"I totally love you and support you."

🌀

Ruhi took a deep breath before knocking on Suhana's door. It was Saturday and as promised she had come to visit her. She was nervous, sceptical but over everything, she was scared. She was scared of herself; scared that she would be called unnatural, freak, abnormal.

She took in a deep breath when she heard the door being opened.

Suhana came out with a huge grin. But it soon vanished, when she saw her best friend's face. Ruhi was rocking on the balls of her feet, fingers fidgeting and eyes clouded with insecurity.

"Don't tell me you are alright," said Suhana. "You look abnormally pale."

She pulled her best friend inside, shouted "CLOSE THE DOOR, MOM" to her mother, and rushed upstairs to her room with her friend. She closed the door of her room and sat on her bed. Suhana patted the space beside her, indicating Ruhi to sit.

Suhana's room was dimly lighted. All the curtains in her room were drawn and the windows closed. The walls were painted midnight black with scattered spots of tiny white, here and there. A study table was sitting in the corner. Beside it was a shelf full of books and CDs. The glow from her open laptop screen, which was sitting on her disarrayed bed, fell on a pile of papers. Words like: 'Hyacinth, Spartan, Hydra, kill, Oracle, dead' could be seen on them. A dark blue bedsheet was laid over her huge four-poster bed.

Ruhi once asked Suhana why she needed such a huge bed for only one person. Her answer was: "It's my parent's way to ensure I don't fall off of the bed. You know right that I toss and turn a lot in bed?"

"Tell me what's wrong?" asked Suhana, placing a palm softly over Ruhi's fidgeting fingers.

"I don't know how to say," confessed Ruhi, "but believe me, I am not abnormal or freak."

Suhana's eyebrows furrowed.

"You lost your virginity, didn't you?"

Ruhi's head shot up, so fast that if it were made of glass, it would have shattered by now.

"What! NO!"

"Then?"

Ruhi again started to fidget with her fingers.

"Are you going to tell me anytime soon or not?" inquired Suhana.

"Yes," breathed out Ruhi. She took in a deep breath and looked up to match her eye contact with Suhana.

Suhana was staggered to see the look in her friend's eyes: scared, determined, broken and sceptical. She tentatively put a hand on Ruhi's shoulder.

"You sure about this?"

Ruhi nodded, stiffly.

"I like girls," Ruhi blurted out. Suhana's hand fell from her shoulder as an expression of shock dawned on her face.

"I knew it," said Ruhi, coolly. "No one would accept me as normal."

"Who said you aren't normal?" Suhana asked, haughtily. "I totally love you and support you. I am ready to slaughter anyone who tells otherwise."

"So, you think this is normal?"

"Of course! Only a fool, idiotic, useless, pathetic, garbage won't. And being lesbian is not at all abnormal. In fact, you should be proud of it. You should be proud that you are different and special," Suhana said. She placed a gentle palm on her friend's folded hands, resting on her lap. "Don't give a darn to the homophobic society. I am with you and will always be."

Ruhi's eyes glistened with tears. "I am not lesbian, I am bisexual."

"Oh, sorry." Suhana smiled at her, cheerily. "Do you know Apollo?"

"Your new boyfriend?"

"No! Oh my... the greek god Apollo."

"Oh, yeah. What about him?"

"He was in love with a prince," Suhana informed. She picked up the scattered papers and dropped them on her friend's lap.

Ruhi gave her friend a confused look.

"Take this and read," Suhana said.

Ruhi gave her a grateful look. She took the papers and got up to leave for her house.

A/N- I always wanted to add LGBTQ characters in my story but I couldn't. Thanks to my homophobic relatives, the reasons why my parents won't let me write about LGBTQ characters.