In The Closet

1. My Gay Was Showing From A Very Young Age

a/n: I have nothing against Christianity. don't hate me.

Seventeen years ago today, I appeared into this world. My first glimpse of light that wasn't the artificial, overly bright stuff in the hospital wasn't until six or seven hours later, as I was born at midnight. On the dot. Unlikely, I know. I was a nice healthy baby so I was taken home the next day.

Six months after that, I was taken to a church and christened Catherine White. My family are all incredibly religious, and all believed I would be too, if I was raised correctly.

I started school at the age of four. Generally a pleasant child, as my first ever school report said. Good at maths, whatever kind of maths four-year-olds do, polite and eager to help at anything. I wouldn't say much has changed, really. Apparently I was the one annoying kid who ran around trying to make people kiss. On top of that, I'd try to kiss all the girls. Most people like me have said it before, so I'll say it again: my gay was showing from a very young age. My primary school was, like my parents, incredibly Christian, so they didn't really take to this all too well. One of my earliest memories is of me aged five being yelled at by a teacher for "sinning". Brainwashing the young much?

I didn't find out what "gay" actually meant until I was about eight. This boy I was kind of friends with at the time described a story we had to read in class as gay and I asked what it meant.

"It's when a boy is in love with another boy." he'd said.

"But there aren't any boys in love with other boys in the story," I replied.

"Yes but the story's rubbish." was his response. It still didn't make any sense to me. The story was bad, I agreed, but what did that have to do with boys being in love with each other?

I soon learnt that "gay" wasn't an accepted thing among children. Of course, for about a year, I thought that only boys liking other boys was bad and I was safe. That was not the case.

I remember watching TV with my parents at nine years old and two girls started kissing. Mum screamed and turned it off straight away.

"I don't want to see lesbians on my screen. It's completely disgusting that they'd dare to show that before watershed, let alone at all." she said. Dad agreed. I remember not understanding what was wrong with it. If it's how they want to live, they can live that way, right?

I'd never actually been to church much, as, even though my parents were devout Christians, they'd never thought that church was a place for children. Because of this, I've been able to cook since the age of seven. It's as if my parents knew I was gay from the start, because they always preferred Nathan to me.

Nathaniel White was born two and a half years after me. He's always been good at everything, and believes strongly in God and Jesus and basically everything.

My first "registered" attraction to females was in Year Six. All primary schools have that one ten or eleven year old who's already basically through puberty already and looks about five years older than they actually are. Sara Jackson was that kid in my school. I had an insane crush on her, just like all the boys. Except one. His name was Jack Roberts. We went to the same secondary school and bonded over our gayness. We're still friends now.

Anyway, yes. Sara had practically finished puberty already. Of course, as much as I wished I was, I wasn't even friends with her. Well, I wished I was dating her, but eleven year olds can't really have much of a relationship, can they? Sara was the "cool kid", the one owned heels, wore make up, had the best hair. I, on the other hand, was a gigantic nerd who could still pass for about seven years old. So inevitably, we never became friends.

Starting secondary school was possibly the beginning of an awful time. Maybe the worst of it didn't start up until about Year Eight, when I accidentally told a girl in English I was a lesbian and she freaked out and told everyone. But right from the start I was "pushed out", in a sense. Well. I had that brief period of time at the start of the year where everyone's friends. The oldest girl in the year invited every female in our form to a giant sleepover for her birthday where they talked about "hot guys" until half one in the morning. I was so bored, and so was one other girl so we played snap until they all finally shut up. No, she was not gay, sadly, she was just a little "behind" the girl hosting the sleepover and didn't want to make up emotions she didn't have.

Once friend groups began to form was when I made friends with Jack. There was another kid called Jamie who was also our friend at the beginning. But we don't talk about him; he was an asshole.

When I was thirteen, I had my first kiss. It wasn't to a girl, though. I had a boyfriend for about three months to "correct myself", but it never felt right. He wasn't exactly the greatest of humans, anyway; literally the day after we broke up, he had another girlfriend.

A year and a half later, I went to the girl in our year who'd kissed the most guys and asked for "kissing lessons".

"I don't mean as in y'know but like genuine lessons," I said. "This sounds so dumb, I'm sorry, forget it."

"No, I get where you're coming from," she replied. "I guess I could try. Just-"

"Don't worry, I'm smart enough to not fall for a straight girl."

So that was what happened. She taught me how to kiss, and it was all fine. And then it got to actual "practice". She was a brilliant kisser. And she thought the same about me.

"I... I don't understand. I thought there was a massive difference between kissing the gender you're attracted to and the one you aren't."

It turned out she was bisexual. And she was the girl who hosted the sleepover when we were in Year Seven. Her name was Nikki, and we've been dating for two years, as of today.

"Can one of my birthday presents be for me to call you my girlfriend?" I'd asked.

She didn't reply with words. She kissed me for a second time – in the middle of the corridor where our lockers were. We got detentions for "showing affection", and were picked on by other kids for showing affection towards girls, but by this point, we didn't give a damn.

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a/n: new story, whoo!! I'm aiming for these chapters to be more 800-1200 words than 500-800 so this should hopefully still not be going on into chapter thirty. ANYWAY, updates every Friday for this! I hope you enjoy!