One way or another, she gave me her home phone number (mobile phones were not so commonplace yet). She must have asked me to call her because I was not so good with telephone conversations, so I had no reason to do so voluntarily.
I obliged and called her. It was late November 1999, maybe early December, by that time. I was not too worried with school—I had been doing quite well for years. All I was worried about was what to say to her every time we spoke. It was not frequent when I called her. It was sporadic at most. I tried to speak to her in a natural tone, but of course there was still that feeling towards her that I could not fully hide from her or myself.
One thing was certain, though: every time we spoke on the phone, something was bound to come up that would make us have to stop speaking with each other. Whether she had to go do something or her older sister needed the phone, it did not matter. We could never have a truly full conversation over the line. I began to suspect that she was doing it on purpose. Maybe she was just being nice. But she kept taking my calls and still corresponded with me online. Either way, I did not let it get to me. I was probably blinded. Plus, it was not as if I was going to date her; I was already taken.
At this point, nobody knew what was going on in my life. None of my family or friends knew about Adrienne or Jackie. They did not suspect a thing. My studies were unaffected, and the same went for my social life—whatever there was that I could have called a “social life.”
Everything that was happening outside of my normal lifestyle was completely hidden from the rest of the world. It was not such a conscious effort. That was just how I handled things.
It took a long time before I could actually share my secret life with other people, and by then, it was because I was going crazy.
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