‘Come outside,’ Owen says. And just like that, I’m part of the party.
We go outside and sit on crappy folding camping chairs. A bunch of people are arguing about the existence of aliens and the best way to way to eat a croissant. After a while, I feel myself unclenching. It seems almost strange that I was hiding in the bathroom at the beginning of the night. I feel nostalgically sad for my pathetic self of an hour ago—what a loser. Now I am a goddess on a rickety camping chair pretending to drink a beer.
5
Never Have I Ever
I’ve been outside for about twenty minutes, occasionally chiming in on the conversations around me, and watching Owen get louder and drunker. At one point, he turns to me and winks. I pretend not to notice, because there is nothing on Earth that makes me more uncomfortable than someone winking at me.
Alex checks in on me, asking if I want another drink, and then if I’m cold, and both times I smile and shake my head.
At some stage, I’m not sure how, it is decided that everyone will play a drinking game. I’ve never actually seen a drinking game played before, so I’m quite fascinated. I cross my legs on the chair, and settle in. It feels anthropological.
The chosen game is Never Have I Ever. One person says something they’ve never done and everyone who has done it must drink. (There’s a good five minutes of arguing and googling on how to play the game—do you drink if you have done it, or do you drink if you haven’t? Everyone is very, very sure their way is correct.)
‘Never have I ever…vomited on my parents’ front lawn.’
‘Never have I ever…kissed more than five people in one night.’
‘Never have I ever…watched porn with my friends.’
‘Never have I ever…passed out naked on someone else’s couch.’
Predictably, most questions are sex- or alcohol-focused, and there is a fuss after each one, yelling and laughing at the people who do and don’t drink. I sit my bottle on the ground, so it’s clear I am here to watch and not participate. In fact, I’m getting bored and not even paying attention (the game is much less fascinating than I thought it would be), wishing my phone battery wasn’t so low, when Owen taps my arm.
‘Your turn.’
‘My turn what?’
‘To say “Never have I ever…”’
‘Oh, crap.’
Everyone is looking at me. Vanessa arches an eyebrow (a perfect eyebrow, she has the kind of eyebrows that should be studied for how perfect they are). Alex gives me a small, commiserating smile that seems to say I know you’re going to stuff this up, but that’s okay.
I have no idea what to say. Think, think, think. Okay, stop thinking, just say anything.
‘I’ve never…played spin the bottle.’ I don’t know why, of all possible words in the English language, these are the ones that come out of my mouth. There’s a pause, and I contemplate standing up and leaving, just running into the night. Does anyone play spin the bottle anymore? Did anyone ever play it? Does it exist as a thing outside of 90s’ TV shows? Does it exist outside of my own head?
No one drinks.
‘What, has no one here ever played spin the bottle?’ Owen yells. He’s drunk enough that he says everything at volume.
Everyone looks at each other and they’re all shaking their heads.
‘Let’s play,’ says a girl. I think her name is Lana. Or maybe Petra.
And just like that Never Have I Ever is abandoned and an empty bottle is placed on the ground in the middle of us all.
‘Wait, do you have to kiss in front of everyone or do you go off into the dark?’ asks a guy called Raj.
‘You’re confusing it with Seven Minutes in Heaven, where you are locked in the cupboard for seven minutes together,’ Vanessa says.
‘Has anyone played that one, either?’ Owen yells.
‘Nope,’ says Raj.
‘Let’s combine them. Spin the bottle, and then the two people go around there for a one-minute countdown,’ Lana/Petra says, pointing to a narrow, dark walkway down the side of the house.
‘How much can you do in one minute?’ Benny asks.
There is a lot of laughter and teasing about what can happen in a minute. I am practically dizzy with how quickly the situation has gone from one terrifying thing (my complete failure at a drinking game) to another (my soon-to-be complete failure at a kissing game).
I edge my chair nearer to Owen’s, so it will be harder to tell if the bottle is pointing to me or him, and everyone will want it to be pointing to him, so I can politely back out.
I don’t want to play this game.
I don’t want to play this game so badly that I take my phone out of my pocket, scroll through my contacts and hold my finger over the word Mum, but then I picture myself in the future saying to my inquisitive child ‘I left the party before the game started, so no, honey, I’ve never played spin the bottle’ and my child looking at me with deep disappointment. So I will stay to avoid my future imaginary child from being disappointed in my life experience, which is as good a reason as any to stay anywhere.
It’s a single minute, for godsake. No one is going to force me to do anything. In fact, I bet no one is going to do anything at all.
I can see everyone sizing up everyone else, deciding who they want, who they could deal with and who they definitely don’t want. The flip side of not wanting to do anything is, of course, the fear that no one will want to do anything with me even if I did want to.
A girl I don’t know spins the bottle first. It lands on Owen. Everyone cheers. I watch him walk off with her, and an iPhone stopwatch countdown begins. We sit in silence, and after about twenty seconds, it’s surprisingly boring. Seven minutes in heaven must really drag on. Everyone counts down the last ten seconds and they cheer again when the two of them emerge, grinning.
They rejoin the circle—Owen is looking pleased with himself in a hugely unappealing way—and the bottle is spun again. I’m so nervous I take a swill of the beer in my hand, even though beer is the foulest tasting thing in the world and I can barely swallow it without gagging, and now I’m paranoid about having beer breath.
The game goes through several more rounds. On reflection, it seems a stupid, discriminatory game, made mostly for the enjoyment of heterosexual guys. I have no idea who is straight, gay, bi or asexual here. One guy spins the bottle and it lands on another guy, and he gets to spin again, which is okay, I guess, because he’s straight, but still. If you’re queer, and not out, then you either have to out yourself or endure possibly kissing someone of the opposite sex.
I’m still thinking about how terrible the game is and working myself into a state of hating the world and feeling ashamed I even mentioned it, when the bottle one of the girls has just spun lands on Alex. They walk off together, laughing. Alex looks completely relaxed and my stomach lurches. I don’t want him to kiss her. The thought is in my head before I can stop it.
We count down the final ten seconds, everyone looking bored now, and they walk back, all smiles.
‘All right, I’m over this,’ Raj says as Alex picks up the bottle and spins it. It turns lazily, round and round, and we all watch it slow down and stop between me and Owen.
‘That’s a liner. Go again,’ says Lana/Petra.