Page 67 of It's Always Sonny

He won’t hate you. You know he won’t.

But he won’t like you more, either.

I want these people to like me beyond any grade or medal I’ve ever wanted, so I’ll just have to win. I’m naturally good at this kind of thing. I can play cornhole.

You don’t have to be perfect to be loved, Sonny’s voice echoes in my head.

Maybe. But it can’t hurt to try.

“You ready for an epic beanbag battle?” Sonny’s dad asks. He’s handsome and distinguished but also warm and approachable. Both of Sonny’s parents are. They always have been.

“I’ll be a terrible partner,” I tell him, even though I should get the hang of it quickly. “I don’t know how to play.”

“No problem,” he says. “I’ll help you with strategy when we’re near the end of the game, but for now, a beanbag on the board is worth one point. One in the hole is worth three, and their points and our points cancel each other out. So just focus on getting the beanbag in the hole or on the board, if you can.” he says.

If I can? I hit a bullseye with an axe this morning. Throwing a beanbag on a board should be a piece of cake.

I stand on the other side of the board from Sonny’s dad—we’re on a team, after all—but Great Aunt Mary walks toward me and points to the board opposite us.

“Your partner plays across from you,” Aunt Mary says.

Nonna says, “It’s you and me, sis.”

Sis?

I know it’s cliché to compare a grandma to a Golden Girls character, but Nonna has real Sophia energy.

And Sophia is my patronus.

I could not want to impress this woman more than I do.

I stand on the other side of the board from her, and everyone tells me to go first. I throw the beanbag underhand and am shocked when it lands two feet shy of the board.

Nonna laughs, a sharp “heh heh” I could almost think I imagined. Then she throws the beanbag in a much higher arc than I did and it lands on the board with a loud slap.

“You’re up,” she says. I throw again. And miss again.

Nonna’s throw lands on the board.

I frown, watching her absurdly high arc. It looks ridiculous. Surely it would be easier to keep throwing lower, wouldn’t it? But her eye holds a challenge, almost like she thinks I can’t do it. Suddenly, my desire for approval faces its fiercest competition yet: my desire to never, ever be underestimated.

I heft the beanbag in my hand, draw my arm back, and then toss it in a high arc.

The beanbag lands on the board! Then it knocks Nonna’s into the hole.

I wince while Nonna cackles. “That wasn’t good, was it?”

“It was for me,” she says.

A sassy retort springs to my lips, but I smile. My cheeks and jaw ache from all this smiling. I don’t know how Sonny has done it all these years. How Ash has done it. How have humans walked around with these big, exhausting grins on their faces for eons and not gone extinct?

Nonna isn’t smiling, though. A small smirk plays at the corner of her lips, and it’s as familiar to me as my own. Smirking is natural. Easy. I don’t have to hide behind a smirk.

I don’t land another bag on the board before our turn is over and it switches to Aunt Mary and Edward. Nonna makes fun of her sister and her son in equal parts.

“Come on, Mary! Use that new hip of yours, will you?”

“Easy, Bianca,” Aunt Mary says to Nonna. “You don’t want to throw your back out from yelling.” Her bag lands on the board.