tiago licroix | d5 fin

T I A G O.

For someone who's neither popular nor unpopular at school, you'd think people would spend less time involved in my personal life. Tiago Licroix, the STEM boy. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. In District Five, it's expected to have a baseline understanding of all these things because of our imports, but there's a difference between the people who do well enough to get a job and those who excel. Too young, thankfully, to travel to District Six as a member of their Science Fair, but in District Five, I'm a five-time Science Fair finalist and two-time Science Fair champion. I'm also our high school Science Olympiad team's Most-Valuable-Player for three years running. Most recently, I received an honor award in innovation for chemistry class. To put it into perspective, I'm just barely social enough to be called an academic instead of a nerd.

Tiago Licroix, the stem boy. Smart. That's all I need to be, nothing else. I'm not closed off to everyone else in school. I make copies of my notecards to let people borrow. Hell, I'll let people cheat on my test if they ask. But people love rumors. They love to speculate about who I am outside of school. I'm a mystery to them once I leave the school grounds.

The first rumor about me came up in the seventh grade. My friend Elisa came up to me during lunch and said that Aidan and Corey were talking about how they'd only seen my mom show up to my honor roll ceremonies. "They were saying that you have two moms and didn't want everyone to judge you. They said you're going to be gay like them when you grow up." For context, my mom and dad are both my biggest supporters. The reason my dad never showed up to events is because he works days overseeing the chemical plant. But for the science fair that year, I made sure he took off that day so everyone could see I had a dad. Squashed that rumor.

People are desperate, though, to prove themselves right. In tenth grade, a rumor about my sexuality spread again. I opened my locker one day and a stack of index cards fell out all over the floor. Printed on each one in block letters: STEMBOI. I didn't know at first what it meant, so I asked around. One of the boys in the Science Olympiad team told me that he heard a group of kids talking about me during lunch. "Stem boy Tiago! Do you know why they call him Stemboi? Because he gets his stem up every time we're in the locker room." This rumor wasn't as easy to dispel. I think I made it worse by asking our gym teacher to let me change in a different room which in turn led them to say I wanted to look at his dick.

I wish people would just mind their own business. I don't talk about anyone else that way. I keep my head down, pursue science, and go home. That's all I want out of school, you know? The accolades, the achievement. I don't want drama, don't want speculation. And I certainly don't want to open my locker and have a toy flop out with the words YOUR STEM written in red marker on the inside of my locker.

Every piece of my scientific upbringing tells me that the only solution is to admit the truth. Yeah, I'm gay! I want to tap the microphone at the Science Fair, a gold medal around my neck, that I like boys. I like boys, I dream about boys, I cry about boys. Boys, boys, fucking boys! It's cathartic to mouth those words behind my shower curtains where no one can hear except my imaginary boyfriend three inches away.

I'm in the closet, even if people bang so hard on the door that it makes my head spin. I'm thankful to have enough friends who know better than to ask or contribute, but even with them, I'm hesitant. Once I tell someone, there's no going back. Rumors are like pathogens spreading from person to person, the last thing I need is to run the risk of someone getting confirmation. Fueling the topic would inflame everything.

I don't talk about the rumors, ignoring the question whenever it's brought up to me. I think there's this idea among the straight boys that every gay guy in school has their eyes on them. I don't. Most of them are meh on a good day. But no, when someone like Aidan asks if I think his face is hot, I give them no response. With time, the "Stemboi" rumors die down.

They're going to come back, I think. Especially as we get older when more and more boys are coming out as gay. Only a matter of time before someone nudges me asking if I'm next.

In the meantime, I take an overanxious breath, letting my head down to go back to my work.