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Whenever you watch or read stories about a person coming out – finally telling the truth about themselves to someone or themselves - there’s often the phrase I always knew I was different in it. As if every person inherently knows from a very young age who they are inside and who they are meant to be. Looking back at it now, you still feel hurt that you didn’t always know. Like the God your mother feverishly follows played a trick on you, to make sure you didn’t know until you were a bit older.
You never fell in love. You never had anyone to call your best friend. You just thought it would come later, like your father told you; that he’d never had a relationship before your mother came into his life. You never really cared too much.
Until you were sat down next to a curly-haired boy called Jonas in ungdomsskole.
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And then, it still didn’t happen for the longest time. His presence was the start of you opening up, to see other people than those you knew for years by way of being put together for hours at a time. You never connected with anyone as quickly as you did with him.
In the beginning, you still didn’t tell him. When the shouting started, when the crying never stopped, when your parents began to sleep in different rooms. One night, you called him to ask if you could come over, and he must’ve heard the screaming in the background when he tells you you can always come to me, you know that right?
So that night, when you’re sleeping on the floor next to him, you’re staring at his face – his relaxed, sleeping face – and there’s a small, barely noticeable skip in your chest. That night you dream about the two of you, and in the morning to only thing you remember is him laughing in your dream.
This is when you find out what having a crush feels like.
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In the years after you realise that you are attracted to boys. You’re not able to call yourself gay, even though subconsciously you guess you are, but the word itself is too loud, it’s too big – not something you can see yourself saying anytime soon, or ever.
Your best friend has pulled you towards every party he’s invited to, introduced you to a great amount of people – tells you all about new girlfriends, and their female friends, and how cool it would be if you would date her, Isak. And sometimes you do, sometimes you hook up with her, and sometimes you don’t. It’s not like you’re very existentially hating yourself into loving women, you’re just mostly bored around them.
He gets a girlfriend pretty soon, and after a year, he starts dating another one – and this one you like more, she’s nice and you can actually talk to her. She gets your annoyance with his other ‘friend’. Outside of your best friend, she’s the one person you talk the most with. And it surprises you that you get along so well – but, realistically, you know.
He’ll never return your feelings.
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When your father leaves, the one person who stays is your best friend – the best friend who feels like the only one in the world who actually cares for you. He comes over and sleeps over every night for a week, keeping you together when the world around you is forcing you apart.
In the past few weeks, you’d been trying to drown out the noise your parents made arguing by drinking alcohol – straight from the bottle, bottles you found in the basement that your father used to lock. During a weak moment, you had sent a message to an Instagram account, a message that you immediately regret sending but whatever.
The world’s not on your side anyway - why do I have to room with the gay guy; he’s just making a joke; that’s a gay song – it has never been.
The resulting drama is one that you had never foreseen when sending that message, and it feels like a double-edged sword; finally, finally, Jonas turns all his attention on you again, and he talks to you about his feelings. But, at the same time, you lose her. Someone you’d call your best friend too. When she confronts you in the kitchen during a girl’s Christmas party, there’s a moment that you think she sees right through you – she must’ve known all along, you’ve been staring too long at him and why else would you cause them to break up?
A small moment where there’s recognition in her eyes, and you freeze – hoping both that she will know and will not know, making it both easier and harder for you to breathe. But she doesn’t, and she won’t.
You feel a mask, pulling over your face, over the back of your head and swallowing you whole.
This – unreal, fake, unrecognisable - is who you have to be now.
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One night, in the comfort of your bed, you search for others like you; someone you could find to be around – maybe, soon. Maybe never.
You even open up sites that a little more unsavoury; almost like a test, checking if you’re not faking it – that maybe you’re just imagining being into boys instead of girls, as if it’d be that easy. But seeing the videos, and the bodies, and the movements and sounds – it doesn’t disagree, it confirms.
When you hear your mother muttering on the other side of the wall, you quickly shut down your phone.
It takes an hour to stop your pounding heart from being scared.
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The weeks before Christmas are rough, and he’s still around – helping you whenever he can with your mother, as much as you let him in. It feels heavy, like a weight pushing you down wherever you go – caring for your mother. And it shouldn’t be like this, you realise, waiting for your father to make decisions that he never ends up making – leaving you all alone. But you bear it. You’ve always done so.
After Eva leaves you behind on that bench, you find yourself wanting to cry but unable to – you’re trying to feel but your mind keeps telling you no you can’t, you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t care so much: it makes you weak. You find the switch that makes you stop feeling eventually, pulling up and covering, and hiding behind an exterior you’ve created that you hope will protect you.
Because I’ll never be happy – you think, staring at the boy who’s been there for you but you know will never be more.
I’m not allowed to be.