Member-only story
How I Figured Out I’m Bisexual
A girl, summer camp, and a bus ride to the beach.
It was a sweltering day in south Florida, the sun beating down violently through the trees as we packed into the air-conditioned charter bus. The stable around us seemed hazy in the harsh light and I was glad we were leaving it for the day. Every Wednesday, my horseback riding summer camp took a trip down the beach to cool ourselves on the sand.
I was thirteen. My breasts had gone from A cups to Cs in the span of two months and I was supremely uncomfortable in my skin. It’s a strange process, going from being a girl to a woman, and I was sad to lose some of the nimble movement of childhood. I’d not yet allowed anyone to see that transformation, save my friends at camp during these days at the beach, so it still felt like my secret.
There was one girl named Shelly who always intrigued me. We were friends, put in the same age group together so we did every single activity with one another — from riding horses to mucking out stalls. The year was 2005, and “emo” was the popular teen style of the day: Shelly was full-on emo. Black clothes, asymmetrical haircut, a lip piercing (yes, on a thirteen year old), a mouth full of curse words, and screaming loud music playing out of her headphones.
Perhaps it was her rebelliousness that attracted me to her — she seemed like a…
