Free Breakthrough by Jack Andraka Page B

he began to see how, no matter what he may have thought of his sexuality, first and foremost, his roommate was a human being. And a really cool one at that. The coach told my brother that the two became lifelong friends.
    After the heart-to-heart with his coach, my brother slowly began to accept me again. He went back to harassing me like he did before he found out I was gay. Oddly, that went a long way to making me feel normal again.
    Fortunately, I was allowed to enter the science fair. Thank goodness, or I wouldn’t have graduated and would have been forced to repeat eighth grade. That was something I wanted to avoid at allcosts. My project, called “A Comparative Study of the Toxicity of Metal Oxides on Vibrio fischeri and Daphnia magna,” won first place. It was the third year in a row that I’d finished first overall. It was a huge accomplishment, and I should have been beaming. On the outside, I managed to turn on the smiles. At this point, I had become an expert at faking the emotions people expected me to feel.
    I muscled through the last few days of eighth grade and couldn’t have been more relieved to walk out of school on the last day. I had no plans to go back.
    The start of summer vacation meant math camp. I didn’t know what to expect this time. I still had a bad taste lingering in my mouth from my coming-out-to-Anthony debacle after seventh grade. Still, I hoped for the best. Over the past two years, I had seen my two best friends move away, been shunned and humiliated by my classmates, come out of the closet, attempted suicide, and lost one of the people I felt closest to in the whole world. I figured eventually things had to get better because I didn’t see how they could get much worse.
    This year’s camp was being held in Colorado again, where I had had such a great experience after sixth grade. I took this as a good sign. On the first day of camp I met a counselor named Jim. He was smart and I liked the light, easy way that he spoke. Jim didn’t seem to have a care in the world. The first weekend of camp, we went on a field trip, and on the bus ride home, I overheard someone mentionthat Jim was gay. I couldn’t believe it. Unlike me, Jim seemed so well adjusted and devoid of any internal chaos. How did he do it? I wanted to learn more. As soon as I got back to my room, I wrote a two-page letter spilling my heart out. I told him about my struggles. About hiding my sexuality. About Anthony. About that day in the bathroom with the pencil. When I was sure no one was looking, I quietly walked to his cabin and slipped the letter under his door.
    A few days later, he pulled me aside.
    â€œI got your letter,” he said, looking concerned. “Let’s talk.”
    Jim told me his story. He had fought many of the same battles that I had, and he shared his experiences in coming out to his friends and family and overcoming the hatred people felt toward him. Jim was the first person who understood, intimately and personally, what I had been through. But more important than sharing the story of his past, Jim shared with me his hopes for the future. When I looked at Jim, I thought to myself that I, too, could have that kind of future, and more important, that I deserved it.
    â€œListen, Jack,” he said. “You are a smart kid. In the end, it is all going to work out.” Jim was the kind of guy who could explain complex math problems in simple language and remain calm in a sea of crazy teenagers. When he said that things would work out for me, I believed him. The two of us talked late into the night.
    The last weeks of camp went by too quickly. On our final day, a group of campers and I decided we needed one last adventure. Wepiled into a car and drove up to Pikes Peak. I didn’t have the stomach to look down as the car climbed higher and higher. It was so high that even in the dead of summer, the road was coated with ice and snow. Once we arrived at the