“Because I like girls,” she said abruptly.

“Oh,” I remembered saying. “I like girls, too.” I think part of me vaguely suspected that Marge might be gay, but at that age, everything I knew about sexuality and sex pretty much came from murmured conversations in school hallways or the occasional R-rated movie I’d watched. Had she told me a year later, when I would wedge my bedroom door shut with a shoe to have some privacy practically every day, I don’t know how I would have reacted, although I suspect it would have been a bigger deal. At thirteen – middle school – anything out of the ordinary is considered the Worst Thing Ever, sisters included.

“Does that bother you?” she asked, suddenly engrossed in picking at her cuticle.

It was only when I looked at her – really looked – that I understood how anxious she was about telling me. “I don’t think so. Do Mom and Dad know?”

“No. And don’t say a word to them. They’ll freak out.”

“Okay,” I said, meaning it, and it was a secret that stayed between us, until Marge sat my parents down at the dining room table the following year and told them herself.

That doesn’t make me noble, nor should you infer much about my character at all. Even though I sensed her anxiety, I wasn’t mature enough to understand the full gravity of what she’d told me. When we were growing up, things were different. Being gay was weird, being gay was wrong, being gay was a sin. I had no idea of the internal struggles Marge would face, or the things people would eventually say behind her back – and sometimes even to her face. Nor am I arrogant enough to believe I can fully understand them even now. The world to my twelve-year-old brain was simpler and whether my sister liked girls or boys frankly didn’t matter to me at all. I liked and disliked her for other reasons. I disliked, for instance, when she’d pin me on my back, her knees on my arms, while she scoured my chest bone with her knuckles; I disliked when Peggy Simmons, a girl I liked, came to the door and she told her that “He can’t come to the door because he’s in the bathroom, and he’s been in there a long, long time,” before asking Peggy, “Do you happen to have any matches?”

My sister. Always doing right by me.

As for liking her, it was really pretty simple. As long as she wasn’t doing something dislikable, I was more than happy to like her. Like younger siblings everywhere, I had a bit of hero worship when it came to Marge, and her revelation didn’t change that in the slightest. As I saw it, my parents treated her like a young adult while they treated me like a child, both before and after she told me. They expected more from her, whether around the house or in taking care of me. I’ll also admit that Marge made my own path to adulthood smoother than it otherwise would have been because my parents had always been there, done that with Marge first. Surprise and disappointment, after all, often go hand-in-hand when it comes to raising children, and fewer surprises usually meant less disappointment.

When I snuck out one night and took the family car? Marge did it years before.

When I had too many drinks at a high school party? Welcome to the club.

When I climbed the water tower in our neighborhood, a popular teenage hangout? That was already Marge’s favorite place.

When I was a moody teen who barely spoke to either my mom or dad? Marge taught them to expect that, too.

Marge, of course, never let me forget how much easier I had it but to be fair, it often led me to feel like an afterthought in the family, which wasn’t easy either. In our own ways, we each felt a bit slighted, but in our private struggles, we ended up leaning on each other more and more with every passing year.

When we talk about it nowadays – what she went through – she downplays how hard it was to come out to others, and it makes me admire her all the more. Being different is never easy, and being different in that way – in the South, in a Christian home – seemed to strengthen her resolve to appear invulnerable. As an adult, she lives in a world defined by numbers and spreadsheets, calculations. When she speaks with others, she tries to hide behind wit and sarcasm. She deflects intimacy with most people and while we’re close, I wonder if my sister sometimes found it necessary to hide her emotional side, even from me. I know if I asked her, she would deny it; she would tell me that if I wanted sensitivity, I should have asked God for a different sister, the kind of sister who carried a Kleenex at the ready on the off-chance a sad song began playing on the radio.

Lately, I’ve found myself wishing that I’d impressed upon her that I saw the real her, that I’ve always loved who she was. But as close as we are, our conversations seldom reach those depths. Like most people, I assume, we talk about the latest goings-on in our lives, hiding our fears like a turtle tucking its head back into its shell.

But I’ve also seen Marge at her lowest.

It had to do with a girl named Tracey, her roommate. Marge was a junior in college at UNC Charlotte, and while she didn’t hide her sexuality, she didn’t flaunt it either. Tracey knew from the very beginning but it never seemed an issue. Often together, they fell into a close and natural friendship the way college roommates often do. Tracey had a boyfriend back home and after the breakup Marge was there to pick up the pieces. Eventually, Tracey noticed that Marge was attracted to her and didn’t discourage the feeling; she even speculated that she might be bisexual but wasn’t exactly sure. Then, one night, it happened. Marge woke in the morning feeling like she’d discovered the part of her that had been missing; Tracey woke, even more confused, but willing to give the relationship a try. They were discreet at Tracey’s insistence, but that was fine by Marge, and over the next few months, Marge fell even more deeply in love. Tracey, on the other hand, began to pull away and, after returning home for spring break that year, told Marge that she and her boyfriend had reconciled and that she wasn’t sure she and Marge could remain friends. She told her that she would be moving into an apartment that her parents had rented, and that what she and Marge had shared was nothing but experimentation. It had meant nothing to her.