My church offers no absolutes

María is being asked questions over the years, questions she doesn’t want to answer, questions she have been keeping locked up in the dark… but she can’t keep running forever (she doesn’t want to keep running forever) and there are times when she needs to be honest, with herself from among other people.

Or

Five times Maria denied her sexuality and one time she didn’t.

1

María is twelve or thirteen; she doesn’t remember well (one thing you need to know about her memory? It SUCKS, yeah with big capitals). She’s seating in the passenger seat singing along with the music, although not really because she never really sings along, only sings what she suppose the lyrics are, even when they’re wrong; in the other seat her mom is driving. There’s a beautiful day outside, is calm and warm but not too hot and they’re heading to a nice place, probably. Her mom is tipping the wheel when she turns to her daughter and says:

“Mari, I want to ask you…” She begins “…You don’t like any boy from school? You don’t have a little boyfriend there?” her tone has a little joke within but she’s serious and when María doesn’t respond with anything more than a simple “no” her mom continues, “Why? You don’t like any of your classmates? Neither of them likes you?”

“No, Mom. I don’t know. I just don’t like anyone at this moment.”

María knows where this question is coming from and she hates it. The other girls in the neighborhood have at least a crush or something and some of them also have boyfriends; but she doesn’t and neither has she talked about liking anyone, which apparently is strange for a girl of her age. This is also the easiest answer to tell her mom, the right one, too. Probably the most safe-place in her repertory. You’ll see, María has well pre-thought answers to use in cases like these. Cases where she rather not face the truth or deal with the feelings.

It’s easier this way, than try to explain to her mom how she feels. It’s not like she wouldn’t understand. María thinks she probably would, or try to, at least, it’s just… having to talk about the hate she keeps inside her, towards herself… It’s a lot. If María doesn’t talk about it she can pretend than any of this isn’t happening. That the stares and all the bullshit she’s been through in school doesn’t matter. It’s not like she doesn’t like anyone (in fact she likes so much people) it’s just she knows nobody likes her back; how could they? She’s aware of what other people see when looking at her, an extremely enormous body that takes so much space and an ugly face. María can have a nice personality but nobody sticks around enough time to notice. She can’t blame them. She’s used to it by now, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less...

Then her mom asks her these type of questions like it was the first time she does, and María needs to refrain herself from showing any signs of pain or sadness, she doesn’t know how many times she’ll be able to face this, so she answers the same again and again: I don’t like anyone. It’s okay. I’m not interested. Her mom doesn’t need to know, she never needs to know.

The thing about María is… she’s really good at hiding things and most people don’t know but she’s also very, very shy. It doesn’t show, though. Talking about boyfriends, crushes or relationships makes her feels anxious, timid, insecure. Guiding her to places of her mind she prefers to avoid, because she's tired of fighting the darkness inside (the little girl is afraid that if she doesn't keep fighting, the darkness will leave her in a place where she wouldn't find the way back) so she keeps glaring outside of the window and pretend nothing it’s happening, ignoring the hole in her chest.

Her mom is silent and suddenly María notices how she’s grabbing the wheel, with a little bit of pressure to the point of making her knuckles turn white. “Mari… do you… Do you like girls? Are you lesbian?” She asks with a hesitant tone, it seems as she’s holding her breath, looking tense.

To be honest, María never thought about girls that way, but mostly because she wasn’t aware of the possibility. However, she knows her mom does not like that. She’s has been listening to her in different opportunities talking about how that was strange, no quite right and the whole Adam and Eve bullshit (she couldn’t care less). Though she never has considered the idea of liking a girl or dating one, she isn’t against it; but contrary to popular belief, María isn’t a fool. So she tells her mom:

“Of course not, Mom. What are you saying? I just don’t like anyone, that’s it.” She drops a tone to sound more serious and her mom is totally buying it, because she visibly relaxes her whole body at ease now and she hums a little. María is hoping that she keeps away from the topic for the rest of the day… or her life.

2

María is fourteen.

And she’s dreaming.

She loves dreaming; one of the coolest things about her that it’s completely hers. Whatever she can be dreaming… from castles to oceans, romances or nightmares, she always knows it’s a dream. It’s pretty awesome because sometimes she can even manipulate what happens inside her dreams. Like that time when she was having a nightmare about Spiderman (don’t even ask her why) and she ended changing it to a super fluffy and pink dream, making her feel safe again.

This time around her dream takes place in a theater, it’s not her usual cinema, but she doesn’t care very much. The walls are covered with electric blue and little details in yellow from the floor to the ceiling, the fabric looks like velvet and the whole place smells nice, sweets and cinnamon. María has a ticket for the movie, except first she decides to go for popcorns, the smell making her mouth watered and she’s in a dream, so she will have enough money to buy it.

With her food in hands she heads to the other room. It’s cozy and small, with soft red seats all over the place. Hers is somewhere in the middle, just above the cinema’s gates. She stays there half way through the movie (everyone knows for what part they are but not what they’re watching, if that makes sense) when she notices something strange: dust is falling from the ceiling and the floor is shaking like an earthquake. People are running back and forth making everything worse, when the source of the chaos walks through in the form of a Cyclops, just above where she’s seating.

María is frozen for a moment, quickly trying to understand the situation, but she knows better and while everyone tries to escape she jumps in front of the beast ready to fight. She throws herself forward and the impact makes the two of them to roll and go back passing the doors, landing in another location: they’re at the beach, a castle can be seen behind them and it reminds her of Narnia’s scenarios, but instead of a beautiful lion there’s a fucking giant trying to kill her (A side note that may be important if we’re going to address things as Disney movies: you should totally picture the Cyclops as the one from Hercules, just… smaller; because Maria’s mind is that lame).

In her hand she holds a sword and lifts it to hit the monster, but he dodges. To be that tall and heavy his reflexes are very fast but not so much that María is able to hit one of his knees and he’s falling forward. He punches her before he falls and now they’re fighting for real. At some point of the battle, María loses her balance and falls, the giant ready to crush her with his foot…When María wakes up.

She spends the whole day almost in a pissy mood, almost. That bastard was going to kill her and now she’s awake she doesn’t know what happened in her dream. She waits and waits… her day passing in a blur, until it’s time to sleep again and she closes her eyes thinking about the Cyclops, the exact moment where she left. With new force and all the bloodlust rushing through her body, she rolls before the giant foot stamps against her body taking that moment to grab her sword and stand in her feet, quickly stabbing the monster across the heart and tear him down.

She’s covered in blood and the Cyclops lies at her feet.

María is satisfied.

The scenario changes again, like any other dream, and she’s in front of a drugstore. After the fight she ended with some cuts and scratches all over her body. Well done, dream she thinks I have so many bruises now. María takes the time to clean herself and put medicine where it needs, being careful to not press so hard or anything. When she’s done and out of the store, she spots a car waiting outside and while she approaches she can see her uncle and aunt inside, her cousin is also there.

What calls her attention as she opens the door is the form of another figure inside the car, it doesn’t have any defined features on her face but she’s tall or taller than María at least, but then again everyone is taller when you’re under 1, 60. Blond and long hair falls from her face and she looks so so worried, embracing María in a tight hug as she sees her, looking for wounds that are not longer there.

This stranger is holding her, her whole body, putting her foreheads together as she does, and suddenly the rest of the world disappears. Nobody else exists apart from them. This mysterious woman isn’t a stranger anymore; is her girlfriend (she needs to be, the adoration and fondness María feels are too much to be just another girl) and somehow she doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t care, she melts right beside the other girl. Everything is right where it needs to be. Like soft music playing or candles lighting themselves one by one. It’s nice and cozy. María is holding her hand and she doesn’t feel broken or alone anymore; she feels warm, and the other girl feels like a place to call hers, to feel safe.

A clearing throat calls her attention and when María looks up they’re going for another route, a totally different one and very long one. Yet she slightly recognizes it. Her aunt calls her attention again before she says “Your mom knows.” And then everything shatters. María is very much awake now, with her chest up and down, trying to steady her breaths. It took a whole minute for her to calm.

It was a beautiful dream. She thinks. But just that, a dream.

She doesn’t tell anyone right away a little afraid of her own dream, the feelings she had and the grieve of losing so much, but some months later she tells her mom leaving out her emotions and other things María doesn’t know where to put yet, making a joke about it (because she’s always joking when she needs to be serious and now she doesn’t know how to talk properly without turning everything into a joke (and because she’s that much of a coward too)).
Her mom only stares back and says “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“No mom, I was just telling you my dream. I think it was funny, you don’t think so?”

“Mmm” It’s all she ends up saying.

Maybe María is brave enough to face a giant Cyclops, but not enough to face her mom.

3

María is eighteen this time.

She’s getting out of the theater with her mom, they just ended a movie that María doesn’t exactly can recall, but hey, this time was real and without any monster trying to kill her, so that counts like a victory, right? What doesn’t feel like a victory is that María never knows how both of them end talking about this subject, but they find themselves there more times she would be happy about. So her mom is asking her again. *How is that she always ends in this theme with her mom? *

“I just find rare that you don’t like anybody or you don’t have a boyfriend. You know you can tell me. I know you’re 18.”

“But seriously, I don’t like anybody, mom.”

“But why? … Mari… I just need to know, you know... You don’t really like girls?” There’s a hesitant tone in her voice like every time she brings the topic, like she’s afraid of breaking something by asking these questions, like she may break something between them… maybe she will.

“I’m not a lesbian, mom. I already told you… And what’s the matter with that, anyway?” Before she can think any further, her mouth gets ahead and says “if anything, I would be bisexual” and chuckles, because it’s not the first time she has been thinking about that.

“Absolutely not!” Her mom says in a shocked and offended tone. “That’s not how it works, you need to like one or another, how could you like both? That’s being indecisive.” She pauses and then adds “And you just said you don’t like girls.”

María sighs, “You’re right. Sorry.”

Neither of them talks more about the issue, but this time she has been thinking. She knows she likes boys, that’s nothing new. She has liked them since she can remember. Her mother’s fear just lead María to start telling her about every other crush she had, like that cute boy from the bus who has the best smile she has ever seen or cute guy #1 that makes her legs feel like jelly although she doesn’t even know the guy’s name and is far too handsome to notice her. She likes them and so she tells her mom that, but in the end, they’re just crushes and María has never dated anyone in her life, so her mom worries.

But María has being thinking about girls for a while… is it gay if you want to kiss a girl?? She hopes not… because she wants it. Sometimes she catches herself staring at girls or her lips more times that she should. But the thought of liking boys doesn’t let her to go to that place… so nothing makes sense in her head. Blame her poor soul for not knowing what bisexuality was before and for her to be so scared to really think about it now.
So she has been collecting pieces of her thoughts and keeping them in a box inside her mind, like every piece of this conversation (every piece of herself that isn’t ready) and hopes she doesn’t need to touch that thing in a long long time.

4

It’s 2016, she’s twenty and in her third semester of her career. To be honest, María never saw herself studying psychology, but not other career either (to be more honest, María wanted to study literature, but she needs to eat and that doesn’t pay the bills here) After a year struggling and one of her most bad mental breakdowns, she found something she wants to do, so here she is, second year in Uni. And she’s happy, really. Today she’s in one of her favorite class, with one of his funniest professors (María will realize later that he wasn’t that great of a professor and everyone just ignored that because he was funny during lectures).

“People always assume everything about others” He’s saying. Nell is short, dark skinned and has black short curly hair. His classes are the funniest and always very entertaining. “Like you just did in the story. All of you assumed that the guy was the bad guy because he didn’t go to see the girl, but he was really trying to build a home for her first.” He took a pause before continuing, “Your parents do that, too. They always assume everything about you guys. Like, they always assume every of you are straight, right? Have any of your parents ever asked you about the people you like? Hear me out; we’re going to try this. Social experiment like the class itself. Go to your parents, tell them you’re gay and see how they react. Tell me next class.”

María is laughing so hard at the end of the class that she will do it. She is that stupid, she’s so so stupid that she will do it. When everybody is gathering their things to leave, she goes to her friend and they’re dying with the idea:

“You shouldn’t do this” one of hers is saying.

“You totally should do this” the other says.

Every friendship is about the stupid one and the rational one, no? Balance.

And so María is dumb enough to really try it. When she gets home she chills, takes a bath, changes her clothes for comfy pajamas and wait for her mom to get home and find the opportunity to talk… It’s not until later that she does. Her mom is in her room getting ready to go out to visit a friend of hers; she’s walking from one place to another, changing her clothes and looking for her makeup.

María is lying on her mom’s bed staring at the ceiling.

“Mom, I need to tell you something.” She says, dead serious and when her mom hums, a sign for her to continue, she does “I…-I think I like a girl from Uni… like, romantically” She isn’t going to tell her mom she’s gay. A) She’s not. And b) with every opportunity her mom had has to ask her over the years, María thought she wouldn’t believe her if she just tells her. (And perhaps María may or may not really like a girl from Uni, but that’s beside the point.)

Everything is irrelevant now, because her mom is stuck in her tracks, mascara half way to her face and she’s pale.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, mom.”

“You have to be kidding” She’s getting paler within the seconds, the makeup not longer in her mind and she’s breathing heavily; the ups and downs on her chest are visible, she grabs the door to maintain steady. In that moment María realizes how dumb this idea was and how dangerous, because she thinks her mother is having a stroke.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Jesus, relax. It was an experiment. For class.” María retells everything and mentally punches herself for doing this. Stupid. Stupid. One part of her heart was really expecting something, a part of her heart was having a little bit of hope for this to turn different, she knows her mom will never accept this instantly but her reaction was beyond her imagination and every little hope is just crashing down, down, down.

“How could you?” Her mom is angry, she notices. The paleness of her face now replaced with crimson red and she’s so screwed. “You scared me so much, how could you say to me something like that? I think my blood pressure just went up. I need a moment” She seats in her bed and try to calm.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t think you would react this way. You yourself have said you’re not homophobic, so…” María says calmly, trying to find a way to get out of here quickly.

“And I am not! It’s just… If you like girls I would have a lot to process, to think… we would need to tell the family. Think about what your uncles will say…”

María couldn’t care less what her family thinks of her. She owes them nothing to even care updating them about her love life. Being honest, the only real family she thinks she has is her mother. Her family just doesn’t care anything involving her. So why bother? There’s suddenly rage rushing through her body but she only hums to finish their conversation, tell her mom another apology before she heads to her room.

Obviously her mother isn’t homophobic persé, but just the thought of her only daughter, her child, being one of them makes her feel uneasy, conflicted, scared. And María wants to hate that. Desperately. She wants to hate her mom for making everything worse and out of hands when it’s not, wants to hate her for thinking that way, but she can’t, cause deep inside, deep deep inside her, she’s scared too, even more than her mom.

5

For some reason, everybody thought the twenties were suppose to be the time where you have your whole life figure
out, your either studying or soon to be graduated, you’re living the dream, even forming a family, you have grown up and you’re doing fine. Well, that bullshit is false or otherwise María wouldn’t be dying every day with a mental breakdown and feeling like if she was twelve again and just found out what a crush is.

Rather, she’s twenty-two and now is when she’s questioning everything. Let’s see, María thinks that wanting to kiss a girl is very gay…, but she wants it. So much. Now is when she’s questioning if the crush with her favorite professor was just a crush because she was so beautiful and smart and she wants to impress her or she only wanted to kiss her. Questioning every other time when she found herself thinking “I wish you were a boy so I could date you” when a girl was just too perfect.

She has never explored anything with anyone so she isn’t sure she’s a lesbian, but trying to do it now feels wrong, like she’s been disrespectful. If she doesn’t know for sure she’s a lesbian then she would feel guilty because it would be as she’s just playing with someone or just seeking for attention, a phase; one day she’s going to wake up and realize that she never liked girls before and everything would be a joke (she can’t even imagine to have sex with another girl!).

She keeps rationalizing her crushes, too. Like, yeah sure, you can’t be gay even if you like a girl when said girl is Scarlet Johansson, ‘cause boiii. Scarlet is an angel and everybody is kind of enamored with her anyways. Or the fact that the only other girls she likes are cute tumblr/twitter girls (like the huge crush María had back in 2015 when she discover Viria and Gin, two tumblr artist with amazing talent that were too beautiful to not notice. She would spend hours looking at her photos and reading answers in her profiles just for fun. She was so heartbroken when Vika got married, but her husband was so handsome and they make a cute couple, so María forgave her, lol) but some way or another, they’re always artist and she thinks that’s the real reason behind her crushes (spoiler ahead: It doesn’t).

And then we have Hwasa, call her the awakening, the acceptance (sort of) the unstoppable force towards her immovable heart or whatever you want, but María will risk it all for her. And that just to hold her hand. She’s too beautiful, too caring. Her voice sounds like everything María wants to hear the rest of her life and her thighs… oh God, her thighs. And we are not going to mention cute, cute, cute girl #1 from twitter, who’s María has been pining over and always calling her “crush”, but she never seems to notice, even when María tags her @ saying exactly that.

Other things happen, too; like the night she ended kissing one of her friends. Nothing romantically, of course. After a terrible police disaster with their classmates, alcohol and the place where they were going go to stay (a story for another time) they were waiting in the street to know what to do, when one of Drea’s friends, who happened to be there, invited the group to his house. So at the end of the night there were the four of them (Kabi, Khate, Drea and María) with three of Drea’s friend, who were very cute and handsome; and María may have spent the whole night thinking about kissing one of them.

They were talking at first, getting to know each other, what each of them were studying and in return they were asking how it felt being graduating. Somewhere in the middle, they started playing drinking games and when it seemed like they wouldn’t get anything more, one of them propose to play a game called “What is the probability”. That was just an excuse to continue making dares like hormonal teenagers because that's what people at their twenties do at parties.

“Come on, come one. Next. Next.” One of the boys is saying “María what is the probability you kiss Khate? ...One, two, three…”

“Two” the both of them say at the same time and everyone start to laugh, while the boy keeps chanting do it, do it, over and over again.

“Come here, baby” María says with a suggesting tone and wiggling her brows while she inclined towards Khate who is covering her whole face suffocating lots of “noooos” under her breath.

“Come here, chicken.” She laughs, waiting for her to meet her lips. María isn’t going to force anyone to kiss her even if is a game. And they kiss. It’s nothing romantic, really. Just a peak if you can even call it that. Not even a second. And it’s a little awkward. Not the type of “i-just-kissed-a-girl-and-i-am-freaking-out type, but more like “I-kissed-my-friend-ew” type. Let María to always be in gay panic over nothing but being the one who is up for those situations. Everyone is laughing as background noise, when she turns and says, “Well, that was awful. Next. Kabi, what is the probability you kiss Drea?”

“Never. Not. Not gonna happen. That’s the probability.”

“Coward… Just do it. One, two, three…” María saw Kabi’s eyes before she says anything “…One…” she says a little late (like 0.0000001 seconds late) “Ha! I was right! You need to do it.”

“No, you were not.”

“She was right, tho. Do it.” Says another of the boys. All of them are trying to make her do it, because mocking Kabi is something funny to see. She gets all shy and flustered. Nothing that make her uncomfortable, obviously. But although it’s very funny other times it can be a pain in the ass, like this moment.

“Ok, get ready, we’re doing it again. One, two, three…” María thinks she’s getting better and better at this game, because she’s been killing it the whole night. She barely looks at her friend to confirm what she thought and the both of them are saying one (yes, again) at the same time “Told you soooo. Kiss her.”

“But I don’t want to!” She whines.

“Ya, but this isn’t about what you want is about the fact I win. So keep your inflexible heterosexuality away and kiss her.” María is having the time of her life messing with her friend, alcohol helping, although she’s not even tipsy. After what it seems like the 7th or 8th try, Kabi finally kiss Drea and the both of them freak out in the process.

They keep drinking, playing and dancing some more. Drea had to do an exotic dance, the others to eat some disgusting food, one of the boys got shirtless, by now everyone is tired of messing with Kabi so her dares are things like hug the person to your right or things like that. María is happy and laughing and it just hits her then that she was the only one who didn’t have any problems kissing a girl or thinking about kissing one.

“What about you come to visit me?” Writes one of her friends and that’s how María finds herself in her friend’s house on a Sunday morning. Ugh, I miss you so much she doesn’t say as she hugs Nana. They’re not like that. But she did miss her. “It has been long since the last time I saw you. What are you being up to?” she says instead and then they talk for hours.

María has never being really good having friends, so she really likes this friendship. They were classmates and Nana was the only true friend who got left after high school. No matter what or how much time passes between the two, they fall in place very fast like they see each other on daily basic. For someone like María, this is heaven.

Later, in the afternoon, they’re scrolling down on Instagram when one of María’s classmates uploads a photo and she gets all exited. “Oooh, you need to see this. Let me show you.” She’s happy, liking the photo from his friend, “you need to see my friend from uni and his boyfriend. They’re cute. I ship them. I think I’m the #1 of their fan club.” She giggles as she hands the photo to the other girl to see.

“Hon… I need to tell you something.” She sounds too serious so María knows she’s joking before she says anything more. “I don’t ship as many gay couples as before… I’m straight, you know.”

María gasps. “Traitor,” she says with an offend tone and her hand over her heart. Top 10 anime betrayal, y’all. But she’s laughing half way the sentence. “And what even with the straight thing? That doesn’t have anything to do.”
“Of course it does! I’m straight and have a boyfriend. So now I ship a lot of straight couples. I like to imagine myself in those situations, too. I’m sorry, such a shame, no?”

“What about me, then? I’m not gay” Nana just keeps glaring at her for a long second before they’re laughing out loud.

“Oh, please…”

“Ok, ok, fine. I’m just contemplating the possibility of being bi.”

Nana snorts, “Contemplating, you say. Omg. Whatever that makes you happy, girl.” And although she never really asks the question, María can feel it there. She knows Nana too well to know she’s not falling for what she’s babbling.

+1

“I always had this thought that if I ever date a girl, it would be when my mom was dead or something. Me living in another country, alone, with no one who needed to know… But what if my mom lives until her 90’s? I can’t keep hiding for that long (I don’t want to be hiding, either) but I don’t know how to tell her. And above that, I think I may be bisexual all along...” María sighs. She’s still twenty-two, soon to be twenty-three, and yet not any near of knowing what to do with her life.

She’s talking with her therapist and it’s not the first time they’re discussing this topic, probably not the last one, either. María started therapy a year ago, she went for the hole inside her and it turned out she ended talking about a lot of things she never knew she was thinking. Bless her for that decision.

Her therapist is nice. She’s tall, with brown hair that used to be red-ish and she wears glasses. Madeleine is sweet but fierce, has an aura that makes María feel safe; like she can be understood, like she doesn’t have to put an act to be seen because she doesn’t care. She’s not trying to accommodate María, she can call her in her bullshit anytime and some other she’s so much help for María to make sense of her mind, but sometimes, well…

“Why do you need to tell her, María?” Madeleine asks.

Sometimes she isn’t so much help and María wants to kick her.

“Because how am I going to live with her without telling her?”

“Well, but do you have a girlfriend right now?”

“Well…, no. But Madeleine!!!” She’s exasperated, as always. Like every time Madeleine doesn’t give her the easiest answer for her problems or comes with the magic potion to make her happy. It’s been a while since she knew this but yet she hasn’t learned that things take time and therapists don’t have happy pills under her arms or a miraculous answer for everything. For fucks sake, she went four years to Uni to know that, she should know better. “Everything feels wrong that way and me being bi.”

“María you don’t have to tell everything to your mom; and that’s something you both need to know. We had been talking about this before.”

“I know! But I know that the reason why I don’t tell her is because I’m afraid, too!”

“María…” And she’s using the tone María has associated with her trying to explain something to a kid. She feels dumb everything she uses, because she knows Madeleine is right. “You are also using this fear as an excuse to don’t experiment anything. You never did it before and you’re not doing it now, but you need to figure it out. As your own. And for that matter, there’s nothing wrong with being bisexual. Just for a personal opinion: I think being bisexual is the most honest option.” She finishes.

“Honest?” She asks, confused.

“Yeah. You’re looking beyond girl or boy, you’re looking at people. For whom they are. Someone to love. And you’re not opposed at the possibilities. You can like both and that’s fine. I think you can do that.”

María is savoring her words. She likes the word and how well it rolls around her tongue. Honest. That’s something María likes. She, since so much early, has felt the same about people and love. When it comes to love, there are no barriers, there are no frontiers. You’re not giving love to a body, you’re giving love to someone. A soul. Bodies are just containers to souls, to magic that can’t be touched but can be felt. Like the voice of someone you love, or them holding your hand, pressing bodies together to feel close. That’s something you can do with bodies, tools to let people closer, not to be attracted whether they’re a gender or another.

That day she ended her session feeling a little bit lighter somehow.

“Hon, I think (I’m pretty sure, she doesn’t say) I’m bisexual.” Maria says a little nervous. She’s again with Nana and they’re playing with some makeup. The first real love of María, thank you very much.

“Mmm…” Nana peers at her, frowning. “I thought you knew that since we graduated seven years ago?? I thought you were going to finally tell me you’re a lesbian.”

They both keep laughing at this point.

María doesn’t think she needs to tell to so much people, but there is Juan. Her only friend along the years who had stayed for all the drama, waiting for the tea to be spill. With him it’s so easy. She tags him in a meme. It’s just a photo with two pictures in it, two titles from some youtuber girl, with a little bit of time difference. The first one reads I’m not lesbian and the second says Ok, I may be a lesbian.

“Well, that’s character development” He writes.

María loves him. So, so much.

She doesn’t tell her other friends. Her closes already know or suspect, and they’re ok with her not telling them. She will when she’s ready. And the others… well, they don’t need to know. María’s sexuality is no one business except for her. And she doesn’t care, either. They can keep guessing or assuming from among the memes she shares on her facebook.

Here’s the thing. María doesn’t care about what people think about this. She has never cared. Love is love. Love will always be love. She doesn’t care about opinions or whatever someone try to tell her, for people who will try to tell her that that’s not right. Fuck them. María is just really terrified of losing her mom, although she does know that that is not going to happen. Her mom could be upset, angry at her, even grieving her but she won’t lose her. It's just... the thought of her mom rejecting her is enough to make her feel bad, to make her turn everything back and never do anything again. It was enough the feeling of one parent rejecting her.

But she can’t live like this. She deserves some respect for herself. Honest was a great word and she wants to use it. She wants her love to be honest. For María, love is one of the most important parts in her life. And not just romantically but for everything else. There’s love in friendship, there’s love in family, there’s love in the things we do. That can’t be faked. That can’t be fake.

Whether will be a cute boy or a cute girl, her friends, or the things she loves doing. They have the right to know. Most importantly, María has the right to know too. To be honest with herself, with her heart and her soul. To love and be loved by the right person and not just the right gender.

Nobody could take away that from her. Not even her.

And probably she still be awkward about it, probably still get gay panicked when she realizes she also likes a girl, or wouldn’t scream it to everybody; but she’s trying, she’s really trying. Maybe she will realize other things in the future, no one knows for sure.

For now, if she asks herself, yes. She likes boys but she also likes girls too.

Too much, to be honest.

Notes:

Hi, nice to meet you. It’s my first time writing so if you’re here and had the time to give me any feedback, feel free to do it. Also, feel free to point out any mistake, English is not my mother language but somehow English is the only way I feel comfortable to write. (Shout out to my friend Dani who point a lot of mistakes already and told me, ily<3)

*Title: It’s from Take me to church, obviously. And I find it funny because the title was a mistake for my part. As English not being my first language sometimes I make mistakes in translations. So I thought “absolutes” and “absolution” have the same meaning (big mistake) but I was fond on the title so…

*I saw a post on tumblr called Common experiences of lesbians who don’t know they’re lesbians yet and it hitted me hard, but also inspire one of the parts with I was struggling, here’s the link:
https://readtosurvive.tumblr.com/post/184886343496/common-experiences-of-lesbians-who-dont-know?is_related_post=1

*The phrase “When it comes to love, there are no barriers, there are no frontiers” was from a post I saw on tumblr, too. Here’s the link: https://srodvlv.tumblr.com/post/183729624824/when-it-comes-to-love-theres-no-barriers

Thank you!