We still had not any real contact with another male. I would say it was a couple weeks before I moved to Georgia, it was the summer after my sophomore year of high school and I stayed at his house just as a kind of a last hoorah. We were on dance teams together, I guess I should have known he was gay then, but, we were on dance teach together, we ran track, we did a lot of sports together so I was always sleeping over at his house, and there would be times that I would be over there spending the night wishing something would happen, anything, a kiss, just him telling me, like, you know, high school boy’s fantasy I guess. We went through middle school into high school together and I definitely had a crush on him, I just never really, it was just like I really liked him, I didn’t know if he was gay, we never talked about it, I never even let that part of me really out. I had a friend who I had known since probably 7th grade. I didn’t really know anybody who was gay but I knew that I was gay.

Growing up in Hawaii, it was different, it was a bit isolated, I didn’t have a lot of gay friends, I didn’t have any gay friends actually. I’m Tirrell and I’m from Atlanta, Georgia.īefore moving to Georgia, I lived in Hawaii until I was 15.