Hearing the crack in her voice was all it took for me to cave in. I sank to my knees beside her, carefully pulling her head onto my lap.

The nurse sent me an irritated look, but Mrs. Whitworth put a calming hand to her arm and said, “It’s all right, Gloria. Let her be.”

With Mrs. Whitworth and the nurse crouching on Noelle’s other side, I suddenly became acutely aware of how this looked.

Noelle’s head was in my lap and her hand was still clutching onto mine, her face tilted back just enough for her watery gaze to stay fixed on my face as the nurse felt for injuries. Hundreds of eyes were directed at us and there was murmuring, a threatening buzz like a swarm of wasps that only grew louder the longer I focused on it. I was sure that my heart was pounding loud enough for the entire gym to hear it. Was this too close? Was I giving everything away? Straight girls held each other’s hands all the time, right? Could they tell that my palms were sweaty, my breathing labored?

My panicked monologue was interrupted when Noelle inhaled sharply, eyes pressing shut and her hand squeezing mine tight enough to hurt as the nurse pressed into a tender spot.

“Looks like you sprained your ankle,” she stated. “Only mildly, but still. You need to get off the court and into the infirmary so I can treat you.”

Noelle gritted her teeth, angrily blinking away tears that I knew weren’t threatening to fall because of the pain she was undoubtedly in, but because she wasn’t able to play.

I wanted to say something, anything, to reassure her and stop her hands from shaking, but the words were stuck in my throat.

All I could do was watch as the nurse applied ice to the injury and began compressing it with a bandage.

Once she was done, she gave her order, directed at me: “Help me get her off the court.”

I carefully lifted Noelle’s head off my lap and got up. Noelle was leaning heavily onto me when she was standing, her arm thrown over my shoulders. I tried not to think about the entire school watching me wrap my arm around her waist to steady her, tried not to overthink the placement of my hand, trembling slightly. I was just a girl helping her friend. It was normal. It was allowed.

It felt like ages until we made it to the sidelines and even longer until Noelle was finally sitting on the bench. Instead of going to the infirmary immediately as the nurse told her, she stayed adamant in her will to watch the rest of the game, until Mrs. Whitworth gave her okay.

Even though no one told me to, I sat down next to Noelle, the back of my neck prickling under the gazes of the audience that I was sure were still directed at me. She was incredibly tense for the entire rest of the game, her fingers gripping onto the bench tightly, her jaw set whenever the other team scored.