Khaliban

We met at preschool when we were three. I was shy and distant, traits I still have. She already had friends. I saw her as just another classmate. She seemed to feel the same way about me. I don't remember any specific interactions with her. She was a girl, and I wasn't supposed to like girls at that age. The school, a Lutheran private school and church, included K-8 classes in addition to the preschool and became my prison for the next ten years. My mother, a devout Lutheran, wanted her children properly indoctrinated. It didn't work out for her. My brother is now an atheist, my sister is Wiccan, and I am... complicated. Over those ten years, I gained a reputation as the weird one, the smart one, and the disappointment who never did his homework. She was the smartest girl in class, the best student, the nicest girl, the one everyone trusted. She was pretty but not the prettiest, but she was the best person in our class by far, the most sensitive and the most caring. She understood