Ashley* was the my best friend. My sister from another mister. My second half, my right arm… we were two halves of the same whole. Separated after a year of pre-school together, only to reuinite in sixth grade English. I thought that nothing could break the bond between us.

I also didn’t think I was gay.

I remember quite distinctly the moment I realized I had “unnatural” feelings for other girls. It came in the form of a crush on an acquaintance of mine from school. I didn’t know her, I’d never spoken more than three words to her, but I watched her bounce down the hallway with that smile on her face and I thought the only thing I wanted to do was hold her in my arms.

This struck me funny. Why did I suddenly this overwhelming urge to hug strangers? I was certainly never the huggable type. All of my touchy-feely-hair-braiding friends knew better than to try and play with my hair or hang all over me. So why the sudden change? But then I realized, it was more specific than that. It wasn’t just strangers; it was strange girls.

More importantly, cute girls.

I came home from school at some point that week and I just sat in my room. Curled up on my bed with the radio on, I mulled over all my thoughts. I was certainly not a uncultured child, and my mind finally settled on the unavoidable truth: I was bisexual.

I couldn’t be gay because I’d been attracted to boys before. True, I’d never really had a crush on any in my school, but hey, I didn’t exactly attend Male Model High.

So what. I liked boys and girls. No big deal. I never went through the denial stage, I never thought of myself as disgusting or immoral, I never wanted to try and “fix” myself. I just accepted it for what it was. But I knew it was a big change in my life, and I had to tell someone. I grabbed my laptop and booted up my internet, dropping an e-mail to Ashley (I did, and still to this day, loathe talking on the phone). It said, simply, “Go on AIM as soon as you get this. I need to tell you something.”

I didn’t want to be so cryptic, but I also didn’t want to blurt it out right there and be nauseous with anxiety until I heard her reaction. An hour or so later, her screenname appeared on my buddy list. My heart pounded in my chest. I felt as though I might vomit, and as crude an image as that paints, it was exactly how I felt. I waited for a moment, hoping she’d check her mail. I was in luck, because she IMed me shortly after, ready to get into conversation: “Hey, what do you need to tell me?”

‘Well, here goes nothing,’ I thought to myself as my fingers froze above the keys. I typed in a long speech of exposition, asking her not to freak out or tell anyone what I was about to say. She agreed she wouldn’t, and I trusted her. What was a best friend for if you couldn’t trust them.

“I think I’m bisexual.” There. Seeing it on the screen made it all too real, and I think it was this moment that broguht it to reality for me. I felt slightly light-headed and lied down as I awaited her response. Still, the feelings of guilt and disgust never came; just surprise and, stunningly, relief.

My (cement block-sized) cell phone rang and I looked at the screen. No response. Not surprisingly, I saw Ashley’s name on the ID. Warily, I picked up the phone and answered.

“So… you’re bi now?” Her voice was quiet, as though she was whispering, and I wondered, almost panicked, if she was alone. I said yes. She was silent.

“Are you freaked out?” Still, no response. Now I was the one freaking out. Then,

“Hold on a second.” I heard the phone placed onto the floor and feet shuffling, and then… wretching? “Okay, I’m back.”

“…did you just throw up?” Silence.

“Yeah.” My eyes couldn’t have gotten any wider. “I’m sorry, dude, but… it’s weird.” My heart sank and tears stung my tennis ball-sized eyes. “You’ve never… liked me, have you?” I almost laughed.

“No!” I cried, not caring if the detestable tone of my voice was apparent to her. “Never! God. And even if I did, I wouldn’t, like, rape you.” A nervous chuckle hit my ears and I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. After a bit more awkward silence, we talked about it civilly. She rattled off the names of girls in our class, inquiring if I ever liked them, and constantly reminded me that she wasn’t like me. If I didn’t know any better, by how vehemently she denied it, I might have believed the opposite.

When I saw her at school the next day, things were better. Still slightly awkward at times, but we were laughing and talking nonetheless. Over time, however, it became blindingly obvious that she was not comfortable with me discussing things about my personal life. She prattled on about which boys on the baseball team she liked, and which one she wanted to go to the dances with, but as soon as I said one thing about the one girl I was madly in love with, she would make a face and change the subject. She made completely inappropriate comments about me in front of other girls; asking me, blatantly, if I wanted to sleep with them, right in front of them. And if I ever pointed out that a girl was attractive, her method of deterring my behavior was like that of a dog owner: grab my head and rub my face into the nearest wall. And if you’re getting the mental image of Ashley being a petite girl, erase that from your mind immediately.

After a while, I confronted her about what was going on. She admitted to me that she was “sick” of hearing about the girls I liked, especially the one in particular that I was head over heels for at the time. We fought, and finally, our friendship was over.

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Quite surprisingly, my 72 year old grandmother took the news better than my best friend. In fact, she took it better than anyone. Even better yet… she saw it coming.

I was bursting at the seams with the news I had. The girl I had been dreaming about all through 7th grade, the one that had ruined my friendship with the only person I trusted with the information I’d given her, the one that was causing me to nearly fail half my classes because I couldn’t take my eyes off her… she admitted to liking me back. I was ecstatic (unable to foresee the future: fast forward one year, she admitted she only dated me to get me off her back and I, admittedly, was slightly stalker-esque, and to this day we are best friends, BUT that’s beside the point of this story). I was nearly skipping around the house, humming and smiling and just generally being insufferably cheerful.

My grandma sat at the table, doing a crossword puzzle or some other such grandmother-ish activity. I stopped in front of her and stood, waiting for her to look up. She peered at me over the colourful rim of her reading glasses and smiled.

“Nanny,” I began warily. I couldn’t sit down, I was so nervous. I could deal with losing my best friend; to be honest, it was probably a blessing. But losing the trust, respect, and affection of my grandma… I didn’t think I could repair myself after that. But I was ready to explode with the news, and she was my other best friend. I felt almost obligated to tell her. She knew something was up, and she dropped the paper to the table, folding her hands under her chin. “I… need to tell you something.” Her smile never wavered, her eyes never leaving my face. I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat.

“You know that girl that’s here sometimes, Bridget*?” She nodded. “Well… she and I… well… I…” I was stumbling on words to say, and Nanny almost began laughing. I was probably as red as the tomatoes she had laid out for dinner. “I like her. And… she just told me she likes me. So… I think we’re gonna be dating soon.” I winced, waiting for her smile to fade and the frown to form; the eyes to narrow and the fists to clench. But no such outburst occurred. Instead,

“No shit.”

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I didn’t come out to my mother until well after I’d told my grandmother. Bridget and I were well past over, and we’d actually become the best of friends; like Ashley and I had been, except actually friends. I made the decision to come out to my mom at a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s house. We were sitting up at some ungodly hour of the morning like typical teenagers on such a night, the lights off, in a circle, talking about our problems. They all complained about some boy that didn’t like them back or a boyfriend that was a deadbeat or just plain stupid. By this time, all of them knew about me; I’d never actually formally come out to any of them. Somehow, they just figured it out, whether it was the change from “Straight” to “Lesbian” on Myspace (by halfway through 8th grade I realized that I was absolutely uninterested in men) or from a casual slip of the words “Ooh, she’s cute” in some conversation, they all knew it, and unlike my previous experience with my peers, they all accepted it.

While sob stories of oblivious jocks and negligent boytoys circulated the room, it appeared it was my turn. I was dating a girl, Dana*, who I was very certain I was to fall in love with. We’d met through a community theater musical and they all knew how wonderful our relationship was (again, unable to see into the future: fast forward 8 months, when she decides the “gay thing isn’t working out” for her). As all eyes fell on me, I sighed.

“I really need to tell my mom,” I said, and hearing the words from my lips made them real, just as seeing the confession on the computer screen made them real two years prior. I began crying, and my amazing group of friends began opening their doors to me. If I got kicked out, I was welcome at any of their houses. Some even offered their parents to come get me from a street corner if that was where I ended up. This made me cry even harder, realizing what phenomenal people I was lucky enough to be graced with.

When I got home that morning, after a night of restless sleep, I waited until my father was gone and my mother was idle and not angry. She was sitting at her computer, checking her email, when I asked if I could talk to her. In private.

We went into my parents’ bedroom and I shut the door, incase my father decided to come home unexpectedly. My mother sat on the bed while I paced around and fought tears for nearly 15 minutes. “What is it?” she finally demanded, and I could feel her patience waning. Finally, I stopped moving and locked eyes with her from across the bed.

“You know that girl from the show, Dana?” Wow, this seemed fairly familiar. She nodded. “Well… she told me that she likes me. Like… she has a crush on me.” I scanned my mother’s facial expression, but found nothing, so I continued. “And… I think I have one on her, too.” Again, no change. Full speed ahead. “So, I want to ask her out. But I wanted to make sure it was okay with you first.” This, I realize, was a blatant lie, as we’d already been dating for just over two months. But I certainly couldn’t tell my mom that I’d been having an illicit affair behind her back. That would not help my case. So I stuck with that story and waited for her response.

“Are you sure?” Well. Definitely not what I expected, but nothing to frown about.

“Totally,” I replied. “I really like her.” My mother frowned. Uh oh.

“Well, you don’t have to decide right now,” she said. “You’re a little young to be closing your doors so soon. Nothing is set in stone.” I realized that she wasn’t talking about my relationship, but rather, my sexuality in general.

“Right,” I said, humoring her for the sake of her good mood. “But, I definitely like this girl.” My mom nodded.

“Fine. But don’t tell your father.” Well, duh. “And don’t tell Nanny, she won’t understand.” It took every muscle in my body not to fall over laughing at this second warning, which was obviously a far cry from the brutal honesty of the first.

After this, my mother and I went on to have many more awkward conversations about my preference. “Why don’t you like boys?” “What’s wrong with boys?” “Why can’t you just be normal?” “I’m not so crazy about this girl.” The last one was understandable; my girlfriend was a complete headcase. But the more we talked, the more I got the impression that my mother was expecting my gayness to leave when Dana did. And when Dana up and left and The Gay didn’t, my mother was quite taken aback.

Recently, an article in the local newspaper was published about my high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. I had a couple quotes in the article, as well as my picture, which was captioned as follows: “Jess, 17, the only lesbian member of the GSA.”

A couple nights later, my mom came in complaining about something awful that my cousin did to my uncle. With a sigh, she flopped herself down on the couch and ran her fingers through her hair. “At least you’re normal.” I laughed; surely, she couldn’t be serious.

“No, really,” she repeated, looking me straight in the eyes. “I thank God that you’re normal.”

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