fascination // ✔

2. fire

Actually, everyone had.

We were allowed to watch anything we wanted to on the telly but only on Saturdays. And everyone was fine with this rule. It was fair.

Except this Saturday we decided to watch something on Discovery. Some stupid show about sex. And it was then that I made a very stupid comment about men. A comment I've new forced myself to forget, a memory I wish I could forget. What I do remember is me saying something along the lines of how anyone could ever want to have sex with a man. Cuddling I could understand, holding hands I understood, hugging I understood. But sex? That I didn't understand.

Since that fateful time I became a mockery, a dyke, a lesbian as for the two years I was there. And I was ashamed of all the other girls calling me that, even though the rational voice in the back of my mind told me there was nothing wrong with the word.

And so my bestfriend laughed and ran when I came towards her, just for fun. I knew it was supposed to be funny but I still let it hurt me. I could tell she was giving me uneasy looks.

I also knew what was written in her Bible, about everything I was ashamed to be.

So I found myself a guy to like. A nice boy in the class next to mine with curly hair and eyes that crinkled when he smiled. The good thing was that he was smitten, the bad thing was I didn't really care.

But of course I had to show I did.

So I accepted the cheap blue Mickey Mouse watch he gave me, the tiny chocolates, the notes, the poems, the pretty rose he gifted every week.

And I was on good terms with my daily-praying, bible-reading bestfriend again and I couldn't be more ecstatic.

Until one day she approached me and said I seemed to be thinking a bit too much about this guy and I almost laughed in her face.

Ironic, isn't it?

I wanted to tell her the only person I thought about in remotely that way was her, the only one who mattered was her.

But of course I didn't. So I apologised and the rift between us was made by me quite unknowingly.

My apology wasn't sincere because it wasn't him I was thinking of, it was her. And I knew I couldn't stop even if I tried my very hardest to.

And then we stopped speaking to each other completely - my what can happen in one short year - we grew apart and she stopped sharing with me the life I was so fascinated with.

And I stopped going to church.

I would cry at night and now my prayers, my requests from God were very different.

All I wanted was her forgiveness.