love, sakura

description: based on the film 'love, simon.'  ‪As Sakura learns to slowly love herself, despite being ‘different’, she unexpectedly falls in love with her mysterious classmate, ‘Lavender.’‬

My name is Sakura. For the most part, my life is totally normal. I have a family that I actually like and there’s my friends. We do everything friends do, we eat way too many cheese hot dogs while playing video games all night. 

So, I’m just like you, except I have one huge secret.

Nobody knows I’m gay.

*RING RING*

“Hello?” Sakura asked groggily as she picked up the facetime call, still half asleep from her afternoon nap.

“Sakura! I’ve been texting you non-stop, why haven’t you been replying?” her best friend, Chaeyeon, stressfully inquired.

Sensing something serious, Sakura instantly woke herself up, “What it is, Chaeyeon? What happened?”

“Oh my god, Sakura! Haven’t you seen the new post?”

“Um, which post?” she asked, confused.

Continuing, Chaeyeon clarified, “About the closeted gay kid at school?”

As she registered what she had just been told in her head, Sakura quickly bounced up, “Wait...what?”

“Yeah, it’s on Enozi secrets.”

Jumping out of her bed, Sakura ran to her desk and flipped open her laptop, opening her school’s blog. Refreshing the page, she saw the post that Chaeyeon was talking about and quickly skimmed it.

“Who do you think it is? I bet it’s that girl Yena from chem. I get a vibe.” Chaeyeon wondered, as the brunette girl unintentionally zoned her out. 

Trying to end the call so she could properly read the post, Sakura lied, “Hmm yeah I— oh I gotta go Chaeyeon. Maru-chan just peed on the carpet. Can I call you back?”

Shocked, Chaeyeon worriedly asked, “Oh my gosh is—” before Sakura hung up on her, too caught up in the blog post. 

Placing her phone face down, Sakura focused her attention to the post on her laptop. She noticed that a user named, ‘Lavender’, had published the post, which was accompanied by a picture of a ferris wheel. Slowly exhaling, Sakura prepared herself and began reading.

Sometimes I think my life is like a ferris wheel. One minute I’m on top of the world and I try my best to hang on and stay there, but next minute I hit rock bottom and I struggle to get back up. Again and again and again. 

My life seems to be this agonising cycle of ups and downs. Because generally, my life is normal and pretty great. But nobody knows I’m gay.

Sakura pressed her palms against her cheeks as she kept reading over the same two words.

I’m gay.

For the first time in her whole life, Sakura found someone who was like her, different.

Eyes drifting up, she saw that she had the option of replying to the user, whose email was oddly ‘[email protected]’. Sakura felt apprehensive, but she desperately wanted to talk to this mysterious person. Randomly, she remembered her spare email, ‘[email protected]’, that she only used to get free perks. 

No one would know that it’s me, so what’s the harm? ...right?

Coming to a decision, Sakura logged into her gmail account and clicked ‘reply’, starting to construct her response.

Dear Lavender,
I’m just like you.

As she wrote out her email, somehow managing to tell the girl her whole life story, Sakura struggled to find the right words, constantly deleting sentences and phrases.

Typing away, Sakura ended the long email.

So like I said, I’m just like you. I have a totally perfectly normal life. Except I have one huge secret.
 

After realising that she would have to sign off using a pseudonym, Sakura looked around her room trying to find inspiration.  Seeing a polaroid on her pinboard of her under some cherry blossom trees, which she was named after, Sakura instantly knew what to call herself.

Fleur.

Having finished reading over her email, Sakura hovered over the ‘send’ button. And with all the courage in her body, closed her eyes and hit send. 

Jumping up off her chair, Sakura paced her bedroom floor as she ran her hand through her hair, registering the fact that she had just emailed a complete stranger and come out to them. As she watched the hands on the clock tick by, Sakura began to regret her actions. Thinking it through, she realised, what if they were a troll? They could just be pranking us and now I’ve fallen into their trap. 

An hour passed away and Sakura lay flat on her stomach on her bed. Instantly regretting her decision, she wondered if there was a way that she could unsend the email, but she knew it was impossible. Desperately wishing that her bed would swallow her whole, Sakura held in the tears as she prayed that Lavender wouldn’t check her emails.

As she moped on her bed, Sakura was startled as she heard a ‘ding’ from her laptop, notifying her that she had received an email.

Springing up off her bed, Sakura ran to her laptop, bumping her knee on her desk, but not even feeling the pain. Finally opening her laptop, she read on the screen,

New email from [email protected]
 

‘Hi Fleur.’