I’m just a nerdy boring square. 

For the first forty years of my life, I lived by the book. Growing up in the rural town of Cloverleaf, Montana, a fire burned inside of me to be somebody. I’d been raised in a single-father home with two other brothers. My dad, Bub, was a ranch hand, a seasonal construction worker, and a janitor at the local school. We never had much, but my father had hammered the ethic of hard work into us. I’d spent my childhood days waking at the crack of dawn to ride with my dad to the estate where he’d earned a collection of sunburns, scars, and sometimes even broken bones that he insisted was part of becoming a man. By the time I was fourteen and entering high school, I was adamant that I’d avoid any career that required such toil and sweat. In my heart, I knew that I was meant to be a leader. 

My household had been the epitome of stereotypical masculinity. The cowboy mentality had been ever-present while living in a home of men with dirty hands, bad backs, and demeanors so tough that one time my brother, Snavis, had accidentally stabbed himself in the stomach with a screwdriver and didn’t even blink. Frantically driving him to the hospital, he’d just sat in the passenger seat, smoking and singing along to some Johnny Cash songs. I often envied my brothers’ and my father’s relentless suppression of their emotions and pain. But I was different. 

I’d always known that I didn’t want to work with my hands or my body but with my intellect. I studied, I read, I joined the debate team, and I graduated high school as the valedictorian. Also, I had a secret. 

When I was ten, I was playing at the local park with a friend of mine named Tony. Tony lived a few blocks from me and would often hang around the playground at all hours to avoid his parents who struggled with alcohol. We were swinging and making horrific efforts to rap a Snoop Dogg song. 

“Bitches and hoes.” I giggled. 

“You’re a bitch,” he teased me, slapping me on the shoulder. 

I jumped off my swing and tackled him, knocking him to the ground. We rolled around on the grass until he managed to wrestle his way on top of me, holding my wrists down with his knees and tickling my sides. I screamed and pleaded for him to quit with tears gushing out. Finally, he stopped, offering me a hand to help me up. Rising to my feet, I brushed myself off and smiled at him. He squinted his brown eyes in the sunlight as he grinned back at me. A minute passed, and we were still grasping each other’s hands. Butterflies of excitement swam around chaotically in my tummy. For the first time, I noticed his cute dimples that blanketed his cheeks with charm, and his palm was rough and coarse. I’m not sure how long we stayed like that, but when his hand slid out of my grip, I forever yearned for more. Nothing else ever happened between us. That day, I realized that I was bisexual. 

Homophobia had been alive and well in my home. My father and brothers were good people, but ignorant—very ignorant. Being the youngest, I’d watched as my brothers returned from school during our teenage years, bragging about their latest scores and my dad had congratulated them with a that’s my boy slap on the back. It had all been so cliché. Snavis had gotten married shortly after graduation to a local girl, and they’d moved to a trailer on her parents’ small ranch on the corner of town. My other brother, Kicky, impregnated his girlfriend in his eleventh-grade year. They’d moved into her parents’ house, but the relationship had soured quickly. He ended up dropping out of school and working several years with my father in construction until he met a Native American woman from Wyoming and relocated to Missoula, where she worked as a nurse. 

When I’d begun high school, the pressure to score with chicks and brag about my sexual conquests created anxiety. I definitely liked girls, but my attraction to boys felt so much stronger. I had decided in the tenth grade that I wanted to save myself for a man rather than lose my virginity to a woman. Thus, I didn’t date. Instead, I shoved my nose in my books and in my future. 

My father and brothers grew suspicious. 

“Why don’t you bring home any gals?” Snavis hissed at me one night at the kitchen table. We were feasting on a couple of large pizzas, a dinner staple in my childhood. While he wasn’t a cook, my dad was still passionate about family dinners and required our presence at the table each evening until I finally moved out when I started college. 

“I don’t even see you talking to gals,” Kicky agreed through a mouthful of pizza. 

“I need to study so that I can get a scholarship,” I told them, which was true and a convenient excuse. 

“School over gals?” Kicky laughed. “There ain’t nothing better than some gals.” 

“I agree,” my father said. “It’s not normal to spend all that time alone in your room. Even if you are studying.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world for girls later. I want to go to college. I need to work hard now,” I mumbled, staring down at my plate to avoid their questioning glares. 

“You sure it ain’t something else?” my father probed. His face looked serious. 

“No, it’s not,” I lied, still evading his gaze. 

He stared at me for a few moments just chewing his food with his mouth moving awkwardly since he’d lost most of his teeth. Snavis and Kicky muttered something to each other and chuckled. 

“What’s so funny?” I snapped at them.