“866”, he said near the front, or was it the back, of the classroom, trying to be discreet. He’d just said aloud to the rest of the class that, despite another boy hearing him about to give me his phone number and the boy telling everybody else in the room to listen up because he was giving “us” his phone number, he didn’t want “everybody” having his number. He was just talking to me.

That made me feel special, though he’d already given me his number hours before, which I didn’t realize until he completed the last seven or ten; I don’t know if he included the area code or not; digits. “1117,” I think it was. “Oh, that’s the same number you gave me last night,” I responded, dropping the volume of those last two words as he repeated them with a nod of confirmation.

The teacher, a high school teacher I had and became friends with in real life; we talked on the phone for years after I graduated; was one of those gay, or at least bi, men you could tell just by the way they talk; the fake voice thing; and carry themselves. The “last night” bit wasn’t anything gay though, at least not for me. I simply meant that he’d given me his number in class the night before.

It seemed dark out when he gave it to me the second time. Perhaps it was a nightly class and he gave me it about 24 hours prior. It didn’t seem that long ago though. Maybe it was a long class, “last night” meant a few hours ago and it was now early morning. I don’t know, but, aside from any gay ulterior motive he may have had, the reason was because of a big class project we were doing.

I don’t know what it was about or whether or not we were split into groups as we probably would’ve been, but it seemed the whole class was involved. Earlier during that same period, I’d sat at a table with what seemed like Tamekia; a former co-worker of mine in real life; and at least two or three other girls who seemed to want me to sit beside them because they had a crush on me.

2020 October 06