Your grandmother always said that the spoken word was the most crucial part of humanity: the way that words can twist and melt together like threads woven into a fabric to create a tapestry of ideas made whole once expressed. This creation by spoken word alone is equally as terrifying as it is incredible with its ability to spark change. The same creation that can be brought in just a few words can be effectively destroyed in just a few more. Three words have the power to destroy everything you have ever built with the person sitting on your left in the movie theater. Their hair brushing against your shoulder and their hand just inches from yours. You look at their hand, unsure if you should touch it, unsure if you can say the three words hanging on your tongue, unsure if it could cause you to lose everything. You are not usually afraid like this, in fact, you believed yourself to be stronger than others. You’ve always been able to shoulder a blow when others may not be, able to carry the weight of an identity that you sometimes feel does more harm than good. You have been strong enough to carry that identity, to carry the hatred that those claiming to be authorities of the divine preach against you.

So why is it that speaking those three words is the most terrifying thing in the world?

She looks at you again, half of her face illuminated red by the glow of the movie screen, and smiles. Your brain fogs and you smile back tentatively, afraid that you’ll fail to keep those eight letters pursed behind your lips and everything will spill out after that. You are afraid because you know that those three words will lead to three more, which will lead to you telling her how you’ve liked her since last year on the Fourth of July when you went to watch the fireworks and she put her head on your shoulder. It will eventually lead to you admitting how when she yelled at that kid in your class for shouting something disgusting at you that you can’t even remember, you wanted to grab her hand just like you want to now. Something happens in the movie, something that you don't notice, the audience jumps and she does too. She grabs your hand. Your heart beats to the tune of those three words. You want to tell them to her; if you could just make the jump and spit it out.

But you don't, you remember the look on your parents' faces. You feel the eyes of women in church who somehow saw through you and stared at the back of your neck like vultures. You hear the whispers of your peers who have known there was something different about you before you even came to the same conclusion. You decide you can't risk messing this up, one of the only good things you have.

So you sit, and you wait, and you watch the movie, wishing and praying that someone could say something to change this. You wish that there was someone to share your burden with and make you realize that it's really not a burden at all. That what you feel is not evil; in fact, it's something that could flourish like the willows you grew up under if you let it. You need someone to let you know that your love is not a tainted disgusting thing. But no one is, so you wait, and you watch, and you wish and you stay oh so still until the movie finishes, and you realize she is still squeezing your hand—and then you begin to think that your grandmother might have been wrong. She was wrong because it is so clear at this moment that her fingers entwined in yours are the most important thing in the world.