I’ve waited all year to see them, to tell them. It feels like I’ve learned so much about myself since the last time we were all together. I’ve changed. There’s so much I want to tell them, but some things will always be caught in my throat, or at least for now. Tonight, I just need to say one thing.

They’re all looking at me. My friends, who I’ve known for 3, 5 years. It could be just me, but I feel their eyes push with expectation. Expectation for me to tell them what I promised. They deserve it, I know they do. I promised I would tell them, and after a long night of laughing, eating, dancing, under bright lights and music, I realize it’s time. I can’t escape it. Why is it so hard? Why is this cement wall so strong, when I could just let my mind break it down? I’m taking a giant breath, getting ready. It feels like a decade that I sit there on the bed, Ava in a chair, Shai on the end of the bed, Catherine leaning on it. I don’t even know how long it was to them. Catherine’s blue eyes encourage me on.

I told her earlier today, as we were getting ready. I’d leaned against my bathroom counter, the bulbs above me shining bright, the light from the window seeping all the way around into my tiny, buzzing bathroom. I had felt the wall in my throat. I couldn’t get it out. It wasn’t the first time I had had this feeling, but all other times I had let the dry wall stay up. When I’d finally pushed it out, a wave of relief washed over me. She had smiled, with a reaction more true than I could have ever asked for. The rest of the night she would give me that look, knowing, knowing that night I’d tell them all.

And now I was sitting here. At their smiling faces. My eyes fall on Ava’s fiery red hair first, still curly from her service and party. I remember when she first arrived in our bunk, her first year,  but out third at camp. Immediately, she became part of our bunk, our own mini family that lived together in chaos. I look at Shai’s freckles, a result of her constant exposure to sun. I remember at her Bat Mitzvah, swimming in the ocean the next day, wave after wave crashing into the four of us, the sun shining down onto our skin. My eyes then land at Catherine’s sharp hair that ended at her chin. I remember 3 years ago, as I sat on her bottom bunk, and played with the way her hair felt short above her neck, as she told me the plot of Fault In our Stars. Later during the school year, I texted her when I read the book, having all the “feels”. I look at all three of them, remembering how a year before, we shared a hotel room after Shai’s Bat Mitzvah, lights turned down, as we talked and talked, catching up on the year. I remember the comfort they all gave me then, making me feel it was worth it to be here, with them.

These were the people I felt at home with. Each and every one of them had given me a comfort in life. They were my family. My true family. And in that moment I realized how we would always care for one another, and what I wanted to say couldn’t ever harm that. It would only bring us more together. And the wall crashed down, crumbling to dust in my mouth. I took a breath, grabbing the words, and breathed it out, the dust of the now destroyed wall and the words I had been holding back, falling out, blowing into the air.

"I'm queer."