We were little girls sharing secrets at sleepovers, only not so little and very rarely sleeping.  Our secrets had grown in reflection to our ages, and no longer consisted merely of thinking that boy Timmy was cute.  By the time we were seniors, sitting next to one another with hands cupped against ears was not enough and it was quite the task letting one pass our lips.  I had always felt that if I had met her sooner I never would have had any secrets to tell.  There wouldn’t have been a band-aid to rip off of old wounds to expose to the air and the scrutiny of this girl I’d come to trust.

Not that I ever had to worry about how she would react.  After the initial lack of freak out at my ‘Hi I’m gay’ attitude, I knew she would be worth getting to know.  She even took my ‘first time’ story amazingly well, laughing at first before realizing the disappointment from the five minute roll in the hay with some Ohio cowboy wasn’t exactly funny.  Laughing wasn’t the reaction I got for my confessions of a dead brother, absentee mother, attempted suicide, and brief stint as a drug addict back in rural America.  She was the one person who never asked me to change, forget who I used to be, or cover the graying cuts and bruises on my heart; and maybe that’s why I started to fall for her.  The one girl who was off limits, explicitly straight, and in a long running committed relationship with the biggest idiot known to King High.

Of course I’d never tell her of the growing feelings I had for her, despite the pain it caused me.  I lied every day, ignoring the way my heart ached to see her with Aiden while I remained in my long running committed relationship with the patron saint of lost causes.  So I made what little room I could, without jostling too much around in hopes that if she were to be removed there wouldn’t be a permanent hole, in my heart and kept her next to dreams deferred and star-crossed lovers.  I felt as a moth drawn to a flame, burning away in the glory of my obsession but never finding the will to turn away from it.