For the Secrets Issue, we challenged writers to tell us an anonymous story. Here's Writer Three's tale. You can buy the issue here or subscribe here.

I’ve had a huge, unwieldy crush on my friend Liza for more than two years. I’ve had many a crush, but this one is bad, even for me.

It started when I’d come out of a ruinous relationship with a married woman. The woman and the relationship had been sad and complicated. My heart had been smashed into smithereens. Liza was warm, straightforward, and seemed happy to be alive.

We became friends mainly because I followed her into a pub one evening. Emboldened by a sense of lesbian fate—it was the third time I’d seen her that evening—I went straight up to the bar and said hi. There was a moment where time stretched like mozzarella on a pizza and I thought I’d misjudged the situation very badly. A series of expressions played across her face, but in the end she settled on a smile, and it was okay, thank God.

After that, I thought about her often. I thought about her wonderful facial expressions, like a silent film actress, and the dimples that fall lower on her cheeks than usual. I did what you should never do and imagined what it might be like if we had a life together. It was an escape, a way to try and weld the pieces of my heart back together without the fear more damage would be done. It was a little slice of romance that was all mine, because nobody else knew about it, not even her. It was my secret happiness.

A really good crush motivates you to be a better person. It gave me a reason outside my own ambition to be a better writer and performer, to smarten up and get rid of that cardigan with the holes in it, to buy new sheets and tidy my room, you know, just in case. Over the years I’ve made meals, Valentine’s Day cards, organised parties, and written letters for various crushes. For Liza I contrived a rather over-the-top treasure hunt that ended in a vintage-style tearoom with a book carefully wrapped in a ribbon and a hand-written note. But I never told her how I felt.

Perhaps a crush is better when we keep it close to ourselves, and use it for our own ends. When Liza came to stay, we did a bunch of touristy things together. As it turns out, these things were also dangerously romantic: the London Eye at sunset, the Globe theatre, afternoon tea with rose velvet furnishings and pretty pastries. I hoped there would be a moment that she irritated me, but it never came. Those days we spent together I finally got to tear the wrapping paper away and found there was something beautiful inside after all.

My crush turned into something a little more like love. It was the way she didn’t let me take myself too seriously, the way she asked me how I was like she really wanted to know, the way she started answering questions for me, those silent film expressions, those dimples. My name from her lips was a sound that made me stop and catch my breath.

Eventually the pain of yearning became tiresome. My heart was re-built now. And so I told her, I let her know my secret. Her answer came back, and it was a no. It was a soft no, if rejection can ever be soft, like being smothered with a pillow. I thought this would bring me closure, but closure never came. I went on loving her quietly but spectacularly. My heart is a machine built to love, and it pumps out love uselessly into the ether.

read more stories