When I was 15 I was lying in bed one morning and I hear my dad coming up the stairs. Being a typical teenager a conversation with my dad 1st thing in the morning was not something I could be arsed with so I pretended to be asleep. I hear my dad come in my room and he stands at the end of my bed in silence, I wait, he stays at the end of bed in silence. This goes on for an oddly long time, after 5 or 6 minutes he leaves and I'm thinking 'thank fuck he's gone, what's he doing staring at me, weirdo.' My dad walked downstairs, out of the house and drove off. They found his body 3 days later. Those 5 or 6 minutes in my bedroom was him taking a last look at his son before he killed himself and all I could do was lie there thinking fuck off you weirdo.

During my last years of college, I met this real cool dude named John. We got along great, he was in a few of my classes, and he was just a nice, normal guy. Before long, he just became another friend in my little gang of diverse friends. Right from the start, I knew he was a straight guy. He talked about women, looked at women, dated women, and hooked up with women. Totally normal. Then near the end of college, I noticed he started to change. It became clear pretty quickly that he had become interested in me. (FYI: I’m a transgender woman.) Well, I freaked bc. well, I’m not a cis-female. So I did everything I could to avoid him. I also didn’t want to tell him the truth either. (Fear) Then he started sending me flowers, messages on social media, you know.. the usual I’m-interested-in-you-stuff. I completely ignored them. I know not telling him the truth was a terrible thing to do, but I couldn’t. I was scared and I didn’t want him to be embarrassed/humiliated. At the end of my senior year, I left without ever seeing him again. Years later, my old friend group found each other again, including him. He told some of them that he was still in love with (the old) me, that I was “that girl” to him, and that I was the “one who got away.” I still haven’t seen him and when he’s going to hang out with our friends, I don’t go. I feel like the sh*ttiest person alive because this situation should’ve NEVER gone on this long. And it was all bc. I was too scared to tell him the truth. I seriously don’t know if I should tell him now, after all these years, or just keep letting him think about someone he thinks is a 100% real woman.

• June 6, 2023