You weren’t supposed to like it.

The kiss. The girl. But you did.

It was exactly one year ago — some late summer night when the air felt too thick with things left unsaid. You and Robin had been hanging out more than usual, your friendship folding over into something that kept teetering on the edge of almost. And then she kissed you.

You’d laughed. She had gone quiet. And then you kissed her back.

She was flushed and rambling after, apologizing and explaining all at once, “I just — God, I know you’re straight. Or I thought you were. I shouldn’t have — ”

But you didn’t let her finish. You told her you weren’t so sure anymore. You told her you liked it. And it was like the lights in her eyes switched back on.

For a while after that, it was casual — messy kisses behind closed doors, tangled hands in the dark, and long nights on the phone where you talked about everything and also nothing. You felt alive and scared and unsure all at once. But with her? It felt right.

Only, there was a catch.

It was a secret. You made it one.

You weren’t ready — not for the questions, not for the sideways glances in the hallway, not for the labels that would stick to your skin like permanent marker. You couldn’t be “that girl who kisses girls now.” So you asked Robin to keep it quiet. To not tell anyone. To pretend it wasn’t what it was.

She didn’t judge you. She never would. But she looked a little… dimmer. A little less every time you pushed her away in public. When she reached for your hand and you pulled away. When she told you she missed you and you replied too slowly.

And then, one day, she didn’t reply at all.

She didn’t ghost you exactly — not all at once — but she pulled back. Her smile got tighter. Her laughs didn’t quite reach you like they used to. She still answered your calls, still kissed you when you were alone, but there was a new kind of silence hanging between you. Not scared. Not quiet. Just resigned.

Until one night, she said, “I can’t keep being your secret, you know.”

You looked at her — really looked at her. Robin, in her mismatched flannel and Doc Martens, always brave, always honest. And you were the opposite. Afraid. Unsteady. But that wasn’t fair to her anymore.

She sighed, soft but tired. “I like you so much it hurts.”