Ian's story

I only told my very best friends I was in care. Other people? None of their business. That's until I started seeing a girl...

Jemma was well fit - loads of people were jealous. The best looking girl in Year 9 seeing me, in Year 8! It felt good. Dead funny. But the joke was on me. I fell in love. So I decided to tell her I was in care. No big deal I thought. How wrong I was.

"Jemma, I've got something important to tell you," I began. I'd imagined she'd kiss me and tell me it was all OK. Nope. She just made some excuse, and left.

That's it, I thought, the end of Jemma. But Jemma had other ideas. She thought it'd be fun to spread the news around the school. The following Monday all hell broke loose.

Well harsh!

Random people called me things like "tramp", "council", "chav". There was loads of other stuff too - well harsh.

I'd been dumped for being in care and the whole school was out to get me. I didn't go in for the rest of the week. My foster carers only found out when my mate Jay phoned to see if I was OK.

I begged them not to go into the school. That's the last thing I needed: the shame of my carers asking my teachers to look out for me. I had to prove - Jemma and the rest - that I wasn't embarrassed about being in care.

So care

I became really full on, like really out there gay people. I was so care nothing they said could hurt me. That's not true of course. Plenty of things hurt me but I didn't show it. Poeple soon backed off. But - even better - they started telling me how brave I was. Or how cool I was for not taking rubbish. Before long, people who had said negative stuff wanted to be friends.

The whole Jemma thing could have been terrible for me. I could have been so hurt that I trusted no one. Luckily I had good friends. And I found the strength to be ballsy and proud about bring in care.

Jemma might have been dead fit, but getting dumped was the best thing that ever happened to me!