“I couldn’t agree more, little bro.”
My brother, at least, would be cool with it if I told him. I breathed a sigh of relief. That was one more person I didn’t have to worry about.
The day we got back home to Oxford, I ran upstairs as fast as I could and turned on my computer. I had seven emails from Kaelyn, one for each day I’d been away. She’d made a different video for me every single day, talking about what she’d been up to, and what her plans were. She ended each video by saying she missed me.
The seventh and final video was short but sweet. “Let me know when you get this video. I want to talk to you so badly. I think … I think I love you.”
My heart started beating at one hundred miles an hour. I opened my phone and sent her a text.
Hey. I’m home. –L
Within minutes, she replied.
Hey you. Hope you had a good holiday –K
I smiled. My phone buzzed again.
I missed you terribly. Did you see my video?
Without hesitation, I wrote out a reply.
Yeah. I think I love you too. Can we Skype?
I felt so happy I could fly. The butterflies in my stomach were doing somersaults, and it was the best feeling in the world. We chatted for an hour over Skype. We talked about everything – how much we’d missed each other when I’d been gone, how Kae had realized she loved me the minute I had left for Suffolk, and how hard it had been not to talk to each other for a week. It felt so right. I felt so comfortable. It was like I’d known her my whole life.
“So … are we, like, dating now?” said Kaelyn with a grin.
“I guess so! I mean, if you want to…” I trailed off, laughing.
“Jeez, I never thought I’d fall in love with someone I’ve never even met before. Like, how can that even happen?”
“I have no idea. It’s so surreal.”
“And it all happened so fast! I kind of like it though. We’re so twenty-first century! I’m just thankful for Skype. At least I know you’re a real person and not some weirdo!” We both giggled.
And so, we decided to make it official.
I had a girlfriend!
All I wanted was to be with her. I wanted to tell everyone I knew about her. I wanted to tell people in the street. I wanted to scream it from the rooftops.
But I couldn’t. Nobody knew I was gay except Kaelyn. It hurt me deeply to have to keep her a secret. She was doing the same; only her roommate knew about us. We spurred each other on through our most difficult days. I told her that it wouldn’t always have to be like this. She told me she would wait until the end of the world if it meant she could be with me.
But as the days rushed by and winter crept in, I was starting to get restless. Should I just come out with it one lunchtime at school? I had to say something. I couldn’t keep this a secret for much longer – it was killing me. As December rolled up, I realized that I was just going to have to bite the bullet and do it.
It was New Year’s Eve, and my friends from the village, plus Bel who had come over from the next town, were spending the night at Ben’s house. Having already been to the pub and back, we were now chilling in Ben’s living room, drinking cheap champagne and beer and counting down the hours before the clock struck midnight.
I felt at peace. I was surrounded by my best friends in the entire world; people I adored and would do anything for. I had an amazing, incredible family. I had a girlfriend who loved and supported me no matter what. I was wanted, I was needed, and I was really, really happy.
As it neared midnight, Emily, Bel and I were sprawled out on the kitchen floor, passing around a bottle of champagne.
“I still can’t believe we’re in our last year of school,” mumbled Emily, sipping from the bottle.
“Me neither. I’m so not ready for the grownup world of university!” Bel howled dramatically, banging her fists on the floor like a child. We all giggled. There was a pause.
“Do you guys want to get boyfriends at university?” Emily asked.
I saw the chance, and in my slightly drunken state, I took it.
“No, I have a girlfriend,” I said without missing a beat. I was expecting to feel the familiar nervous feeling in my stomach at any second, but I didn’t. I was completely and utterly at ease.
Emily tilted her head up to face me, half-smiling. “What?”
“I have a girlfriend.”
They both laughed nervously.
“WHAT?!” Mossy careered around the corner and crashed into the fridge.
Monkey, Chris, Rachel and Ben followed suit, running into the kitchen in a drunken frenzy.
“You have a GIRLFRIEND?” Mossy screeched.
They were all looking at me incredulously.
“Yeah! I met her a couple of months ago.”
“HOW? WHERE?” they all shouted in unison.
“Well … we met on Tumblr, which I know sounds crazy, but I promise you she isn’t a creep or anything! We Skype literally every day. She’s amazing.”
“I didn’t know you were GAY though?!” screamed Monkey. “Why did you never tell us?”
I swallowed, suddenly trying to hold back tears. “I was scared, I guess.”
They all lunged at me at once, pulling me into a hug, ruffling my hair and squeezing my hands.
“Lucy, I am so SO proud of you,” Bel cried, drunken tears filling her eyes. “I’m so happy that you’re happy. I’m just so happy for you.”
My friends bombarded me with questions.
“So what’s she like?”
“She’s AMERICAN?!”
“Is she pretty?!”
“Oh my god. I bet she has the COOLEST accent!”
I was so surprised and pleased by how intrigued they were. They genuinely wanted to know every detail.
“We’ll support you no matter what, Lucy,” said Ben. “Whoever you find yourself falling in love with – what matters is that you’re happy. That’s the only thing that should matter for anyone, to be honest.”
Mossy, who had been quiet for quite some time, suddenly turned and left the room.
I stared after him, shocked. I looked at Ben nervously. “Is he OK, or… ?”
“I think he’s just a bit … surprised.”
Monkey went into the next room to talk to him. I followed him, tentatively.
“You OK, Mossy?” I whispered, worried.
“Course I am, babe. Just a bit, you know…” he trailed off. There was a pause. “I mean … so … you’re – you’re definitely gay?” His bottom lip began to wobble.
“Yeah, pretty certain. Are you OK with that?”
“Definitely. I’m so proud of you, Luce. I guess I’m just bummed that now I really don’t ever have a chance to be with you. I’m sorry. I know that’s selfish of me.”
All I could do was hug him, because I knew exactly how that felt. I’d watched as Melissa had slipped away with someone else. I knew what a horrible sinking feeling it was, watching someone you like walk away, and knowing that you can’t do a thing about it.
“You know you’ll always be one of my best friends, Luce,” Mossy whispered.
I hugged him tighter.
Just before midnight, Bel, Emily and I went for a walk. It was freezing outside, but we strolled up the narrow country lane arm in arm, dancing and swinging our legs. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and when we looked up, we could see every single star. I spotted the Big Dipper and whooped with drunken delight. The moon, a tiny thin crescent in the darkness, lit up the whole sky.
“I hope you still love me, guys!” I slurred, giggling.
The other two started giggling, as if I’d said something ludicrous.
“Of course we still love you, fool!” said Emily.
We carried on walking until we reached the main road, screeching at the top of our lungs.
“Guys, guys! Look! It’s nearly midnight!” said Emily, pointing to her phone. It was 23:59. We stopped and stood, huddled together, staring breathlessly upwards. There
was a long pause.
Then, all at once, the sky was filled with a burst of vibrant, fiery colours; vivid reds and greens, twisting and turning in mid-air, shooting up into the sky like tiny rockets. An eruption of golds and blues followed, flaring up the darkness and casting a golden glow over the village, whizzing through the atmosphere at top speed. It was beautiful, standing arm in arm with my two best friends in the freezing cold, our eyes sparkling as the sky exploded above us, our ragged breath hanging in the air as the church bells chimed in the New Year.
I’d done it.
I had started the New Year on a high. The way Emily and Bel had reacted confirmed what I had already known deep down: they would love me no matter what. Their positivity had given me the confidence boost that I had desperately needed, and around mid-January, I decided to come out to the rest of my friends – the ones who hadn’t been at Ben’s party.
Nathan was astounded, and pretended to be outraged that I hadn’t told him sooner.
“How DARE you keep this from me?!” he screeched dramatically, pretending to flick a scarf over his shoulder, sashaying away. He came back giggling and pulled me into a hug. “Guess we’re the token gays of the group now, eh?!”
Becci, Clare and Kat were surprised – and sad that I hadn’t had the courage to tell them sooner.
“I wish you hadn’t kept this from us! I feel so bad that you felt like you had to keep it a secret all this time. I feel like a terrible friend for not noticing,” said Becci, sadly.
“Don’t be silly! You’re the best friend a girl could ask for. I was just … scared, I guess,” I hesitated, looking down at my shoes. The anxiety and the panic that had plagued me for years already seemed so distant now that it was all over. The feelings had been replaced with a sense of serenity and calm. I looked up at my friends’ smiling, sympathetic faces. What had I even been scared of? I could feel myself tearing up. I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
“I love you guys so much,” I finally spluttered, and pulled them into yet another hug.
The message was clear: if you’re happy, we’re happy.
I still didn’t feel ready to broach the topic with my family yet. It was my last year at school, and then I was hopefully heading to university, which meant I’d be leaving home for the first time. I told myself that I would come out to my parents as soon as I had moved out. That way, if anything went wrong, I at least wouldn’t be living at home. Deep down, I knew it was going to be absolutely fine, but the anxious voice in my head was still telling me to wait.
As the weeks went by, the thought of leaving home was gradually becoming a reality, and it terrified me. How would it feel to go somewhere completely new, away from my friends and family? What would it feel like to finally be completely independent?
“You learn a lot about yourself when you move out for the first time,” my mum said, knowingly. “And a lot about other people, too!”
“You’ll meet all sorts of new people and see all sorts of new things,” Dad agreed, nodding. “I think it’ll be really good for you!”
I’d grown up running through fields with my friends in a happy little bubble: an easy-going, relaxed, countryside life. It was time for me to see the world from outside the tiny village I’d grown up in.
I had spent for ever worrying about what I wanted to study. My passions were literature and films – so which one should I pursue? I had spent my childhood with my head in a book and I couldn’t remember a day that I hadn’t spent writing, reading or both. But I also adored films and film-making. I obsessed over foreign language films like Amélie, Låt Den Rätte Komma In, Être et Avoir and Moulin Rouge, as well as the old black-and-white classics by the likes of Buster Keaton and Alfred Hitchcock, and fed my passion by getting myself a job with a small company which filmed and edited wedding videos and corporate events. I loved the pressure of getting exactly the right shots at exactly the right time, and the thrill of capturing the event perfectly gave me such an adrenaline rush.
I needed to find a degree where I could study both of my favourite things. I searched for weeks, and with my dad’s help, narrowed it down to five courses based on practical film-making that also included writing modules. I submitted my personal statement – and then I waited.
After what felt like for ever, two universities wrote back, both offering me a place, as long as I got the exam grades I needed.
A month later, I heard back from another two, and the conditions were the same.
But I still hadn’t heard back from my first choice – Plymouth College of Art. I was getting worried.
Another few weeks passed, and finally, a letter arrived in the post. I skimmed through it excitedly. I had been called to an interview. My heart stopped. How was I going to manage this?
I spent the next month preparing. I gathered together every film I’d ever made as well as some screenplays I’d written, then spent hours practising in front of the mirror, trying to look cool, confident and calm.
“You’ve got this,” I told myself, over and over. “You can do it.”
On the day of the interview, Dad and I got the train down to Plymouth. With each passing minute I could feel myself getting more and more nervous. I tried to distract myself by looking out of the window, watching as the green fields of Oxfordshire became the lush pastures of Devon. As we reached Dawlish, the train rounded a corner, and there, right before my eyes, was the ocean – a rippling blue giant, splashing against the bright red rocks, stretching out as far as the eye could see. The view took my breath away.
Finally we arrived in Plymouth and made our way to the college, a huge white building with elegant glass windows smack bang in the middle of the city centre. With my heart in my mouth, I left Dad at reception and made my way to the interview room, clutching my folder of films and screenplays. I tried to shake off the shy, eleven-year-old Lucy, and remind myself that I was now a confident eighteen-year-old who could do anything she put her mind to. I took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.
“Ah! You must be Lucy,” said the man behind the desk as I sat down. He had a calm, kind face and floppy brown hair. “I’m Paul, one of the film lecturers here.”
Paul looked genuinely interested in what I had to say, and as soon as we got on to the topic of our favourite films, my confidence shot through the roof. The more I spoke, the more relaxed I began to feel. My pounding heartbeat steadied. I showed him some of the videos I’d made, and he patiently watched each of them in turn. I was amazed at how attentive and genuine he seemed. He was just the kind of person I’d love to have teach me.
As I got up to leave, he shook my hand and told me that they’d love to have me on the course. “Expect an email from us over the next couple of days!”
I smiled and thanked him, trying not to skip out of the room with elation. I rushed to find my dad.
“Knew you had it in you, Miss Lucy Sutcliffe!” he said, beaming from ear to ear and hugging me.
As I stared out of the window on the train back to Oxford that evening, I thought about the advice that Mossy had given me all those months ago. “Fake it till you make it,” he’d said. I didn’t quite understand what he meant at the time, but I did now. I’d never thought of myself as a confident person, but I’d gone into that interview room and acted like that was exactly what I was. And even though I’d had to fake it at first and pretend like I wasn’t terrified, the confidence I’d felt as I walked out of that room was 100 per cent real.
But did that make me a fake? Maybe the person Paul had seen that afternoon wasn’t the real me? Would he still want me on the course if he knew how scared I had been deep down?
As the train crawled back through Dawlish and the sky darkened, I wondered whether I actually was confident. Perhaps it was just buried underneath all my constant worrying and anxiety?
The more I thought about it, the more I became certain that it had been me in that interview room all along.
A few days later, at school, I received the email.
My jaw dropped open. An unconditional offer? That meant I had a place, no matter what my grades turned out to be.
My friends, who had crowded around my computer, starting whooping and clapping.
“That’s amazing, Luce!” Becci said, staring at me in disbelief.
I was astounded. I felt like I was in a dream. I couldn’t wait to tell my family and Kaelyn.
The summer holidays were imminent, and my final year at school was coming to an end. But despite the fact that I knew it had been coming for months, I hadn’t quite prepared myself for just how emotional it was going to be when the very last day finally rolled around.
Over the last couple of months, I’d been making my friends a leavers’ video. I’d taken each of them aside and asked them to film a message for the rest of the group, and then I’d edited it all together and made everyone a copy to keep as a sort of time capsule. I wanted to be able to remember all of our amazing memories for years to come.
As we gathered in the film studies office and watched the video together for the first time, none of us could believe it was actually our very last day. It was amazing to be together, listening to all of the memories and in-jokes that we’d had with each other over the years.
“Remember that time we turned up to that Halloween Social before ANYONE else got there?” Bel said.
We all groaned, remembering our embarrassment.
“Oh my god, I’d forgotten about that!” said Emily, putting her head in her hands. “We got there before the BOUNCERS had even arrived … so we all crouched in the backseat of Clare’s mum’s car and hid till other people turned up … oh god, oh god…”
“Don’t forget the time we made an entire film about a pair of killer tights,” I said, grinning. “Then presented it to the class with completely straight faces…”
We fell about laughing.
Bel, Emily and I decided to head to McDonalds for lunch. “Let’s order Happy Meals!” said Bel, grinning. “I’m not ready to be an adult yet!”
Girl Hearts Girl Page 8