Is it bad to sit alone in the library every day at lunchtime rather than socialize with my peers? I asked her that once. It was a passing joke. She told me it wasn't, that perhaps once lunch rolled around, she might consider sitting alone in the library at lunchtime with me. When I brought up the fact that we would no longer be sitting alone, she just put a finger up to her mouth. She told me nobody had to know, it would be our secret. She giggled. It was a pretty giggle. I liked her giggle more than my giggle. Mine was more of a snort. Still is, although there have been many times that I've sat alone on my bathroom floor and simply tried to giggle like her. Never worked. She had wide blue eyes, and her innocence reminded me of a young doe. Her light brown hair was soft, I braided it at lunch that day. On that day- the first day, might I add- we were sitting in the library, spilling out our sob stories of torturous schools and past experiences from the following year. When the librarian asked us to be quiet, she burst out into fits of laughter. I didn't understand, but I thought it was cute. I escorted her out, forgetting the untouched book I'd been prepared to read with her that lunch period on the table. When she suggested we go to the lunch room, I refused, as I'd already finished my food, and the concept of so many people scared me. My old school had half as many people, and they were too intimidating for my taste. She all but got on the floor and begged until I finally complied, and she dragged me towards the doors with a skip in her step.
I met many people, thanks to Lily, the girl who'd met me in the library and became my best friend. But there was one girl who was special- her name was Annemarie. It rolled nicely off the tongue, unlike my dreadful excuse for a name, Jade. Annemarie was beautiful, and as the year progressed, her beauty lured me to her like a deadly poison you can't keep away from. I knew I didn't want to fall for her, but I was doing just that. Her beauty shone through like sun beams through her skin, glowing inside and out. Whenever she touched me, a jolt of electricity fizzed through my body from head to toe. We were good friends, but I was afraid to go near her, afraid to make a mistake, afraid she would suddenly discover my emotions. I didn't tell her how I felt... It's funny for me to love her. People say it would be funny if we kissed. But it's not a comedy. How I wished I could've kissed her, told her, done something.
One night, me, Lily, and Annemarie were having a Girl's Night Out, followed by a sleepover at Annemarie's house. We went to the movies, then we went to Lily's favorite pizza parlor... it was a blast, and I felt like I belonged. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. Me having feelings for Annemarie, the embarasment, seemed to disappear. I knew I wanted to tell her. I knew I would tell her that night. So as we circled around with pillows and blanket in hand, we all told our biggest secret. I wanted to go last. Lily went first, and she told us she had the biggest crush on Tommy Mantle, a cute boy in my science class. He was my good friend, and I supposed he and Lily would be ok together, but how I envied Lily's "biggest secret". Annemarie's secret turned my bones cold. She liked a boy called Jacob, Jacob Tiller, one of my best guy friends. It stabbed me like daggers, and the two smiling faces turned towards me. Lily asked me about my biggest secret. I blurted out my un-true love for Kyle Robinson, a boy I was unacquainted with, and in fact, I thought he was quite disgusting. Oo's and aa's echoed from their mouths, but now I was in my own world. What if I'd gone first? A shiver crept up my spine. I'd been so sure Annemarie would have felt the same way... I was sure. But she didn't.
Late that night, Annemarie drifted away into sleep, and Lily and I were left awake, gossiping like we had that first day in the library, like we had the previous week at my house. It was all natural. She told me everything... I couldn't not tell her my biggest secret. I cut her off in the middle of her story about what a slut Kimmi and Brit were, and what they wore to Kiley's bat mitzvah the week before. I said it bluntly, stupidly, and straight forward. I said it honestly. As her friend.
"I'm gay."
The next morning I woke up. It was just me and Annemarie. Lily's reaction had been unreadable; confusion and a bit of suspicion could be traced, but I wasn't sure what she was thinking at the point of time. I asked where she was, and Annemarie explained she'd felt sick in the night, and her mom had picked her up and taken her home. Dread filled me up like a balloon. I suddenly felt sick as well. I kept quiet. Just an hour before I could go home safely to my bed, my room, and sleep the day away, wash away what I'd told my best friend. After a half hour of playing the board game Life, I felt even sicker to my stomach as Annemarie joked about her gay men marrying each other at the "Get Married" checkpoint. Technically it was allowed, but fury pricked underneath my skin. It's not a joke. It's not a choice. It's not what defines me as myself! I'm me, whatever happens, whoever I love. And if Lily doesn't understand, I'll make things ok without her. I can live without her, and perhaps she'll even grow to understand... my twisted stomach began to whirl in circles with the spinner of the Life Game. I suddenly wished I spun more gently, as I watched the spinner spin and imagined all of the horrible possibilities. I shouldn't have told Lily. I shouldn't have told Lily. I shouldn't have told Lily.
On the opposite side of Lily, there I was, being squished off the edge of the crowded table and with half of my butt even on the bench. Annemarie kept attempting to make room, but her plan failed miserably as I fought my way to stay. After an intense lunch of focusing on not splatting on the ground beside me, Annemarie and I caught up with a fast walking Lily. When she looked at me, she almost seemed defensive. Like I was there so accuse her. The look in her eyes hurt me, once she realized I wasn't there to incriminate her. She watched me like I was an alien. From another planet, another galaxy. But it was me, it had always been me. Pain flickered across my face and I bolted across the campus, with a sloppy wave. Glancing over my shoulder, I'd seen Lily, Annemarie, and a few other people clustering, gasping and giggling. I would've bet anything that they weren't talking about my crush on Kyle Robinson.
Things changed. The school became aware of my sexuality, and I wasn't proud of it. Every website told me to be proud of you, to hold on and know it gets better. And I knew it did. But I couldn't bring myself to be proud, because the truth was that I despised me. I despised being who I was and feeling what I felt. Nobody talked to me anymore, besides a short, chubby boy who had skipped a grade, he was so genius. He became my only companion for a good two years, the only person who never once teased me, or joked about me, or looked at me like a foreign invader. But then he left, and I was alone again. My days of eating at the end of the empty lunch table was over; I couldn't show to lunch all alone. I even prayed that I would die, and everybody would be sorry. I wanted to die, but I didn't want to murder myself. There was a time when my greatest wish was to have a heart attack and drop dead in the middle of English. Everybody was sorry when I dreamt it. The teasing just grew. But the day I knew any hope of anything was gone was the day I overheard Annemarie call me fa**ot in a conversation with Lily. Annemarie knew I heard, but no sorry escaped her lips. Then finally, after two years, I spoke to Lily. Not to Annemarie... to Lily. The last words I'd said to her were "I'm gay", and I was done living with that. Speaking her name again burned my mouth, the now unfamiliar name I'd learned to despise as well. I wanted to bridge the gap. So I spoke.
"Is it bad to sit alone in the library... Instead of in the lunchroom talking to friends?"
Lily looked at me with her doe-eyes. Annemarie's piercing stare bore into my forehead, but my eyes were locked with Lily's. Annemarie's beauty no longer compelled me, it no longer seduced me, nor tempted me at all. Her beauty left with her kindness, and it was clear she had not a kind bone in her body. From the corner of my eye, I saw her icy glare, and a knot immediately lodged itself into my throat.
Then Lily turned away. She looked at the ground. Said nothing. I walked calmly away, feeling Lily's guilt follow me like the stench of a skunk. Tears slipped out of my eyes and the knot unwound and once they'd begun to come, tears began flowing from the corners of my eyes like bullets. I slipped into the hidden crevice of the hallway, sliding my back against the rough wall. In the hidden corner of the hallway, away from all of the teasing eyes and pity grins, I felt safe, but I felt broken. Like a broken Yo-Yo, where for whatever reason, it just wouldn't quite work right.
High school was hell. But things are better, even though the scars on my heart have yet to heal themselves, I'm doing better. At graduation, a girl I'd once known as Annemarie came up to me and opened her mouth to speak. I turned away. I didn't look back, not at all, for this wasn't the girl I had been head over heels about.
I lived, despite my slightly broken heart.
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