Breakthrough by Jack Andraka Read Free Book Online Page B

hole I could jump into to disappear. Instead the voices kept coming faster and faster.
    The teacher will be here any minute. Just hang in there one more minute.
    The circle closed in on me. One of the boys pushed me. Hard. I dropped to the floor in one direction. My books flew in another. Ofcourse, that’s when my nose started bleeding.
    I looked up at my classmates. There was blood on my hands, my books, my clothes, the floor. The whole class was laughing really hard.
    â€œYou think you’re all that? Look at you now!” I heard one of them taunt as I scurried back to my only safe haven, the handicapped stall in the boys’ bathroom. I sat on the seat behind the latched door and cried into my hands. I cried a long time.
    After the music class incident, my identity and reputation were officially etched in stone. I was on the Not Cool list, and there was simply nothing I could do to change that. And it wasn’t just the students who were against me. Sometimes the teachers and staff joined the chorus of haters. A lot of them were deeply religious, and their worldviews didn’t square with my identity. To a lot of them, being gay was wrong and immoral. That meant that the people I was supposed to look up to as authority figures had rejected who I was. They believed that I, as a person , was wrong and immoral.
    One day when I had gotten something wrong in class, a teacher blurted out, “What are you? Gay?”
    It was just four words, but it crushed me.
    Is there something wrong with being gay?
    Is there something wrong with me?
    If there was a hell, I reasoned, it probably looked a lot like my middle school.
    When seventh grade finally came to an end, I felt like letting out one giant exhale.
    This year, more than any other, I was looking forward to going crabbing with Uncle Ted.
    After we had dropped our traps and drifted out far enough into the water, he asked me about school.
    â€œIt’s been a little rough,” I said, in a comment that could be nominated for the understatement of the year.
    I could tell he knew it was more than that.
    â€œJack, just remember all the things you have to look forward to,” he said.
    â€œMiddle school can be a rough time, but things will get better in high school. You’re going to do great things one day,” he said. “I just know it.”
    The summer before eighth grade also meant my return to math camp. After the wonderful time I’d had the summer before, I couldn’t wait to hop on the plane and get as far away from Crownsville as possible. I was looking forward to being myself again.
    This year’s camp was held in Wyoming, and during the first week, I met a boy named Anthony. He was smart and fun, and he had the same interests that I did. We quickly became great friends, but by the second week of camp, my feelings for him had grown intothe more-than-friend territory. I liked him. I was getting the vibe that he liked me too. There was just something about the way he looked at me.
    Never had I so enjoyed working on math problems with a partner. We laughed and talked as we raced through the quickest ways to solve problems. There were also these moments, like the one night when we were sitting together on the sofa watching the World Cup, and I could feel that tension building up in the pit of my stomach. I wanted so badly to tell him how I felt. He was accepting and kind, I told myself. It would be safe to be my true self around him.
    â€œAnthony?” I said.
    â€œYeah?”
    Every time I tried, I just couldn’t gather my nerves. I was afraid talking about it would mess things up.
    â€œOh, nothing.”
    As time went on, I felt an increasing pressure to be honest with him about my feelings. I knew that after math camp was over, there was a chance I’d never see him again. What if my cowardice was jeopardizing what could be the greatest relationship ever?
    Finally, on the very last day, I decided— Screw it, I