"Here," Mina says, grabbing hold of a rope ladder hanging down from the tree. "You first."

I grip the rope in my hands, place a foot on the bottom rung, and climb. Mina soon joins me on the small wooden platform. She twists the rusting iron handle, and the tiny door swings open. She ducks through the doorway, and I follow her, watching as she picks up a candle from the window ledge. A few clicks of a lighter, and it splutters into flame, illuminating the small hut.

It’s been cobbled together out of different kinds of wood, some sheets of corrugated iron and a tarpaulin. I can so imagine a young Mina carting all the materials out her herself, devoting her time to making this place, perhaps as a summer project. There are a couple of uneven shelves, nailed to the wall, and I walk over to look at all the stuff on them. There’s a bunch of books, a few of them fiction stories –

"They were my favorites when I was growing up," Mina says with a fond smile. "My childhood heroes are in them." – But most of them are science books. Physics, in particular. "I used to dream of making a flying machine," Mina explains with light laughter.

I open a metal tin, and see a bag of peppermint candy. I pop one in my mouth, and then go back to exploring the rest of the shelves. A leather bound notebook catches my eye. "What’s this?" I ask, picking it up.

She turns around and snatches it from my grasp, suddenly bright pink. "Just some scribblings. Ideas, short stories, a few journal entries. Nothing good."

"What are your stories about?" I ask curiously.

But she shakes her head. "Like I said, nothing good."

Much as I’d love to read them, I can understand her thoughts. I’m like that with my art. Art and writing – anything creative, really – it’s just so personal, it’s like you’re putting yourself down on paper. And sharing that with others, well, it’s more than daunting.

"You don’t use your computer to write?" I ask instead, thinking of the expensive laptop I saw in her room.

She shrugs. "Nah. I prefer just sitting up her, pen on paper, feel so much more real, you know? I mean, think about it – I know you do art. Imagine painting your art not with real paints and brushes, but on some computer application. How would that feel?"

What she said just made such perfect sense that for a full three seconds, I’m speechless. Then, "huh. Yeah," I say.

Laughter bubbles up. "Huh. Yeah," she mocks me. "But you get what I’m saying, right?"

"Oh, absolutely," I say, trailing my hand down a shelf. "Hey, what’s this?" I pick up this big, heavy book. It’s an atlas. I open it, and the first thing I see is a map of the world, with places circled and notes written beside them. I run a finger over the finely drawn lines.

"Everywhere I want to go," Mina says softly, "when I leave home."

Oh, man. I can hear the longing in her voice. I never really realized, I guess, how much Mina wants to get out of this town, but seeing these carefully circled places with detailed notes about how she’ll get there and the things she’ll see in them, and the pages creased from being looked at so many times . . . it’s suddenly so clear.

"I want to move out of my house, as soon as I can," she says suddenly. "My dad doesn’t really care, I mean, I think he wants to be a good father, but he’s just so caught up in other things," she says, setting the candle back down. "At least that’s better than my mom . . . she loves me, I guess. But she can’t stand who I am."

"Who you are?" I ask quietly, with this sense of foreboding.

Mina looks really upset. I recognize the messy motion she does when she’s unhappy, her sweeping her hair quickly back from her face. Just a few minutes ago she was this beautiful, wild, free spirited girl. She’s still just as stunning, but she’s now quiet and drained.

"I should have told you earlier. I’m really sorry, you should have known what you were getting into," she begins. "Do you remember the sleepover we had at my house, and how cold my mom was? How she told me to put something more decent on? She knows that I’m bi. Or lesbian. Or whatever the hell I am – I mean, I don’t even know myself," Mina says, pausing before continuing, "she worries all her friends will find out, she worries she’ll lose social status. When I was younger, she used to love showing me off, clothed in cute dresses, my hair neatly styled, taught me to always say please and thank you . . . she enrolled me in so many activities - singing lessons, music lessons, ballet lessons. She ruined classical music for me, she really did. Maybe if I hadn’t had to dance to it, sing it and play it all the time when I was younger I’d like it now, but I simply can’t stand it. She was trying to make me into the perfect daughter." Mina lets out a long breath, pain written across her face. And then, unbelievably, a wry smile forms on her face. "And then I decided I couldn’t be ed."

I hug her at that moment, my heart aching for her, but at the same time, the corners of my mouth curving up. Of course. That’s what Mina would decide.

"You might think I’m better at coping at the cruel things people say than you. Think I’m immune to it. It’s not that. It’s just that I’ve been dealing with it for longer."

I hold her tighter, like she did for me earlier this evening. I gently rub my hand up and down her back in a soothing motion.

"I’m sorry," she says. "I’m rambling on."

"No, it’s ok," I respond.

Eventually, we leave that little tree hut, with its uneven walls and splintering floors. Together we walk back through the woods. I’m silent, thinking. I’ve learnt a lot more about Mina. And about myself. I’ve learnt I’m able to be fearless. And now we have this little place that we can go, just me and her. I have a feeling that everything might just get a little better.