The summer after graduating high school, I was in a pissy mood. Yes, the whole summer. I was terrified about going to college hours away from my family and sad to be leaving my friends, especially my best friend, Jillian. Throughout high school, Jillian and I had a covert romantic and sexual relationship. We saw each other intermittently from our first year of high school (age 14) until we left for college (age 18), pausing only when we had boyfriends. And occasionally unpausing it during those times. We somehow simultaneously thought of each other as our soulmate and also a relationship that didn’t “count” as cheating because we were both women. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s something I’ve since learned is actually fairly common amongst closeted teenagers.
Our last semester of high school, Jillian started dating a boy in our year named Tom. At first, I didn’t dislike him any more than I disliked her other boyfriends — it was more a general jealousy that she could date them in public instead of an actual dislike of them as individuals. But then, against my wishes, she told Tom about us one night shortly before graduation. I was fucking pissed. I wasn’t ready to be “out,” and I wasn’t even sure what my sexuality was, so this felt like both an invasion of my privacy and a lot of pressure to suddenly define myself. Jillian apologized profusely when she saw how upset I was, and I did forgive her fairly quickly considering my ability to hold a grudge, but the damage was done.