miss taylor

It started with the way she said my name. Simple, direct, with no hesitation, like I was someone worth acknowledging.

Miss. Taylor wasn’t the kind of gym teacher who blew a whistle and barked orders. She was cool. Effortlessly so. She wore shorts and loose tank tops and somehow looked like she belonged in a fashion magazine instead of a school gymnasium. Her top bun was always messy in that “I-don’t-care-but-it’s-still-perfect” kind of way, and her arms—dear God, her arms—were sculpted by the gods themselves.

I was thirteen, awkward and unsure, more comfortable with books than basketballs. But suddenly, gym class had become my favourite subject. I found myself volunteering to demonstrate stretches, lingering a little too long when she adjusted my posture. I pretended to like volleyball just because she did. (I did not like volleyball. Volleyball was pain and humiliation disguised as a sport.)

I didn’t know what was happening to me at first. I had heard other girls whisper about their crushes—on boys in our class, on pop stars, even on older brothers of friends. But this? This was different. I wasn’t just admiring Miss. Taylor. I wanted to impress her. I wanted her to notice me. I wanted to be special to her in some way, even if it was just as the kid who had the best forward lunge form.

One day, after class, she patted me on the back and said, “You’re really improving, kid. Keep it up.”

That was it. That was the moment. The moment I knew.

I spent the next week floating through life on a cloud of hormonal confusion. Was this normal? Did other girls feel this way about their gym teachers? I needed answers. So, naturally, I did what any reasonable, deeply closeted teenager would do—I Googled it.

“Can girls have crushes on women?”

“How to tell if you have a crush on your gym teacher?”

“Am I broken?”

Google was no help. But my heart was. Because the truth was, I didn’t feel broken. I felt… excited. Nervous, yes. Confused, definitely. But also thrilled, like I had discovered something about myself that was both terrifying and wonderful at the same time.

Of course, nothing ever happened. It was never meant to. Miss. Taylor was my teacher, a full-grown adult with an actual life, and I was a kid with a backpack full of overdue library books. But that crush—that innocent, impossible, heart-fluttering crush—was the beginning of something. It was the first little whisper of who I was, the first time I looked at another woman and thought, Oh. Oh, this is different.

Years later, I would think back on Miss. Taylor with a mix of fondness and amusement. She had no idea, of course. No clue that she had been my first great mystery, my first unspoken question, my first impossible dream. But maybe that’s what first crushes are supposed to be—safe, unattainable, a gentle introduction to the heart’s deepest truths.

And, okay, maybe I still get a little weak in the knees when I see a woman with toned arms in a tank top. Some things never change.

S. Whittaker| Toronto, ON