When I was in grade school, my best friend and I would pretend we were secret agents. If we had in fact been secret agents, our agency would have fired us because we spent more time building forts in the sandbox than spying on anybody.

But I found out early in life that to protect myself from harm, I would have to use my James Bond skills around others, even my friends.

“Kate, do you think any guys in our class are cute?”

“No.”

“You're such a liar. It's impossible not to think at least one of them is cute.”

“You'd be surprised.”

Every time my friends would ask me if I liked anyone, I would lie and say no. Eventually, I got annoyed. So I would lie again and make up boys that I supposedly thought were cute.

But I never thought boys were cute.

Instead, I spent my middle school years trying to go unnoticed. If anyone knew my true identity, Operation Straight would be ­terminated, along with any hopes I had of a normal social life.

I would avoid doing anything remotely “gay”; I was deathly afraid of touching other girls in any way whatsoever. I would even make fun of the “gay-acting” kids along with my friends.

I'm in high school now. I guess I was naive to think that it would get easier. It doesn't, really, until you can admit it to everyone. Keeping a secret so big for so long is deadly.

I still pretend not to hear the boys next to me in photography class when they call the sensitive boy in the school play a queer. I still pretend I can't hear the blonde girl who sits behind me in algebra talk in disgust about the girl in gym who supposedly was checking her out. I still pretend it doesn't drive me crazy to lie to everyone I know every second of every day.

I've been contemplating coming out for a while now. I need to set myself free, ya know? 'Cause there are days when I want to be James Bond, and there are days where I just want to be me. I know I can't be both.