Chameleon

I met her at age eleven.

My mom had been taking me to church for three years before then, and I hated it. I was still in fifth grade, so I wasn’t old enough to be in the church’s Sunday youth group. Sunday school was about the most boring thing I’d ever experienced - and spending two hours with a room full of third-graders wasn’t exactly my scene.

But in the summer between fifth and sixth grade, Mom finally made me go into the church’s youth group.

“Alright, Havah,” Mom said. “I’m going to go ahead and sign you in as a sixth-grader, and then I’ll take you to the auditorium, okay?”

I nodded in agreement. “Yes, ma’am.” For a child, I was abnormally polite to my mom - but I still had a flare of snark and sass in me.

“Are you excited?”

“No. I’m happy to be out of Sunday school, but I don’t like it when people get all preachy. It’s boring.”

Mom sighed and rolled her eyes at me. “Well, it’s better than being in ‘grown-up’ church, isn’t it?”

I crossed my arms, leaned on one leg, and glared at my mom. “I never said it wasn’t!”

Now that I look back, maybe I wasn’t as polite as I thought I was.

Mom entered my name onto the church’s iPad, and the tag printed out with my name and three of my nine allergies. “Come on, kid, let’s get going,” she said, handing me the name tag.

I huffed, trudging after her in annoyance. I would rather just be at home in bed - it was a Sunday, after all. Didn’t the Bible say Sunday was the day of rest?

I followed Mom into the youth group, where I was greeted by three youth leaders and three kids about my age. One was a boy that I knew from Sunday school and I’d never seen the two girls before. I soon learned that their names were Hannah and Abby.

Mom left me in the auditorium with the others, and as usual, I found myself fidgetting with nerves. I had social anxiety even then, even with only six people. But one of the girls - Hannah - quickly started a conversation with me.

“Hi!” she said. “I’m Hannah. How are you?” Her blue eyes sparkled as she stared at me and her hair bounced with her as she moved. Her face was sprinkled by freckles, and I’ll admit that I thought she was pretty.

I was surprised by her name - I had never met someone with an ‘ha’ at the beginning.

“I’m alright,” I answered, and she immediately followed up with a conversation about Harry Potter.

We were friends from the very start. We talked about everything under the sun; from YouTube to depression diagnoses, from Pikachu to Jesus, from competing over our age to dark fairytales.

Her first nickname for me was “Obb.” I had made it up because she would call herself Bob, so I jokingly called myself Obb. It stuck. Her next nickname for me was “Tater” because of our jokes about “potaters.” We were the first to pronounce our youth leader’s name phonetically - his name was Malachi.

Soon enough we started hanging out outside of church. Our moms agreed on a playdate at my house, and I was more excited than I should have been. We played a game called “Chameleon” with both of our older sisters. Chameleon is a game of secrets - you have to fit in with the other players. 

Hannah was her usual flamboyant, loud self, which my grandparents did not like. They already had two loud children living with them, and they didn’t need anymore.

But the day didn’t turn out as great as I would’ve imagined it.

We were sitting at the kitchen’s island and eating chocolate. We had just finished playing the game and had started a conversation about YouTube ads. “YouTube keeps giving me ads for men’s soap. The background has a duck curtain,” I said.

Hannah snorted. “Why would they give you ads for men’s soap?!” she asked incredulously.

I just shrugged. “I don’t know. Apparently they think I want flowery men’s soap.” I laughed at the idea.

Hannah’s older sister laughed with me whereas Hannah cringed. “That sounds really gay,” she said.

My stomach twisted.

“What’s so wrong about that?” her sister asked. “I wouldn’t judge people for being gay.”

Hannah snorted again. “I would.”

That was the moment everything went downhill. Being twelve and knowing you weren’t straight was hard enough; hiding it from friends was even harder. But hearing that from Hannah? It was the first thing that made me resent her just a little.

We had another play date the next week. I was less excited about it than I had been about the last one - Hannah’s words left a bitter taste in my mouth. I was afraid, now, that somehow, miraculously, she would find out about my sexuality. And on this day, that almost happened.

At the time, I had a book hidden under my pillow. I didn’t want my family to see it; the cover featured two girls kissing, and when you live with homophobic grandparents, you have to be careful about what you put where.

But Hannah and I decided to have a pillow fight with our sisters. At the time, since we had been horsing around, I had forgotten the book was even there. But as Hannah and I each took a pillow off my bed, I caught a glimpse of the book. I screamed, throwing the pillow back onto the bed and looking to Hannah with fear in my eyes. She looked startled.

“Did you see it?” I asked. At that moment, nothing else mattered, except whether Hannah saw the book or not.

“See what?” she asked. “Are you hiding something from me?”

I sighed as relief washed over me like a wave. Hannah’s eyebrows scrunched. “You didn’t see it? You really didn’t see it?”

“No…” Hannah said. “What’s there?”

I shook my head. “Turn around. I need to hide it somewhere else,” I told her, hopping up from my bed. Hannah frowned but obeyed. I took the book and hid it in my computer bag, turning back to her afterward. “Alright. It’s all clear.”

Hannah turned back around and stared at me. “I’m curious. What are you hiding?”

I shook my head, staring at my feet instead of at her. “Nothing. It’s none of your business.”

“Okay,” she said uncertainly. She didn’t seem to want to drop the subject, but she never brought it up again. I nearly had a panic attack that day.

The next thing that occurred was Justine. Justine and Hannah had been friends years before I ever set eyes on Hannah, and Justine joining our youth group made me upset. Hannah stopped hanging out with me when Justine came along, and the only word to describe my dislike of the situation was jealousy. I was jealous of Justine.

At first, it didn’t make sense. But the more time I spent away from Hannah, the more apparent it became to me; I had a crush on Hannah. Me, a church girl, liking another girl. One of the most homophobic girls I’d ever met.

The more time Hannah spent with Justine, the more resentful I became towards her. I liked her, but I resented her for the feeling. Soon, I began to draw back from her friendship as much as I could. She didn’t seem to notice for the first few months. But deep down, I knew that she’d realize something was wrong. That day has yet to come.