Free Fan Art by Sarah Tregay Page A

necktie up over one shoulder.” I laugh, thinking this would be a great Gumshoe story.
    “He called my name, looked at me, and smiled. And that moment, I knew what the girls were feeling.”I remember that tumbling mix of awe and bashfulness, admiration, and the intense desire to crawl under my desk as if it were yesterday.
    “Did you ever talk to him?” Eden asks.
    “Oh, that’s a funny story too. During class he caught Ashley Quincy texting and took her phone away.”
    Eden smiles. Ashley Quincy isn’t her favorite person. No one popular is.
    “And Ashley said, ‘Come on, Gerrod. Give it back!’ Turns out, he was her cousin. He told her to come back after school to pick it up. At that moment, I wished more than anything that I had a phone. Because I wanted to get caught texting, wanted to have Mr. Middlebrook take it away and ask me to come to his classroom to after school.”
    Eden laughs approvingly.
    “Ashley pouted for a good ten minutes, until Mr. Middlebrook walked over, bent down, and whispered, ‘Come on, Goober, it’s not that bad.’”
    “He called her Goober?” Eden asks.
    “Yep. And Ashley smacked her hands down on her desk so hard, Mr. Middlebrook jumped. Then he went back to teaching algebra.”
    We sway side to side on our swings.
    “Ashley started passing notes telling everything she knew about him: that he was allergic to hot dogs, puked on roller coasters, and listened to country music. I thinkshe meant to turn the class against him, but the girls found this information fascinating—thought he sounded sweet, and not at all like any eighth-grade boy they knew.”
    “Sounds like it,” Eden said. “Eighth-grade boys smell.”
    I laugh.
    “So what’d you do?” Eden asks.
    “I found a way to stay after school.”
    “You got in trouble?”
    “Nope. I found a math problem he explained differently than our teacher had. And would you believe there was a line at his desk? All girls and me. All waiting for their cell phones—they had been texting in class. On purpose.
    “He had the phones in his desk—all but Ashley’s. Hers was in his jacket pocket and when he reached for it, all these notes spilled out. They were love notes. From girls.”
    Some kids burst out of a minivan and run across the grass.
    “In his pockets?” she asks, watching the kids. “Like, girls put notes in his pockets?”
    “‘Cell phone?’ he asked me. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Math question.’ Boy, did he look relieved. ‘How do you put up with them?’ he asked, pointing to the notes. I didn’t really get that he was confiding in me, so I told him I thought they were crushing on him. And he shook his head and said,‘Double not interested.’”
    “Gay,” Eden concludes. “So now you’re a math whiz? Gerrod Middlebrook inspired you.”
    “I aced algebra—learned how to really solve problems, not just answer the ones that were on the tests.” I’m in AP Calculus, but I don’t mention it.
    “Cool,” Eden says.
    “He was the first gay man I ever met,” I admit.
    “But you knew you were gay?”
    “Maybe not right away, but that was the week it started to click—kind of like algebra.”
    Eden and I sit in still silence. And I realize that I never told anyone that story before, even though it totally defines who I am and how I relate to people around me. It makes me feel close to her. I wonder if she feels the same way.
    “Eden?” I ask.
    “Yeah.” She turns in her swing.
    “Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”
    “What? That you’re gay? It’s a little late for that.” She says this with a laugh.
    “Whaddaya mean?”
    “Um, dot. Dot. Dot.”
    “Eden?”
    “Everyone knows, Jamie. I don’t have to tell them.”
    “Not everyone,” I say, thinking of Mason.
    “Almost everyone?”
    “I haven’t told Mason,” I admit.
    “Well, hurry up and tell him.”
    I shake my head. She doesn’t understand. In fact, she’s probably one of those people who thinks coming out is as easy as a