

“Really!?”

“…Did we not tell you?”

“You guys didn’t feel any different from before.”

“I think we got along pretty fast. You included.”

An atmosphere of melancholy blew through the car’s air conditioner. I shivered.

“About my friends in high school…” Coco started.

“What about them?”

“…You know how I always hung out with you guys?”

“Yeah?”

“I found myself doing the same at my new school. Hanging out with boys, that is. There weren’t many girls on the basketball team that enjoyed the same things we did, like playing videogames and reading manga. I still got along with them, and they didn’t have anything against me for being a bit of a geek. It’s just that I naturally became closer with the guys.”

“Was there really a divide like that?” I asked. “There’s distinct hierarchies in American high school dramas, but at my school the stereotypes often overlapped. I knew a few volleyball players that were hardcore anime fans, and some of the most academically gifted had great social li- wait, what are you doing?”

Coco had emergency parked to the side of the road.

“That wasn’t the problem,” she said. “It’s just… I was a floater at first. But some girls got offended that I was hopping around cliques. People didn’t like that I would hang out with some groups more than others. When I tried to stick with just one, I felt really left out and alone. I still had a few girl friends, but it was a lot more comfortable when my primary friend group was the boys.”

Listening to her story, I thought about my own experience with the guys at my school. When I played games with them, there was always one or two girls in the mix—I wondered if they played with us for the same reason? Although it’s true that things like gaming aren’t limited by gender, my personal experience made me believe that the situation was much more complicated than that.

Suddenly, I felt a little tinge of guilt for all the times I’ve teased a gamer girl. Hopefully none of them went through Coco’s situation.

“That seems reasonable to me,” I said. “You spent the most time with people who share similar interests; at your school, that just happened to be the boys.”

“Yeah. It didn’t start out as an issue at all.”

“What made it so bad that you moved back here?”

“One of my guy friends said he liked me, after rejecting one of the girls on my team. That was when people started calling me names.”

“What did they call you?”

“It started off harmless like ‘e-girl’ or ‘gamer girl’. I even had fun joking about it myself. But it devolved into things like ‘pick-me girl’ and… a lot worse.”

I could hear her voice starting to shake.

“Was it just the girls?”

“Some of the guys did it too. They would say that I was looking for attention, or that I didn’t belong with them. Some people accused me of trying to hook up with all the guys.”

Tiny crow’s feet appeared along the side of Coco’s reddened face as she furiously blinked the moistness out of her eyes.

Do I pat her back? Put an arm around her? Offer her tissues?

I decided to do the latter. It felt awkward consoling someone through physical touch—I’ve never had someone close enough to play therapy with.

We sat in silence as Coco dried her puffy eyes. She thanked me for the tissues and put her steady hands on the wheel. As we accelerated, I noticed that her sedan’s engine purred softly in contrast to Prius’s roaring truck.

“I should’ve just dated him,” Coco mumbled bitterly.

“Are you talking about the guy?” I asked.

“Yeah. I turned him down because I was friends with the girl who liked him—now look how things turned out.”

“Then you might’ve proved the rumours true.”

Coco responded with a sigh.

“You know,” she started. “I understand people set boundaries between different genders because of... romantic reasons. It’s just something that happens. But I just don’t understand why that dictates the friends I can and can’t hang out with.”

Only after listening to her words, did I fully realize the insecurities that Coco must have felt rejoining her childhood friends.

The rest of us were boys, and Coco’s experienced the conflict caused by being the only girl in the group. She’s met girls that would frown upon it. She knew boys that didn’t like it. Her parents might’ve been against it, and most of all…

…She must’ve been scared that we wouldn’t accept her again.

I looked at her mildly swollen eyes, their gaze fixed on the road ahead like a hardened veteran.

“Hey Coco,” I said.

“What?”

“You’ve always felt like one of the boys,” I assured her.

“…”

It took her a couple seconds to process what I said, before she broke out into a snicker.

“Thanks Via. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of being a girl. It’s just that… I want to hang out with my best friends without worrying about being one. The days we spent together were some of the best times of my life.”

Those last words resonated with me. It’s something I’ve felt ever since I met Prius… no, even before that. But I’ve always deemed that it was too cheesy to verbalize.

“I’m sure the others feel the same,” I replied.

“Do they?”

“Of course. They’re going on trips with us every week, despite having other friends to hang out with. I’m sure they miss us too.”

“That’s great to hear.”

The car felt a lot warmer now, despite the air conditioner. Glancing at the temperature display, I saw that she had already turned off the AC without me noticing.

“Do you think guys and girls can be close friends without anything romantically happening?” Coco asked.

“…I don’t have much experience hanging with girls other than you. But I think so.”

“Did you ever have a crush on me?”

“In grade school. I backed off because Prius liked you more.”

“Really? He doesn’t seem to like me that much.”

“Back then?”

“Well, more like now,” she said. “Maybe it’s just my insecurities speaking. Did Ravi ever like me?”

“I was suspicious of him in junior high. A lot happened though, so I don’t remember why.”

“Ah, me too.”

“Did you ever like one of us?”

“No way, that feels weird,” Coco laughed as she waved me off.

I was rather relieved. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was afraid that any kind of romantic development would tear our group apart.

“That’s part of the reason why I didn’t get along with my team members: next to zero romance and love talk experience.”

“We’re having love talk right now.”

“Haha…”

Coco paused. A muffled hubbub of voices became audible through our closed windows as we entered the parking lot. Absent-mindedly staring ahead, she addressed our final concern.

“Via.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want anything romantic to happen in our group.”

“Me neither.”

“…”

“…”

“Dammit, why’s there so many cars?”

Contrary to our usual shoddy dirt lots, today’s professionally paved parking lot was crowded with vehicles. After ten minutes of searching, we found a suitable spot close to the walk-in tenting.

Multiple families were sitting in the area, with their children frolicking in the trees. Neon coloured tents and lawn chairs revealed themselves through trunks and twigs as we approached our designated campsite. A faint aroma of sausages and smoke seasoned the air.

“Sorry!”

It was a child’s voice. I looked to see a young girl running towards us, as something bounced against my ankle. Coco stopped the rolling rubber ball with her foot and handed it back to the little girl.

“Thank you!” she said. The girl turned and ran towards a group of boys waiting for her to bring back the toy.

As we watched the kids play catch, something told me that we were feeling the exact same emotion.

“Hey! You’re late!”

I turned in the direction of Ravi’s shouting to see him to see him waiting in the distance. Behind him, Prius was frantically waving what appeared to be an axe in the air.

Coco inhaled deeply before she yelled back at them.

“What do you mean late? We haven’t started yet!”