We Are Written in the Stars - Kaylor

5. Loose Lips Sink Ships

Taylor was fifteen when she finally came out. Thoughts about green eyes faded to the background during those next years, as she dealt with the sudden, somewhat unsurprising realisation that she liked girls.

Really, really liked girls.

It wasn't that she couldn't see the appeal of boys, but the fact that she wasn't swooning over them made her stand out even more than her tall frame already did, her disinterest in the subject providing her bullies with another flaw with which to torment her.

For a few years, Taylor desperately tried to bend and break herself to fit the mould that other girls seemed to inhabit so naturally. She forced herself to think of boys in that way, almost desperately. Surely something would eventually elicit a feeling, a reaction, anything.

Then one day, Taylor caught herself staring at a girl in class for a beat longer than was probably necessary. And that was the moment she knew.

It wasn't as though everything instantly snapped into focus. It was like wiping a fogged mirror; already knowing what lay underneath, but only seeing herself once it was clean.

Taylor realised she had known for a while. So many things finally made sense.

Her 'admiration' for all her favourite characters, who all happened to be female. Her shyness around some of the other girls at school, shyness she simply passed off as a result of her personality, a side-effect of bullying.

Her newfound love of songwriting, and her frustration that the songs she produced with male pronouns just felt wrong.

Taylor's thoughts inevitably turned to her mystery girl. The fact that these dreams were about another girl never bothered her until now. All she cared about as a kid was how the other girl made her feel; a sensation as natural as curling a finger.

That's what her realisation felt like. Natural. As she lay in her bed that night, testing the words out in her mind, a wave of understanding slowly seeped into her bones. And for the first time, Taylor felt the most authentic, the most Taylor she had felt in a long time.

Then the fear swept in, the implications of what she was so close to admitting crashing down on her like a deadweight. She couldn't be gay. She was a big enough target at school as it was.

What would Abigail say? Would she still want to be friends? Would she be scared of her?! The thought that she may view Taylor as predatory, as anything other than her best friend was almost enough to make her cry.

And her mom. God, what would she say? She knew that her mother was not overtly homophobic, but would that change if she found out her daughter was gay?

Taylor's head was so full that night that she couldn't sleep, alternating between pacing, and lying in bed staring at the ceiling, Dee purring comfortably on her stomach. One thing became clear. This was too big to keep to herself.

She was still awake when her alarm blared the next morning.

Shuffling back under the bedcovers, Taylor groggily sent a text to Abigail, asking for a sleepover.

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In what would later be dubbed the Great Gay Weekend, Taylor spent the next Saturday night at Abigail's house, working up the courage to finally admit her discovery to her best friend.

Sitting in the redhead's bed, barely paying attention to the movie playing in the background, Taylor eventually took a giant swig of her Coke before sighing.