Please God help me not to miss her again

As an ultra-Orthodox Jew, I tried to "pray my gay". It didn't work.

I was browsing psychotherapy memes on Instagram a few years ago when Hannah popped up in my friend requests. We each had new last names and new looks. I had decided that since I had to wear wigs anyway (as an ultra-Orthodox Jew) they might as well be blonde instead of my natural dull brown. She wore a mix of wigs and other creative headgear.

We "hearted" each other's messages, not daring to break our silence with actual words.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">"She looks happy," I thought to myself, my fingers hovering over her photos. "Don't start anything."

Still, I found myself imagining her as the girl I once knew with suspenders and a messy bun, without makeup or laugh lines, who hung her backpack next to me on the first day of 10th grade in Borough Park, Brooklyn. While our classmates drew equations in pencil on grid paper, she drew on her arm in neon gel pen: "Hannah." I rolled up my identical navy plaid sleeve and put a ballpoint pen to my own pale skin: "Malka."

She smiled. I wanted to know everything about her.

She was from another city, where there were no Orthodox Jewish high schools. "I don't understand this place," she said.

"I'll tell you everything you need to know," I said.< /p>

She raised an eyebrow and laughed.

At night, in the void of my house, I m worried about her. My family had broken up, with my mother living behind her closed bedroom door and my father practically sleeping in his warehouse. Hannah, however, was staying with a local Jewish family for the school year. She had no family in town at all. It just seemed natural to invite her over for some of my mom's home-cooked dinner. It seemed obvious that she had to stay the night. On our sleepovers, despite the alarms flashing in my mind, my body felt right at home pressed against his. lights in our class. Yet the other girls took notice, whispering things about us like we could be sisters, trying to name something neither of us knew how to say. We were preparing to graduate in the new millennium, meet yeshiva boys, and then achieve our true purpose of getting married and having children.

When the silence in my house began to suffocate, I moved to Toronto and lived with cousins ​​for the last two years of high school. I was relieved to be away from temptation.

I followed the precedent of our sages and fasted on weekdays until I can feel my hips piercing my uniform skirts. Even that reminded me of Hannah, however, the long skirts we shared and how they fit our slim bodies in almost exactly the same way. "Help me not to miss her again," I asked God until the pain in my soul took over and my better judgment faded. "Please forgive me," I prayed as I dialed her number, my Nokia cell phone to her boarding family's landline.

After months apart, we met in Brooklyn at a concert. We watched Kineret, the superstar of our community, her long shimmering dress sashaying as she filled the room with songs. I squeezed my shoulder blades. Tight. Tighter. Hannah was so close I could feel her body move in the air between us. But I could also hear the low hum as dozens of pious voices joined Kineret's, singing of the world to come. Not exactly the appropriate soundtrack to act on my ungodly desires. As the music ended, we saw the crowds disperse through the streets, a stream of girls and women in modest attire.

"Do you want to sleep? I asked, trying to take the urgency out of my words, trying not to hold my breath.

"Sure!" Can we have pizza? In the dim light of the streetlights, I saw her smile.

We created our own concert later that night, a silent, skin-on-skin orchestra, his breath in my ear and the pounding o...