Free Geek Girl by Cindy C Bennett

summer is done, you will see a new Trevor. And you’ll probably have to take him over for me next year since chances of me getting another family in this school are nil.”
    “Which one of us?” they ask together.
    “Maybe it’ll require both of you,” I say, my stomach clenching at the thought of Trevor at the mercy of either one of them, let alone both.
    ⊕⊗⊕
    “Wanna go swimming?” Trevor asks about three weeks later, and I figure this is a good opportunity for me to really swing him my way. My body is one of my strong points.
    He picks me up and lets me drive his cool car, which I’m revved about. I do like cars. I’m not wearing makeup because water on the kind of makeup I wear makes for some ridiculously large black streaks down the face. I have on a T-shirt and skirt over my swimsuit because I plan to make the most of the unveiling.
    Trevor carries our stuff and finds us a spot on the grass in the sun.
    “This okay?” he asks.
    “Great.”
    Once he has the blanket spread out and sits down, I stand casually in front of him and slowly peel my T-shirt off. He is leaning back on his hands, sunglasses on, but he is very still. I have his full attention now, though he pretends otherwise. It’s not good manners to stare, after all. I deliberately untie the wrap-around skirt and let it drop to the ground. He still hasn’t moved. I bite back my smile.
    “You gonna sit there all day or are we gonna swim?” I ask, hands on hips.
    “Uh, sw . . . swim. I . . . I think swim.”
    I smile and hold out my hand. He looks at it for a minute, then places his hand in mine, and I pull him up. He throws his sunglasses back on the blanket, and I’m pleased to see his eyes are a little unfocused. Trevor takes his own T-shirt off; now it’s my turn to be stunned.
    Trevor actually has muscle, tight pecs and abs, and nicely rounded biceps—a pretty nice physique. Not at all the skinny, pale, shapeless wonder I expected him to be.
    His bright yellow trunks are just what I would have expected. All they need is a Spiderman print to be complete.
    We walk to the pool, and I slice in neatly with a dive. I come up and look back at Trevor, who then cannonballs next to me, dousing me.
    “Nice,” I tell him when he comes up for air.
    “One of those talents I was telling you about,” he says. “Race you to the other side.”
    He lets me win. He is a strong, clean swimmer. I tell him I’m on to him.
    “Swimming lessons from age three to thirteen,” he confesses.
    “Self-taught.” I’m smug. He looks impressed.
    After swimming for a while and having a water fight that he easily wins, we climb out and walk back to our blanket. I’m unused to the lack of attention I’m getting from the other swimmers. Though my swimsuit is covered with black skulls, without my outrageous clothes and makeup, I don’t particularly stand out. The anonymity is somewhat nice because I can relax and not worry about keeping the act up.
    Trevor walks over to the snack bar and buys us water bottles and Popsicles, the official foods for swimming geeks everywhere. When he comes back, he pulls the sunscreen from his pack and offers it to me.
    I start rubbing it on my arms and legs, but when I get to my belly I happen to glance over and see that Trevor has put his sunglasses back on, frozen in the act of watching me, not even noticing his Popsicle melting in streaks down his arm. So I slow it down, make a show of it.
    “Can you rub some on my back?” I ask. He doesn’t answer, just throws his Popsicle onto the grass.
    “Be right back,” he says, then jumps up and runs into the locker room. He’s back out almost immediately, and his arm is dripping, but with water now instead of Popsicle juice, though his arm is still streaked with red stains. He hurries over and sits behind me. He squeezes the lotion onto his hands, rubbing them together to warm the lotion up before putting it on me, taking longer than necessary to rub it around. He is