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So, at the stubborn persistence of one of my friends, and the kind encouragement of Kelly (which I think was the final push I needed) I’ve finally decided to share my story here on TLL. With my friend’s inspirational words, “Oh, seriously – do it. So long as you have something to say. Don’t just send blither-blather into the world.” I figured I do have something to say, and hopefully I will be able to construct it into something that amounts into more than “blither-blather.”

Let me first make a small disclaimer for all you out there with firm set opinions. I am only 16 for God’s sake! I’m very far from having myself figured out. What I do know, however, is that I did not voluntarily come out. While I was quite content to sit in the dark, peeping curiously through the crack in the door, I was not allowed to stay there and take my time. I was forcibly grabbed by the collar and yanked out of the closet. It was a very rude awakening.

In the summer of 2007 I attended a Christian summer camp up in the mountains. It was a wonderful experience that I would not trade for the WORLD. It is my favorite place to be besides home, and I just.. I love it. While I was there, I became very close with the people in my cabin, but I became especially close with my female counselor. I remember this one time.. ok. See, she would wake me up in the mornings. Because I’ll sleep through just about anything if someone doesn’t get me up. There was one morning when I was already awake (although in denial of the fact) and I remember her standing over me and, thinking I was still asleep, resting her hand lightly on my head, brushing the hair out of my face, running her fingers softly through my hair.. before laughing and giving me a playful shove, shouting “Wake up!” On camp out, with our sleeping bags side by side, I remember staying up talking long after everyone else had fallen asleep, and joking and trying to guess which girls were snoring… I remember falling asleep holding her hand. When I got home from camp I was unpacking and found a giant bag of my favorite kind of candy in my duffle bag. I promptly called her and she admitted to slipping it into my bag because she knew they were my favorite.

We talked on the phone several more times before she left in September to go to Wales where she would be studying abroad for the semester. While she was gone we didn’t talk much.. the occasional facebook message. About a month before she was supposed to get back my dad helped me set up Skype (it’s like a video chat.. thing.. via computer, where you can talk to someone and be able to see them) and we began to talk several times a week. When she got back she came and visited me. She attends a university which is about an hour drive from where I live. We went out to lunch and then spent the afternoon hanging out, and exchanged Christmas presents. She got me a stuffed tiger and Pez dispensers. The Pez dispenser collection, she ordered online from e-bay, and got them for me because I used to collect them when I was little but my mom had gotten rid of my collection when we moved houses. The stuffed Tiger, I named Holly, after her. Her middle name is Hollis. The stuffed tiger came with a microphone/recorder thing.. which I figured out how to work the following morning, and I recorded the phrase “everything’s gonna be alright” from the song “No One” by Alicia Keys (it was playing on the radio when I figured out how to work the stupid thing).

My family went to Colorado after Christmas to go skiing. It’s funny. When I think of Colorado, I think of her. Even though we were miles apart. The week I spent in Colorado marked the beginning of us becoming extremely close. We became best friends. She became the person that I called whenever I was upset, whenever I needed support, whenever I just needed someone to make me laugh…

Over the next couple of months, we formed inside jokes, we grew to know everything about the other person, I’ve never had someone know me better than she did. I knew her schedule better than I knew mine. I would call her in the morning on the way to school to wake her up, she would call me between her classes. She became a very prominent part of my everyday life, even though she was miles away and I could count on my fingers the number of days I’d actually spent with her in person (at that point it was 13 days, just for the record). She was my best friend, in every sense of the word.

The camp where we met does a high school winter retreat in February which we were both supposed to go to. Since we live so close to each other, she was going to drive me there. However, I got really, really sick and wasn’t able to go. That same week, my boyfriend dumped me (the night before Valentines day). Let’s just say, I was a walking train-wreck. Really. It was awful. And it didn’t help, that I received so many teddy bears and giant heart shaped boxes of chocolates that my arms were so full I had to stand outside of doors waiting for someone to conveniently come along and open the door for me. “Oh, did your boyfriend get you all that?” ……“No, actually.. he didn’t..”

So, because we hadn’t gotten to see each other, and because my boyfriend was a total douche, she invited me to spend the weekend with her. I said yes before she could finish asking the question.

I had Driver’s Ed class after school till 6 on Friday, and she was supposed to pick me up afterward. She called me as she pulled up, and even though I knew it was her and I recognized her truck, I still did a double take when I actually saw her. She wore her hair down! She hates wearing her hair down, but I give her such a hard time about it (because she has BEAUTIFUL long blonde hair). So whenever I see her for the first time after it’s been awhile, she always wears her hair down. The drive back to her apartment felt ridiculously short, even though it took over an hour because of traffic. She had gotten me a bag of my favorite candy, butterscotch (the little hard candies in the yellow cellophane rappers). She said she had a surprise for me, but wouldn’t tell me what it was. When we got back to her apartment, I was introduced to her three roommates. We then left to go to my “surprise”. She had gotten tickets to dance concert. For those of you that don’t know, I am a dancer and I love to perform, choreograph, and watch others perform. Love. It. It was probably the best surprise I’ve ever gotten. After getting back to the apartment, and getting into bed, we continued to stay up until 5:30 AM talking, holding hands, and cuddling. The following morning I met her parents who had come down to visit for the morning (which was terrifying) and then we went to a basketball game with one of her roommates. We got in a fight over a bag of skittles, because I wanted her to have the last red one because they’re her favorite, but she wanted me to have the last red one because they’re MY favorite. I think we ended up dropping it and watching it get stepped on (and laughing ourselves silly over it). We spent the evening at the apartment together watching TV and around 11 o’clock one of her roommates announced that we should go to the parking deck by the basketball gymnasium. So, at 11:00 PM we drove to the top deck of the parking deck with her roommates, roommate’s boyfriend, and other friends. We blasted music from the truck, someone had brought a frisbee and a nerf ball… eventually we all ended up sitting in the bed of the truck with pillows and blankets and listening to country music. It was the best weekend of my entire life.

The following week we talked constantly. Before I went to school, in between classes, after school, in the evenings, before bed. She started doing this thing, where after we would say goodnight I would turn my phone off… and she would call my phone and leave me a voicemail singing me part of a song, so that in the morning when I turned my phone on it would be the first thing I would hear. The first time she ever did this she sang the chorus from the song “Good Morning Beautiful” by Steve Holy. “Good morning beautiful, how was your night? Mine was wonderful, with you by my side, when I, open my eyes, and see your sweet face, it’s a, good morning beautiful day”.

My school does this weird thing where we have a two hour delayed start every third Thursday of every month. Anyway. There was one that week. So we planned to see each other. She drove down Wednesday after school, and we spent the afternoon together. We got dinner with some of my other best friends,  Ash, and some of my other friends. Afterwards we went and got ice cream with Ash and then dropped her off at home. By the time we got back to my house it was about 11.. and we decided to go to bed (since I had school the next day, despite the two hour delay). I only got 45 minutes of sleep that night. Or should I say morning?

I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life. There’s no simpler way to describe it. We were planning on spending the next weekend together. I was going to stay with her at her apartment. The morning I was supposed to leave, things went… …wrong.

A soft click as the alarm went off. Loud, twangy country music penetrated the still room. The covers on the bed shuddered as a disgruntled hand emerged, knocking things off the bedside table in search of the alarm clock. With the success of quieting the radio, another hand emerged as a stifled yawn escaped the covers. Mousy brown hair and two soft brown eyes peeked out from under the mountain of blankets. 8:19am. Soft bare feet padded along the floor to the bathroom. Glancing in the mirror after wiping a splash of cold water from her face revealed a thin figure with an olive complexion. Big brown eyes with thick long lashes and tousled hair falling over her shoulders. Grabbing her cell phone, she slipped back into bed.

She picked up the phone. I smiled into my pillow. Goodmorning. No? Not goodmorning? What do you mean she knows? Who knows? My mom knows? Impossible. How. No. no No No NO NO! How?! She didn’t! Threatened? How? With what? She can’t do that. She called you? When? Last night? But she never let on.. lie? You’re supposed to lie? What do you mean I’m not supposed to know! Why wouldn’t you tell me? She doesn’t want me to know? How does she expect me not to know! What do you mean we can’t talk! No! Please. Please dear God no. This isn’t happening. Memorize.. what? Your number? I’ll call. I promise. You can’t talk to me for awhile? How long is awhile? But we can barely go two hours without speaking.. I promise. I promise I won’t hurt myself. Really, I promise. I love you too. I love you so much.

My entire world crashed down on me. Suffocated me. Killed me. Nearly.

I tried to call her that night. It was the last time I ever got to talk to her. “I need to go now. I can’t talk to you I’ll get in trouble. I need to go. I love you, ok? Don’t you ever forget that! I love you!” The following week blurred. I never will be able to recount clearly what happened when. I stopped eating. I stopped sleeping. I cried. Day, and night. I cried. I sobbed. Gut wrenching sobs of pure despair. My parents checked me into the psych ward at the hospital. It was awful. I hated myself. I hated everyone. I pushed away all human contact with anyone and everyone. I cut off every friendship I had. I hated myself, my parents, my religion, everyone… I never got to say goodbye. I never got any closure. She blocked me on facebook, on AIM, she won’t answer e-mails, or phone calls. My parents blocked her number on our phone.

They threatened her. They told her parents, and her family. They threatened to get her fired from her job at camp (she ended up resigning), they threatened to charge her with statutory rape, they threatened to have her listed as a federal sex offender, they threatened to keep her from graduating…

I later learned that my mom found out by going through my stuff. My friend Ash and I keep a journal together, and my mom went through and read it after I had gone to bed. Talk about major invasion of privacy. My mom promptly tried to convince me that this didn’t make me gay, that just because of “what she did to me” it didn’t make me gay. It didn’t. She insisted. If you heard the story from my mom you would think I was raped. What she doesn’t realize, is it’s not a physical thing. It doesn’t matter if we had sex, it’s the fact that I loved her, that I honestly loved her from the bottom of my heart. That, in my opinion, is what is important and no one can change that. No one can change how I felt. Not even I can change how I felt.

I struggle to survive a day. I just want to be able to say goodbye. I don’t know if I’ll ever talk to her again, see her again… how the hell am I supposed to move on with my life? I could have lived without the sex. But taking away my love, taking away my best friend… an irreplaceable part of me is gone. I’m a colder person, a wiser person, a more depressing person, a more pessimistic person, a sassier person, a bitchier person, a child that was forced to grow up. I went from 15 to 54 over night.