Age 6
I walked holding my mom’s hand into the school. I was late. I had planned with my best friend the day before to meet before school started since it was our first day of first grade and since this was a new school because the other one was just preschool and kindergarten and now we were the youngest instead of the oldest and this school went up to sixth grade and those kids looked scary. Of course my mom had different plans for me and made me late and now I was trying to find my classroom. Once we found it, the bell had already rang and I was suppose to be inside. My mom opened the door and led me in. I looked up to see two brown eyes looking straight at me and I couldn’t help but look back straight at her.I felt like all the oxygen around me had vanished and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I had been making eye contact for hours before I heard my name being spoken by my mom. I was scared, I wasn’t sure why but maybe it was because I thought my mom had caught me staring at the girl. I wasn’t so sure why that scared me but I knew it did. Instead when I looked up she used her head to point to the teacher that had spoken to me. I looked at her confused and she realized I hadn’t heard her.
“What’s your name?” She asked me with a wide smile.
“Lauren.”
“Glad for us to join us. Find the seat with your name on it.” My eyes went directly to the brown eyed girl, I looked at the seat next to her and it was empty. I then noticed my bestfriend on the other side of the empty seat, waving and pointing to the same seat and I wondered how long she had been doing that.
“Hey.” Normani, my best friend said, not sounding mad that I had gotten there late.
“Hi.” I replied my voice shaking. I glanced over to my right where the brown eyed girl had been sitting and looked at the name written on her desk.
“Karla?” I stupidly said out loud.
“Camila.” She replied. I turned my face to her.
“What?” I asked.
“I liked to be called Camila.”
“Camilla?”
“No Cameeela.” She emphasized.
“Cameeela.” I replied with the same emphasis. She laughed and in that moment it became my favorite thing in the world.
We didn’t talk much after that because the teacher began to take roll.
“Dinah.” She said.
“She’s not here, she’s visiting her family in Arizona.” Camila answered. I don’t know why but I started to feel jealous, jealous that someone had met her before me.
Age 11
Camila and I had become better friends. It was also the age I realized that I liked her. I don’t know how it clicked in me but it did. It was weird because I had heard about gay people before but I didn’t think I was, it was just Camila. I liked guys a lot but with Camila it was different, it felt better than anything else. She made me happy just by being in the same room. It wasn’t till one day that the word bisexual came up on television that I finally understood. It was a possibility to be able to like both genders. I didn’t tell anyone though, not even Normani who was still my best friend. I don’t know why, because I knew she wasn’t going to judge me but I never felt comfortable.
Everyday after school Camila and I would walk out of the classroom to the outside of the school, where we would wait for our parents. Whenever Friday would run around it would be my favorite day, not just because it was the weekend but because the snack store was open. Every Friday as Camila and I walked out to the front of the school we would stop at the snack store and I would usually buy her something. At first it had taken some convincing but later she figured out that I was happy to buy her something.
