DISCLAIMER:  You don't really think that the 7th Heaven characters are my creation, do you?  They're actually the property of Aaron Spelling, Brenda Hampton, the WB, and some others I'm probably forgetting to mention.  I'm just using them for the purposes of telling this story, which actually is my own creation.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  This story was inspired by a TWoP challenge.  One should never back down from a TWoP challenge.  This story is dedicated to all "true" and "real" fans of 7th Heaven.  I hope you enjoy it.

Dear diary, do you want to hear a secret?  Of course you do – you always do.  Let me ramble a bit first, and if you're good and you listen to me for a while, then maybe I'll share one with you.  After all, you deserve it; it's so rare for anyone to listen anymore.

Anyway, as you know well by now, my life is full of desires – some greedy, some spiteful, some, dare I say it, sexual.  Regardless of their natures, though, I do my best to hide them.  As a minister's daughter, I'm forced to do it.  People expect me to act a certain way; and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that way is contrary to my desires.  Allowing my true feelings to surface would explode my family's safe little existence, and I'm honestly not up to dealing with something that major.

I could sit here and tell you how hard it is for me, but that wouldn't be true.  The fact is it's really quite easy for me to hide my feelings.  My parents have always made clear what is acceptable versus unacceptable behavior; so to maintain stability, all I have to do is fit my outward behavior to their mold.  With twenty-one years of practice under my belt, it has become practically second nature.

So I won't bore you with tragic, heartbreaking stories of fantasies unfulfilled.  Nor will I purge pent up feelings of resentment toward society and my parents, my oppressors.  That's all been done before by people in similar situations who were much more eloquent than I am.  Instead, I would simply like to share one of my many secret desires, one that I have kept inside for a rather long time. 

Sharing is one of the most fulfilling human activities, don't you think?  A shared experience can bring two people closer together than they ever would have been otherwise.  If I share this with you, diary, will it bring us too close?  Do you really want to know?  Of course you do.  And I think I can trust you with it, now that I've bought a new lock and found a new hiding place for you so Ben and Kevin and the rest of my family will never find you and read you again while I'm not around.  Here goes:

I'm in lust with a girl.

I know.  It's shocking.  So not like me.  So un-Camden.

I don't know how or when it happened, exactly.  It definitely wasn't an instant attraction.  At the time I first met her, I considered myself straight, because I hadn't ever felt any other way.  And when she first met our family, she went after Robbie, giving no indications whatsoever that she might have any feelings for me.  "She", of course, would be my fiancé Kevin's partner, Roxanne.

Sigh.  Have you ever been attracted to someone to the point of lust?  Ack, such silly questions!  I keep forgetting you're a book and not a person who can answer me.  Anyway, let me tell you how it feels.

You can physically feel yourself, inside, aching to be with that other person.  It doesn't matter whether or not you like the person.  There's some animal, physical, magnetic, inexplicable thing you feel whenever that other person is around – when she's making eyes at your boyfriend, acting like a catty shrew, doing everything she possibly can to just get under your skin and light your fire and make you notice her and boy oh boy do you notice her! *ahem* – that lingers when the person leaves, and even pops up at random intervals afterward.  And then, because you can't outwardly express that feeling inside you to anyone, it builds up and becomes uncomfortable.  And then the discomfort when you're around that person becomes too much to bear, and you say hateful things to hurt and repel and keep that person away from you.

That's what I tried to do, anyway.  I tried, and quite successfully I might add, to make her hate me.  I accused her of trying to steal Kevin from me, of being a harpy and a home-wrecker – none of which was unfounded, I might add – and it did the trick.  My logic in doing this, of course, was that the less she liked me, the less she would want to be around me.  It would be easier that way, for the both of us.

Unfortunately, she worked with my boyfriend five days a week, and she started dating the assistant pastor at the church where my father works, so it became rather difficult to avoid her.  Plus Kevin didn't help at all.  He kept prodding us to be "friends".  I knew in my heart it would never work; I couldn't accept her as just a friend.  I wanted it all, or nothing at all, and nothing was the easier choice of the two.

Until tonight.

Oh, diary, tonight was magical.  It was Valentine's Day, and initially I had been certain that I was headed for heartbreak.  I had made Kevin swear he wouldn't propose to me tonight, when in my heart I really wanted the opposite.  Waiting so long to get that darn ring on my finger had been driving me nuts.  I even started crying today because I thought he wasn't going to propose to me.  Can you believe that?

Boy was I surprised when he whisked me away to a fancy hotel on the outskirts of town and I found out he had reserved a ballroom where jazz legend Bobby Short was performing.  My whole family was there, and he proposed to me in front of them all!  I guess it was pretty romantic.  There was just one problem, though.  Roxanne, my girl-crush, was there too.

She wasn't there when he proposed, but I ran into her in the bathroom beforehand.  As I checked myself in the mirror, she walked right up next to me, looking like a devilish vixen in her asymmetrical red dress, with her long, creamy legs extending from beneath it.  It was just the two of us in there, and when I saw her I wanted nothing more than to drag her into a stall and have my way with her. 

I know, diary!  It was so wrong, but I couldn't help myself.  She just looked so gorgeous!  But the thought startled me so much that I screamed out loud, and then she screamed, and then I think I did a lot more screaming and accusing – I don't really remember.  What I do remember is her conviction that Chandler was going to propose to her that night.

Chandler.  A nice man, but I hated him because he was living my fantasy.  Kissing her, holding her, caressing her, learning her innermost secrets, earning her passion.

Can you imagine how much seeing her in the bathroom – and thus re-stoking my passions – complicated my feelings during the rest of the evening, when I was supposed to be celebrating my engagement with the rest of my family?  I mean, everything after the proposal was kind of a blur for me.  We danced, we ate, we celebrated the twins' birthday, we called relatives who weren't able to be there, and we shared the good news with them.  It was all very…tame, and predictable.

Until everyone else went home, and Kevin left the room to do something or other.  Then, like a vision, she appeared at the entrance to the ballroom.  She flowed down the spiral staircase in her ravishing red dress, walking up to me to congratulate me on the engagement.  But then the moment captured her.  She heard Bobby Short singing her favorite song and then…get this, diary.

She asked me to dance with her.  Of course I said yes.

As we spun together on the floor, giddily, dizzily, such thoughts ran through my head:  Lucy-slash-Roxanne, lust-sex-romance.  I know, diary!  I'm silly.  It was just a dance, right?  So why did it feel like so much more?  Why, when she touched my hands, did I feel a spark?  Why, when she looked into my eyes, did I see a twinkle?  Was I imagining it all?  Did the fact that my heart was beating about five times faster than normal, pumping blood to my brain and extremities and other parts at an alarming speed, heighten my perceptions beyond what was actually happening between us?

Or did it really mean something the way she kept leaning in, moving closer and closer until we were mere inches away?  Would we have gotten any closer if my fiancé and Chandler hadn't arrived to break us apart?  Would we have pressed our bodies against each other to engage in a lovers' dance?  Would my warm lips have embraced hers the way they had been secretly aching to do for so many weeks?  Would my fingers have pushed her flowing, blond hair back to trace her neck, her shoulder, moving downward to cup her smooth, supple breast?

I guess we'll never know, will we?

Well, I suppose I will have to tear these pages out and burn them now.  Oh, I'm sorry, diary.  I know, I bought the new lock and found the new hiding place and everything.  But I know Kevin and my family too well.  They would still manage to find and read you, and you would unwittingly tell them all the things about me that they should never know, and then they would use those things against me, for they haven't the same respect for secrets that you have.

I know it hurts you to know that I will be ripping this fantasy recollection of my life away and burning it, just to keep my "real" world intact.  But don't worry, diary.  I'll be OK.  Eventually, the flames will burn out and I'll go back to my normal life, trying to forget that this ever happened.

Thank you for listening.