"I want to give you all the love you deserve."
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Hadley Carter has struggled with her sexuality ever since childhood. She keeps her feelings hidden out of fear of judgement and not being accepted by oth...
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I knew I was gay from the first moment Sloane allowed me to touch her in ways I'd never quite touched someone else before; from the moment her hands were on me in ways no one else's had ever been.
Deep down, I guess I'd already known. I'd always felt a different way about pretty girls than I ever had for boys, even as a kid. Yet I'd never quite wanted to accept the fact, to admit that it was true. Not even when I kissed Julia that year at summer camp. Not even when I'd kissed Sloane for the first time. I wanted to keep those forbidden feelings I had for her at bay, to push away the things I felt for girls as if it would stop me from feeling the way I did completely.
It was no secret that my parents—or my mother, at least—were against same-sex relationships. My mom had grown up with strict religious parents, which means my sister and I were raised more or less in the same manner. Growing up, my mom had always told me that God says to love everyone, so we have to love the sinners—those who are gay—yet we don't have to "associate with those types of people".
As I grew older, I saw the way society reacts to those who are different; saw the way the people at my school shunned Tyler Brennan when he came out as gay himself, heard the way people talked about him as if he weren't quite human but rather a different species entirely over something he can't control. It's not like I chose to be attracted to Sloane, or Julia, or any girl for that matter. Attraction is a feeling, something I'm not given the luxury to choose. But if I had known what would happen over the summer—if I were able to choose—I would have chosen a different path entirely.
Or maybe not, because then I wouldn't have had those stolen moments with Sloane, wrapped up in sheets with her, her body on mine, hands all over the place, lips on each other's and in the most intimate of places.
Sloane was my best kept secret, my best friend, and something more all in one. I could never tell if I was in love with her, infatuated with her, or felt a deep attraction to her. I never had the chance to figure it out.
The day everything went to shit started out as perfect as all of the other summer days I'd spent with Sloane. She'd been over at my house, hanging out in my room while my parents were out and Reagan was over at Maddie's. We'd had the place to ourselves, yet spent the afternoon laughing and talking and sharing sweet kisses, enjoying the time we had together. We'd spent basically the entirety of June with each other, and the start of July was nearing. Neither of us chose to acknowledge the fact that summer would end in August. I would return to school and Sloane would leave for good. Instead, we chose to remain in a state of ignorant bliss, as if we had forever together.
My parents came home while we were play wrestling with each other, yet we ignored the sounds of my mom and dad unpacking groceries downstairs, knowing we were safe to do as we pleased in my hideaway of a room.
"You look good in my clothes," Sloane had teased when I'd pulled her sweatshirt over my head, breathing in the cinnamon scent that seemed to follow her everywhere.
