Euphoria gave me the courage to come out to my friend – now we’re together

I was uncertain about expressing my queerness, until I saw the way Zendaya and Hunter Schafer’s characters opened up to each other in HBO’s drama I don’t remember the exact moment when I started catching feelings for my friend Ellen. It might have been when she trusted me to cut her hair into a feathered bob, or when I noticed she’d taken to keeping my favourite tea at her parents’ house. But in the summer of 2019, a month before our final year of school together, I realised I was falling in love. We were 17 at the time and had been best friends since our first year of high school, both of us part of the same tight-knit group of girls. Ellen and I knew each other well and were quick to make each other laugh, but we were also very different. Whereas Ellen is reserved and gentle, I’m loud and loquacious. So my sudden attraction to her was confusing – especially since neither of us was openly queer. I had been raised in an accepting, liberal household in Stockholm, where queerness was never frowned upon. And yet, I had always assumed that I was straight. It was the default script that had been handed to me. So, each time Ellen greeted me with her one-dimpled smile, I tri