When you live 365 km North of Adelaide in South Australia, you are out in the bush, the little country town of Hawker has a mere 271 people living in the town centre, yep, we all know each other. Being a gay woman of just 18 is as hard as it gets.

You keep things of this nature close, bottled up inside. I knew what I was since I turned 15, of course, I told no one. I dated some guys just to keep up appearances and to help hide the fact of who I was. I even let them get into my panties and I helped them get their rocks off. After all, I didn’t want to get a reputation. But it was all OK, the guys knew I wasn’t easy, and the girls weren’t jealous because their boyfriends would come looking for an easy screw.

I had a small group of friends, all around the same age and we got on fine together. It was when I was in my last year at High School that I first saw her, she was in a year behind me, she was tall, with blonde hair, pretty, very pretty in fact and her name was, Belinda Thomas. I was smitten. I hid it well.

Fortunately, she lived in Quorn and not Hawker.

The High School was in Quorn a short bus trip south, not a large school, but large enough. I took a whole term in my last year to get to meet her, ‘by accident’ of course. Nervous, and totally unsure of how to handle the situation. Yes, there were pamphlets all around about the LGBT+Q community for young people, even talks and opportunities to speak about it. I never did. I bottled it up inside. Totally Scared.

I lied, I cheated, and I deceived my close friends, my parents, and my brother. Everyone. Even now some years later I can’t be truthful and tell anyone why.

The guilt still sits with me like a lump of coal in my gut.

As the last term started and my time at high school was coming to an end, I was like a tormented dog, always angry and growling at people. My friends soon stopped asking what was bothering me and eventually stopped talking to me altogether. I guess getting sick and tired of me biting their heads off for no reason.

I kept seeking her out discreetly, and several times we ran into each other, I smiled, and she smiled. We talked, I found out where she lived, and she found out where I lived. She had one more year at school before heading off to Uni she hoped, but her marks were good enough she told me. I dreaded the thought that this pretty woman and I wouldn’t be an item.

My heart hurt.

I was broken-hearted without actually being in love.

I had secured an apprenticeship at the steelworks in Whyalla, so it meant she would be in Adelaide and I would be in Whyalla. One a pretty City of Churches and the other a dirty, smelly, dusty, and dry country town, full of semi-illiterate Bogans and married blokes. They are one of the same actually.

Great, I thought to myself.

Belinda and I talked more and more as the year closed out, and it was only a matter of time until it ended and we parted ways. My love was unfulfilled.

As is the norm in most high schools towards the end of the school year, we had our school camp, which is code for a week of drinking, sex, and dope and that was just for starters.

Mum and Dad gave me their pep talk before I left, not to do anything ‘too’ silly. I reassured them that at best I would be pissed only once, I didn’t let on that it would be from day 1 to day 7. The campsite was further North, with no toilet blocks, or showers, just a hole in the ground and sleeping under the stars.

There was more bed-hopping than at a swinger’s convention. Teachers did it with students, teachers with teachers, and of course, students with students or several students. Fortunately, there was no recharging of phones once they died. Which is a good thing in hindsight. What happened at camp stay at the camp.

Sleeping under the great Southern Cross away from any civilization, no street lights, no car lights, just night-time bush noises. Birds, dingos, and wildlife of all descriptions. Not that we heard everything, I mean cheap wine was as good as any sleeping pill a doctor could prescribe.

It was day 2 before I decided to make a move on Belinda. I had noticed she too had not been overly active in the sexual department. The boys kept pestering her but she was just as determined not to give it away cheaply. Good for her we were all saying.

Day 2. The group was meant to go for a hike, well those that weren’t hung over and could actually stand up. My head was thumping but I saw Bella, as I came to call her, was making plans to go, so off I went. After about thirty minutes I made my way up next to her. She smiled at me and told me that I drank too much. I grunted in agreement. She smiled back at me and we got into an easy gait. We were not in the front, not at the back, just kind of in the middle somewhere. The track we had decided to take was a single goat trail, up the side of a rocky outcrop. I didn’t plan it, to go up there alone but that is what happened. Mid-December in the Flinders it is hot, bloody hot. We took plenty of water and hats, we were well taught how to behave when out in the midday sun.

We were the only ones on the goat track, I led the way and I felt Bella’s hand holding onto my belt at the back. Her fingers hooked into my jeans, I didn’t mind one bit.

“Can we stop Bobbi, I’m knackered hon.” She called out to me.

Now In all the time that she and I had been speaking not once had she ever used a term of endearment towards me, not once!

I froze, and I turned slowly. “What did you just call me?” I asked quietly.

She looked puzzled, “I called you Bobbi.”

“No, after that,” I asked her.

She blushed and her head dropped, her chin resting on her chest, she muttered inaudibly. “I called you hon”

“Look can we talk,” she started as I started to speak.

I looked at her, stunned. “You first,” I said.

“No, you go first, I’ve said too much already.”

I stopped and looked at her. “I’m scared Bella, I am scared in case you say you can’t, that you don’t feel the same way.”