Since I was around 4, I knew that I didn't like guys... But I never mentioned it. At my young age, it wasn't worth mentioning for me. However, when I was around 7, islam was pushed even more onto me and the ideology that being gay was haram was integrated into my mind. My country, saudi arabia, is highly religious... and though I'm very proud to be saudi and I love myself for the race I am, I wish it wasn't so homophobic.

I convinced myself that I was straight, and even had a sort of repulsion to lesbians, even though I knew in the back of my mind that I was one. By the time I was 11, I was a raging homophobe. It didn't make sense to me that being in love would ever be bad, but all I knew was that I shouldn't upset Allah (god) and that I should just listen, or I won't be able to go to paradise.

When I was 10, I met a girl in school who I loved. We didn't really talk much, and she barely knew who I was, but she was the most beautiful person I had ever met. I had read about princes and knights and seen men in person, but I had never felt as compelled to them as I was to her. After a few months, I actually had a proper conversation with her, and we started to hang out every now and then. I didn't realize my feelings were romantic, or maybe I did and just didn't want to accept that.

Going back to me being 11, I had been hanging out here and there for around 6 months and had actually now started to interact with her a lot more, to the point where we would see eachother at least weekly. I would talk about her so much and with so much passion to my family all of the time. However, one day, my father had gotten sick of my yearning and beat me with a whip while screaming at me, calling me slurs and saying that I was a disappointment to him, to my mother and worst of all, to God. The next day, he didn't allow me to eat for the whole day. His note about God being disappointed in me had really hit me harder than any of his beatings had, and I refused to talk to the girl I had a crush on for a week, constantly ignoring her, and trying to not sin at all. I didn't take off my hijab once that week, trying to "better myself" for God.

One day she stopped me after school and asked why I had been avoiding her. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t really answer. She asked if we could hang out after school somewhere quiet, just to talk. I hesitated for a long time before saying yes. I was scared the whole walk there, constantly looking over my shoulder, worried someone would see us together and tell my father. We went into the forest near the school. There were a couple kids at the enterance, but as we went deeper we both knew nobody would find us there. We sat on the ground for a while and talked about nothing important. I remember feeling tense the entire time, like I was doing something wrong just by being there. At some point she asked why I always kept my hijab so tight around my face, even though we go to a school for only girls, so I'm allowed to take it off at school. She asked if it was okay if I took it off for a bit, just while we were alone. I thought about my father, about God, about everything I had been told. Then I said yes.

When she leaned in and kissed me, my first reaction was fear. I froze for a second because I genuinely thought I had ruined everything, like I had crossed a line I could never uncross. But at the same time, I felt relieved in a way I didn’t have words for yet. My chest felt lighter. I kissed her back and I remember thinking something very specific but I can't remember what it really was. I remember my hands shaking and my heart racing, and I remember thinking that if this was a sin, it didn’t feel like one. It just felt quiet and warm and right in a very simple way.After that, we kept meeting there. We didnt always kiss. Sometimes we just talked. She talked a lot about how confused she was about religion too, about things that never added up to her, about rules that seemed more about control than faith. I didn’t stop believing all at once. I argued with her sometimes. I felt guilty almost every day. But slowly, the fear stopped being louder than my own thoughts. Honestly I haven't had a lot of eventful moments after that, however me and her have been dating ever since. My mother died when I was 13 and my father didn't want custody of me anymore, and I'm now 14 living with my grandparents who don't care at all about me talking about my "friends" or going out to hang out with her a lot. I'm satisfied with how life is for me now.