We walked like that, her fingers wrapped around mine, tingles running up and down my spine, all around the neighbourhood with not a care in the world. After months of dark, secret rendezvous in stairwells and corners when no one was looking, this felt like the sun had at long last come out and was warming my heart with true love.

It was at that moment that a tremendously loud honk knocked me back to Earth. A truck driver had pulled up alongside us and stuck his face out of the window. "You lesbians are disgusting! I'm going to give you a reason to knock it off!" he yelled. We both laughed nervously and ran, but our hands were no longer interlocked as we made our way back to school.

It took less than a minute for the adrenaline to wear off and for a deep-seated fear to take over. That truck driver could have easily harmed us further. He could have translated his disgust for us into violence. However young and invincible we might have felt then, momentarily, I can still taste that first sting of fear that came with the realisation that somebody might hurt me just because I'm gay. My instincts told me that this wasn't a one-off, freak incident; it was just the first of what could be a lifetime of harassment — or worse.