My Awkward Phase

When I returned, she’d become Uni’s Jennifer Lopez, the girl I had always wanted to be. She had baby doe eyes, ballistic breasts, and pouty, full lips. She had dated the coolest jocks and coldest gangsters at Uni and floated between these mutually exclusive enclaves with ease. But her popularity must have distracted her from studies.
I raised my hand.
“Rios, go ahead and educate us.”
I went to the board, solved Marta’s problem in three easy steps, and she smiled and winked. The teacher called on a muscled, tatted Latino slouched in the back.
“Miguel, tell us your thought processes on the second question.”
Miguel Carranza had led the persecutors who’d driven me from Middle School to St. Aybert’s. He’d bloodied my nose in the school yard and incited his friend Jack to stomp my prostrate body. My father had bullied their names from me, and they’d been suspended.
“Let smartass Rios explain it.”
“Give your paper to Rios. Alex, tell us where Miguel went off the rails.”
“He never got on track.”
“Show Miguel how to solve it.”
I solved it and handed the paper back to Miguel, who snatched it.
“OK, Carranza, copy Rios’s work on the board.”
Miguel copied my solution, but added “Alex Rios, Sissy Faggot” beneath. The classroom burst into laughter; Mr. Roger’s erased the slur.
“Carranza, take this pink slip to the principal’s office.”
I approached Mr. Rogers after class.
“Can’t you get me out of here? Carranza hates me.”
“It’s a requirement.”
“I’m sure I could ace your final today.”
“Here’s last year’s final. Give it a shot.”
I finished the test in twenty minutes. Mr. Rogers let out a low whistle when he finished marking it.
“Even so, I can’t excuse you.”
“Then have me tutor the others.”
“These losers?”
“I need community service credits anyhow.”
The next class Miguel was assigned to my front row seat and I sat at a table in the rear of the class, tutoring Marta. I coached her through the mysteries of multivariable equations, and she giggled with delight when she finally solved one herself. Miguel scowled over his shoulder and raised his hand.