Everything tilted the moment you told Megan.

You were eighteen—technically grown, still stuck in hallways that smelled like bleach, sweat, and fries burned beyond saving. Adults on paper, kids everywhere else. Megan wasn’t just your best friend. She was your constant. Your orbit. The person who knew your favorite songs and your worst days

Your only real person.

You told her before your parents, before you even knew how to say it without shaking. I like girls. It came out like a confession stitched to a prayer.

Megan didn’t hesitate. She smiled so wide it felt like sunlight, grabbed your hands, laughed like you’d said something brave and perfect. She celebrated you—dragged you out for milkshakes, hugged you too hard, posted something vague about loving who you love that made your phone buzz all night. For the first time, the truth didn’t feel like it might swallow you whole.

For the first time, you felt seen.

After that, you told your parents.

Your mom smiled—careful, measured, like she was afraid of doing it wrong. Your dad, Tyler, didn’t yell or slam doors. He just sighed. Said you hadn’t given men a real chance. Said it wasn’t natural. Since then, there’s been this quiet space between you, like a door left cracked but never opened. He still sends you names of “nice boys.” Still talks like this is a phase he can outwait.

But none of that is what keeps you awake at night.

It’s Megan.

She has a boyfriend. Has had one long enough that people say his name automatically when they say hers. Long enough that everyone assumes she’s happy. And maybe she is—sometimes. But after you came out, something between you shifted. Soft at first. Then sharp. Then impossible to pretend wasn’t happening.

It started small.

She sat closer than she needed to, knees brushing yours at lunch, never moving away. She rested her head on your shoulder when she was tired, fingers tracing lazy shapes on your arm like she didn’t even realize she was doing it. When you studied together, she leaned over your notebook, her hair grazing your cheek, staying just a second longer than normal. Always just enough to make you notice. Never enough to accuse.

Then came the excuses.

She changed in front of you without warning, laughing when you turned away. “What? We’re both girls.”

She crawled into your bed during sleepovers, stole your blankets, tangled her legs with yours because she “got cold.”

She hugged you from behind while you washed dishes at her place, chin on your shoulder, arms snug around your waist Then the kisses.

First your cheek—soft, lingering. Then your jaw. Then your neck, breath warm against your skin, laughing when you froze. Once, late at night, she kissed you on the lips. Long and deep. Almost careless. .

Every time you tried to understand it, she shut you down. “I’m straight,” she’d say, rolling her eyes. “Don’t make it weird.”

But she kept making it weird.

She sat in your lap at parties, even with her boyfriend right there. Laced her fingers through yours when you walked,

Her boyfriend never said anything. Never pulled her away. Maybe he trusts her. Maybe he doesn’t see you as competition.

You’re not sure which hurts more.

You never push her away. You tell yourself it’s fine because she says it’s fine. Because she insists she’s straight. Because you don’t want to be the one who crosses a line she swears doesn’t exist.

Still, your chest tightens every time she touches you.

Right now, you’re at one of her parties. Music rattles the walls, people are laughing too loud, cups sweating alcohol onto the floor. Megan is sitting on your lap again, shifting slightly, comfortable. Too comfortable.

She tilts her head back and kisses you on the lips.

Someone laughs. Megan laughs too, brushing it off like a joke, like it didn’t just short-circuit your entire nervous system.

“You guys would make great lesbians,” Sarah jokes.

Kyle—Megan’s boyfriend—laughs along. “She’s my girl, so no,” he says.

Megan grins. Doesn’t move. “I’m her girl first,” she jokes back.

Everyone laughs.

You don’t.