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Frankie felt the bottom drop out of his stomach and he bolted up off the sofa, startling Diego and seeming to startle away the pained expression.
“Would you like a distraction? Cause, hot damn, there is a lot of material in this midterm exam. We’re probably going to have to spend hours, if not days working on it. Also, I brought donuts–or, I mean… I was going to eat a pack of those powdered donuts for breakfast but forgot about them, but… sugar should help… right?”
Frankie gave Diego his most charming smile and Diego snorted and rolled his shoulders, relaxing a little more comfortably into the couch.
“You’re right, we should get started. I actually really like those donuts, so… thank you.”
Diego gave a soft smile. Frankie thought he might like that one more than the sexy smirk.
In the end, they spent almost nine days studying together, and Diego was well enough to sit for the midterm but didn’t begin regularly attending class until right before Thanksgiving break. Frankie had tried to inquire about his plans for the holidays during one of their study sessions, but Diego had shut the conversation down immediately. Knowing Diego was trans, Frankie could take a pretty easy guess as to why the holidays might be hard, but he didn’t press.
Diego didn’t end up joining the pride planning committee, but he started attending their newly scheduled Sunday afternoon Rainbow Club meetings. Frankie was usually too busy helping to run the meeting to interact, but he watched as Diego slowly started opening up and making new friends, including two of the trans members of the pride committee.
One day, Diego showed up to class wearing a sweater with fraternity letters on it. They looked vaguely familiar, but Frankie never paid too much attention to what his frat-bro friends wore, or what was hanging above the doors at the parties he went to. Frankie was currently hooking up with a nonbinary person from his marketing class who was in a co-ed fraternity. He still saw Dustin from time to time, but he couldn’t remember off the top of his head what letters they both wore.
He overheard Diego telling a few of the women in the club that joining a fraternity had been a big dream of his as an undergrad. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to pass as a man as easily back then, and his old school hadn’t been nearly as open and accepting. Several of the women commented that they loved the fraternity he had joined because it was so queer friendly, and one noted there were at least four trans masculine and nonbinary members in the frat.
Frankie made a mental note to look into the frat and see if he could recruit more of their members to the pride committee. The previous year, Frankie had been one of the only male-identifying individuals, and he’d gotten unfairly saddled with all the heavy lifting even though several of the women on the committee, especially his bodybuilding friend Lara, could probably bench press him in their sleep. He’d much rather watch some nice fraternity guys lift heavy things.
The year came to a close, filled with red and green adorned parties, and an unreasonable number of onesie-themed bar crawls. As he finished writing the last sentence on his Entrepreneurship final, it hit Frankie that he wouldn’t get to see many of these classmates again. He wasn’t enrolled in any graduate level courses for his final semester, and three of the four other undergraduates were graduating the following week.
As he carried his exam up to the professor’s desk, he passed Diego and for just a moment, let himself admit there was one classmate in particular he was going to miss most of all.
Dr. Thompson smiled widely at him as he approached the lectern. Just before he gave his, “Thanks for everything, see you never” speech, she gestured for him to follow her into the office attached to the auditorium. For some reason, Frankie glanced over his shoulder and noticed Diego watching him with a curious expression.
Frankie obediently followed her, and found their TA also waiting in the office.
“Congratulations on an amazing semester, Frankie,” Dr. Thompson said. The TA, a PhD student named DeQuan nodded enthusiastically. “We just wanted to pull you aside for a quick moment to ask you a question.”
Frankie adjusted his backpack strap on his shoulder. Was he in trouble? Was this like a, “did you cheat on this free response exam that would be virtually impossible to cheat on,” sort of question?
“Next fall we want to launch a lab to accompany this class, which would be a start-up, shark tank style format. It would only meet once a week and would be an extension and an add-on to the in-class projects and discussions, but would allow for a little more theory to be taught in class.”
Frankie had been surprised at how practical the class had been. He’d always assumed master’s level courses were going to be all high-level thinking and theoretical posturing. He’d really enjoyed the projects and discussions. He quickly shared this feedback and DeQuan nodded.
“We’re hoping the lab allows for even more of that!” Dr. Thompson said. “Unfortunately, the idea only occurred to us halfway through the semester, and this class is only offered in the fall. We were hoping we could beta test the idea this spring with a few of the students who took the class this fall, and we wanted to ask if you would be interested in being one of those students?”
Frankie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Me? I’m just an undergrad though,” he said, repeating Diego’s teasing from the first day of class.
“You are, but we want to attract more undergrads and possibly even offer two classes and two labs if enough people are interested. Your feedback would be incredibly valuable and you’d be able to shape the curriculum we offer to future students,” Dr. Thompson said.
Frankie suddenly felt very important, a little like how he’d felt scribing for Diego.
Diego…
“Do you know which other students you’re going to include?” Frankie asked, maybe a little too eagerly.
Dr. Thompson and DeQuan gave each other a knowing look. “Well, we were thinking of Sylvia, Akeissa, and… Diego.”
Frankie couldn’t stop the grin that broke across his face. “That sounds like an amazing group. Truly, I think those are some of the best students in the class. I’d be honored to help. I have my schedule right here.” Frankie fumbled with his phone and pulled up his schedule for the next semester.
“Because there are so few of you, we’re going to try and find a time that works for everyone, and then go back to the school with the offer. You’ll get one credit for the course just like any other lab and there won’t be grades, just a Pass/Fail so long as you attend 90% of the classes.”
Frankie couldn’t stop grinning. “That sounds amazing. And we'll meet every other week?”
“That’s the plan. We’ll send around the coursework we’ll be referencing from this semester before each lab, and then we’ll brainstorm different ways we can engage students in the lab,” DeQuan said.
Frankie could barely wipe the grin off his face as he left the office and paraded across the front of the classroom. He caught Diego’s eye and gave him a campy salute followed by a completely unnecessary wink.
