I was a lesbian.
I was born that way.
But in an African home, being born something does not mean you're allowed to live as it.
Fear raised me alongside my parents. Silence was discipline. Questions were rebellion. Love—real love—was something you learned to swallow before it could embarrass the family name.
So I hid.
I hid from my parents, from my church, from my classmates. I hid so well that even my best friend didn't know the truth of me. I learned how to laugh at jokes that bruised me. How to nod when girls talked about boys. How to exist without being seen.
In high school, my heart chose girls quietly. It chose them the way you choose something forbidden—with longing and guilt tangled together. I was in love with my best friend for years, and she never knew. That love stayed locked inside me like a confession written but never sent.
At sixteen, my friends teased me for still being a virgin. They laughed, called me innocent, slow, behind. I let them. They didn't know I wasn't waiting for a boy.
I was waiting for courage.
Then she came.
A new girl transferred into our school, and everything shifted. She was beautiful in a way that didn't ask permission. She dressed like a boy, walked like she knew where she was going, and looked like someone who had already survived things I hadn't yet dared to name.
Back then, I didn't know there were others like me. I thought I was a mistake—one of a kind. I didn't know lesbian culture. I didn't know the signs. I didn't know she was gay.
I didn't know if she already knew about me.
The next day, she walked up to me and said she wanted to be friends.
I panicked.
I told her I already had a group. A best friend. I offered to introduce her to everyone—anything to keep her at a safe distance. She shook her head, smiled once, and said she only wanted to be friends with me.
Then she walked away.
That should have been the end of it.
Instead, my heart started racing like it had been waiting for that moment all my life. I didn't understand why my chest felt tight, why my hands were shaking, why her walking away felt like loss.
I ran after her.
"Okay," I said. "Just me."
That was the first lie I told for love.
We became friends. And every time I saw her, my body betrayed me. I changed the way I dressed. The way I laughed. The way I stood. I wanted her attention the way you want air when you're drowning—but I pretended I was fine.
One afternoon, she asked if we could meet after class. She said she had something important to tell me.
When we met, she didn't hesitate.
"Will you go on a date with me?"
The world tilted.
I hadn't told her anything about myself. Not a word. My first thought wasn't happiness—it was terror. Had someone told her? Had she seen through me? Had my secret finally escaped me?
I acted confused. Played stupid.
Then she stepped closer and said, quietly, "I know. And I like you."
My knees almost gave out.
She held my hand. "Say something."
I should have said no. I should have run. I should have chosen safety.
Instead, I chose truth.
"Okay," I said. "I'll meet you."
That night, I barely slept.
The next day, I dressed like I was preparing for a crime scene. When she asked me to be her girlfriend, I said yes before fear could stop me. When she kissed me, something inside me unlocked—something I had kept chained my whole life.
It felt right. Too right.
I begged her to keep us secret. She agreed without argument. That should have warned me—but love makes you generous with your blind spots.
We loved each other quietly. In classrooms. In stolen visits to her house. In moments that felt borrowed from another life. She was gentle with me, patient, careful with my firsts. I trusted her with parts of myself I had never spoken out loud.
I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone.
And then love began to ask for sacrifices.
She didn't like how close I was to my best friend. Didn't like how easily I laughed with her. Didn't like that someone else knew me in ways she couldn't control. Arguments replaced softness. Jealousy replaced understanding.
And then she cheated.
She told me herself. Calmly. Like a confession she had already forgiven herself for.
Then she left.
No fight. No apology worth keeping. Just absence.
I went home that day and sat in my room, carrying a heartbreak I couldn't explain to anyone. In a house where my love had no language, my pain had no witness.
I thought that was the end of the story.
I was wrong.
Because years later, I would learn something that would tear that memory open again—
Something she never told me.
Something she had known from the very beginning.
And when the truth finally surfaced, I realized:
That first love wasn't an accident.
It was a collision.
And I had never been the only one hiding.