Melissa Edwards was fascinating in all the ways Harry hadn’t been. She was beautiful, endearing and smart. When she laughed, she lit up the whole room. My year group was so big that I’d never seen her before, but she’d been put in several of my new classes and the first time she made eye contact with me, I turned red and went weak at the knees. I smiled, desperately wanting to look calm and collected, then ducked behind my textbook trying to hide my embarrassment and the uncontrollable grin that had spread itself across my face. My heart was beating so fast, I could feel it in my ears.
I went home that evening and practised my best “casual smile” in the mirror. I flicked my hair around in what I hoped was an effortless and confident sort of way. Next time I saw her, I would keep my cool – no blushing, no hiding behind textbooks.
The very next day, she spotted me in the corridor on her way out of school. It was the end of fifth period and kids were beginning to spill out of classrooms in their hordes. My heart was in my mouth. As I joined the throng of people, she smiled at me from across the hallway.
“Hiya!”
I suddenly forgot every single word in the English language. In that split second, my brain put two and two together and got five.
“Bye-a!”
She laughed and kept on walking. I wanted to disappear.
What the hell, Lucy? I thought angrily as I stomped towards the school gates. Bye-a? Like “bye” because you were leaving, but also “hiya” because that’s what she said to you, right? Nice one, brain. God, I’m such an idiot!
Melissa didn’t seem too bothered by my spluttering display though, and over the weeks that followed, I finally got the hang of speaking coherent sentences to her.
One afternoon, sitting across the table from me during an endless science lesson, she caught me mid-yawn. “Hey, Lucy, do you know what our homework was? I wasn’t listening!”
“I don’t know, but I hope it involves sleeping,” I said, finishing my yawn with a grin.
She threw her head back, laughing hysterically, clapping her hands with delight.
“I WISH!” she screeched.
I spent the rest of the day on cloud nine.
I began to notice that the way Melissa made me feel had temporarily silenced the negative thoughts that had been swirling around my brain. I quietly admitted to myself that the way I felt about her was far more sincere than any feelings I’d ever had for David or Harry. And while I was half-convinced that she was a one-off, I was able to be more honest with myself than I had been in years. This was a turning point in my journey to self-acceptance.
I went home one evening to find Melissa had added me on Facebook. I told myself to wait a few hours before accepting the friend request so I didn’t look too keen, but I only lasted fifteen minutes before my excitement got the better of me. I clicked “accept,” and almost immediately, a notification popped up in my newsfeed:
“Melissa is in a relationship.”
My heart sank as I stared at the screen. Was this a coincidence, or was it just the world’s way of telling me that she and I were never going to happen? The heavy weight of disappointment hit me like a train. I had always known deep down that nothing was going to come of this – after all, I’d never considered actually acting on the way I felt – but that hadn’t stopped me from dreaming about it.
Slowly, my feelings for her began to fade. We still spoke occasionally, and it was nice to be able to converse without my face flushing crimson, but gradually, I stopped thinking about her. At the end of Year 10, she was transferred to a different class and soon she became just another face in the crowd.
But I had found myself at a crossroads. The possibility that I was gay was not something I could ignore any more. It was no longer the tiny whisper of a thought which reared its ugly head at night-time; it was a wailing, flashing siren with bright white lights and signs pointing to it. And so, reluctantly, I accepted the possibility. I might be, I told myself. I could be. And all at once, I became intrigued by my feelings instead of being scared of them.
I decided things would be easier to process if I found some sort of label for myself. In my head, having a label meant fitting into a category – and fitting into a category was something I desperately needed in that moment. I wanted to feel like I was a part of something. I wanted to know what it felt like to be included.
I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t straight. The whole concept of being something “else” felt foreign and alien to me – like something I should be learning about in some indie film or TV show. It didn’t feel like it should be so close to home, let alone something that might apply to me. Was I jumping the gun a little? I thought back to how Melissa had made me feel. You need to figure this out, said the voice in my head.
One evening, while my family was getting ready for bed, I went into my bedroom, shut the door and switched on my computer. Checking behind me every few seconds, I googled the word “sexuality” and clicked through to a website that claimed it would help “define” me with a short quiz. Nervously, I clicked through the questions, worried that someone was going to knock on my door at any minute. The page reloaded and a photo of a woman holding a flashing sign popped up:
“You are most likely to be a) gay or b) bisexual!”
I stared at the screen. Gay? I swallowed, heart pounding. I didn’t want to think about it. But bisexual? That could work. This way, I would have the best of both worlds! I felt like I’d discovered some kind of loophole. It was like I’d made a compromise with myself – I could be one thing, as long as I was another, too.
I’m certain now that trying to put a label on myself at sixteen was one of the worst things I could have done – especially when the label came from a five-question quiz on some dodgy website. Labels can put such an unnecessary amount of pressure on people who are still unsure about who they are. It can be damaging to try and fit yourself into a category when you’re still growing and changing. What it all comes down to is what you’re most comfortable with. It’s about finding out what works best for you, rather than listening to anyone who tries to tell you what you can and can’t be.
So I began calling myself bisexual – but only inside my own head. I still hadn’t told anyone, and I wasn’t planning to any time soon. I still felt sick at the thought of telling my friends and family. There was no way I was going to mention it to them. The fear of being laughed at, made fun of, or doubted, kept my mouth shut, even though I knew deep down that none of them would even dream of doing that.
I wasn’t ready.
“So…” whispered Emily in hushed, dramatic tones. “Anyone got any new crushes?”
We were at my house having a sleepover, and Emily, Kat, Bel, Becci and Clare were all squeezed into my kitchen. We had come down for some snacks as the clock neared midnight and we’d ended up building a huge den, scattering cushions on the floor and hanging sheets up from the ceiling light fixtures. It felt like we were five years old again, sitting cross-legged on the floor under a canopy of blankets, eating crisps and cupcakes, giggling.
Sipping on her hot chocolate, Emily leant further in to the circle. “No big, juicy secrets?”
My heart stopped.
“Nope,” sighed Bel. “Does that make me boring?”
Everyone laughed. Bel was pretty outspoken – if she’d had any juicy secrets, we’d have known about them by now.
“We need gossip!” Becci joked with a grin. She was one of the quieter girls in the group, but she loved intrigue as much as any of us.
“My life is an open book,” Clare said. “If that makes me boring, I don’t care!”
“Me too,” I said, suddenly. I felt panicked, like I’d been caught in a spotlight off guard. “I don’t have any secrets.”
Kat nodded. “Keeping secrets from you guys would be too hard, anyway. I’d never be able to keep them to myself!”
For the rest of the evening, I felt guilty. My friends and I were such a close group and here I was, lying straight to their faces. I knew t
hat they’d love me no matter what, but try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to tell them the truth. Whenever the conversation steered back to boys, I tried to think of something to say. Should I just come out with it? Or was now not the right time? I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt isolated and alone, with my deepest darkest secret getting closer to my heart and further from my mouth with every passing day. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell them. I didn’t want anyone to know.
As the hands of the clock approached 4 a.m. and my friends began to drift off to sleep, I stared up at the ceiling of blankets, trying not to cry.
Hope tends to rear its glittering head when you least expect it to.
One morning, during a particularly tedious maths lesson, I was scrolling absent-mindedly through Tumblr and came across a post from someone about a television show called The L Word. “There is no other TV show quite like this one,” the person had written. Intrigued, I googled The L Word and read the Wikipedia synopsis:
“The L Word is a television drama series which portrays the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual, straight and transgender people in the trendy Los Angeles area of California.”
I was taken aback. I’d seen gay people on television before – I loved Alan Carr’s chat shows, and sometimes watched Sue Perkins and Stephen Fry on QI – but being gay was never something I’d heard them talk about. Not in any depth anyway. I’d never seen an entire series dedicated to the concept of sexuality – especially based around a circle of women who were just like me. It was unheard of. I had to see this for myself.
Over the next two months, once everyone else in my family had gone to sleep, I would creep over to my computer, plug my headphones in, and load up The L Word. I was enthralled. When the characters cried, I cried. When they laughed, I laughed. I became utterly invested in their storylines. They were like the gay best friends I never had. I felt suddenly connected, and more importantly, I felt at ease. Here was a group of women, living ordinary, happy, successful lives, while embracing their sexualities. Through this show that I’d happened upon just by chance, I was suddenly learning about things like equality, women’s rights, and feminism. My mind had been blown – I didn’t know half of these concepts even existed. There was so much to take in, but I was desperate to fill in the gaps.
The L Word had opened my eyes. It completely changed my outlook on my life, my identity, and my sexuality. I was sixteen and just as confused as ever, but a sort of quiet hopefulness had taken root within me. Some day I knew I would have the courage to accept myself for who I was, whatever that might be. For the first time in my life, the little voice in my head whispered, so what?
Summer was coming to an end. One evening in late August, I met up with Rachel for a cycle ride. I hadn’t seen her for months, but the same old camaraderie we’d always had was back in an instant. We grabbed our bicycles and headed for the fields, water bottles in hand, rucksacks slung over our shoulders.
With the evening sun beating down on our backs, we hurtled down Church Lane at top speed, whooping with delight as we swerved around corners, dodging potholes and whizzing past clusters of sleepy little cottages, their thatched roofs ablaze against the fiery orange glow of the slowly setting sun. As we neared the bottom of the hill, we came to a gradual stop, dismounted our bikes, and hid them in a nearby hedge out of sight. We went the rest of the way on foot, climbing over gates and squeezing through stiles, our flip-flops click-clacking over the scalding hot gravel as we made our way down the narrow path.
Reaching an ancient dry stone wall, we scrambled breathlessly to the top, shielding our eyes from the sun. We could see the entire village from where we stood. The hill that we’d cycled down was now just a thin black stripe in the distance, and beyond that, the main road, snaking through the vivid green hedgerows, dipping in and out of sight between the willow trees. Golden-brown fields stretched lazily out in front of us like a vast patchwork quilt, each one a slightly different colour and size. The thatched cottages we had passed were now tiny, doll’s-house-sized dots, and beyond those, we could spot little speckled hay bales here and there in amongst the meadows.
We stood there for ages, taking it all in. All we could hear when the wind died down was the distant rumble of lawnmowers and the gentle pitter-patter of sprinklers on scorching hot tarmac. Then we hopped over the wall and laid our jackets out in the tall grass, opened up our rucksacks and brought out snacks: a huge tub of olives, some Pringles, a box of strawberries and a massive stick of French bread.
“We are so aggressively middle class,” Rachel chuckled, opening up the olives.
The church bells began to chime as the clock struck six, and for a while, we sat in silence, munching away at our picnic, listening to the sheep bleating softly in the field next to us. The sun, now a blazing red ball in the sky, had engulfed the church spire in warm orange light, an elegant silhouette against the hushed village horizon. In moments like these, my mind was clear and my thoughts were silent. I was able to take in the world around me and bask in its awe-inspiring beauty. I felt at peace.
The conversation turned to self-esteem and confidence. I told Rachel about how anxious I felt sometimes, and how difficult it was to be fearless when all you really wanted to do was cower in the corner.
Rachel nodded sympathetically. “That’s why I joined the Village Players a few years ago,” she said. “It’s really helped with my confidence.”
“The what?”
“The Village Players. The amateur dramatics society here in the village.”
The sun started to dip behind the clouds. We began to pack up our things.
“Do they let anyone join?” I said, intrigued. “It sounds really cool, but I’m not sure I’d be good enough … or brave enough!”
We clambered back over the wall and started up the path, heading towards the hedge where we’d left our bicycles.
“Anyone can join. And you don’t have to play a main character – I mean, you can just be in the ensemble if you’d prefer. Not that you wouldn’t make a fabulous Toad of Toad Hall!”
The next morning at school, I mentioned the Village Players to Emily.
“I want to come!” she said, excitedly.
Our friend Monkey (a self-chosen nickname), whom we’d befriended on a school trip to Berlin a couple of months back, overheard. “A theatre group?! Count me in!” He did a little twirl, which had us in stitches.
So that evening, the four of us headed back down Church Lane towards the village hall to meet the Village Players. Rachel, who had been a part of the group for years, introduced us to everyone.
I looked around the hall. Most people were much older than us – some even in their early seventies. Besides Monkey, Emily, Rachel and me there were only a couple of other teens – a boy named Ben who I recognized from primary school, and a friend of his.
The four of us sat on the floor next to Ben and his friend, who was called Mossy. I hadn’t seen Ben in years, but we quickly got chatting and started talking about our favourite books like no time had passed. He’d always been quiet and reserved at school, but he seemed to have come out of his shell a lot more since then. I’d forgotten how thoughtful and articulate he was, and listening to him speak brought a strange sense of calm over me.
I was in a new and unfamiliar environment, but I didn’t feel nervous at all. I was surrounded by my friends, and I knew I was safe with them, so I was able to stop worrying about looking stupid or saying the wrong thing and instead focus on having fun.
Rachel explained that with each new production, one of the adults in the group was given the chance to direct. This time around, it would be Ben’s dad, Steve.
Steve walked in and called the whole group over. We formed a circle around him. There was a sense of anticipation and excitement in the air.
“Hello, everyone! Thanks for coming. I see we have some new faces here today!” He looked over his glasses at Monkey, Emily and me, and smiled. “Thanks for coming, guys!
As you know, I’ve been asked to direct this season’s play. And I’m pleased to announce that this time around, we’ll be performing Cinderella!”
A handful of people clapped excitedly.
“I’m being cast as Cinderella, right?” Mossy interjected, grinning. Everyone laughed.
Steve began handing out scripts. “Unless you tell me otherwise, I’m going to assume you’re all trying out for every role. If you’d rather not have a large part, please let me know.”
I swallowed. I wanted to raise my hand, but I was too scared. Steve started talking about performance dates, and I zoned out instinctively. My mind was in overdrive. Should I just audition and see what happened? Surely I wouldn’t be cast as a main character? I looked around nervously. There were about twenty other people in the room, most of whom had been a part of the Village Players for a while. They would be the ones getting the bigger roles, right?
The little voice in my head spoke up. Why not aim high? it said, softly. You never know what might happen.
Steve pointed at me. “I’d like you to try out for Cinderella first, please.”
My heart stopped. This is your time to shine, said the voice in my head, a little more loudly this time. Give it all you’ve got!
My heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my ears. Everyone was looking at me. I took a deep breath, turned to page one and began to read the lines. Rachel, who was trying out for the role of the Prince, read alongside me. I reminded myself that Rachel and I had spent years goofing around, acting out the little shows that we’d written. The only difference now was that we had a real audience instead of our teddy bears.
I was starting to enjoy myself.
I could see Rachel trying to stay in character as we finished the scene. She clapped and whooped as I said my final line, and we high-fived each other from across the circle.
“Excellent!” said Steve. “A little slower next time perhaps. But great – I think that’s all I need to see from you.” He looked around the circle. “Who’s next?”
Girl Hearts Girl Page 4