we played Spin The Bottle, and I kissed a girl: I kept the spark I felt quiet, and for years afterwards, I wondered whether I might be queer.Detecting this spark made me feel dirty, unsettling something deep within.
I had never considered that I might not be straight, and exploring my sexuality simply wasn’t an option. Living in a rural, Conservative area in southern England, there were no LGBT+ spaces: I buried these feelings, but they only resurfaced.