When I See You Again

[Agincourt]

Here is an initial post regarding When I See You Again by LittleBuddhaTW.

 

Of course there will be spoilers below, so you are hereby warned.

 

This is a really sweet coming-of-age-and-discovering-I'm-gay story that builds very subtly and naturally. It is in stunning contrast to the typical Nifty formula where, within the first handful of paragraphs, the lead character has reeled off his height, weight, hair color, grade in school, and "oh by the way I'm gay." In this story, we get to see Grady, the lead character, discover those feelings and wrestle with them in a very believable and organix way.

 

Grady is twelve years old, and has been best friends with Brennan, another twelve-year-old, since the day Brennan rescued Grady from sitting lonely in the corner on the first day of kindergarten. Since that time they have been joined at the hip, special friends. Brennan is much more outgoing and adventurous, but fiercely loyal to Grady. Grady, on the other hand, really does not have other friends, and hates being in the spotlight for any reason.

 

Grady's family life is poor in every respect. His parents pay little attention to him, and have little money. Brennan's father, Mr. Bellinger, becomes kind of a surrogate father for Grady. He teaches Grady (and Brennan) about baseball, and it turns out that Grady has become a formidable pitcher, while Brennan is an equally talented catcher. Because their close friendship creates almost telepathic communication between them, Grady's powerful arm and Brennan's skill at the plate make them an unbeatable combination.

 

As the story opens, Grady's and Brennan's Little League team, coached by Mr. Bellinger, has just won a game that will send them to Williamsport, PA for the two-week-long World Series of Little League. Grady and Brennan are very excited about having this time together.

 

Shortly after arriving, Grady makes contact with another young lad named David, who is on a different team from Alabama. Grady is strangely attracted to David, whose own teammates treat him badly. Partly from sympathy, and partly from an unexplained attraction, Grady befriends David, and invites him to hang out with his (Grady's) teammates. Grady reflects that it's weird for him to do something like this, since he normally steers clear of making new friends. He wonders how Brennan will feel, but rationalizes that Brennan had in fact encouraged Grady to make other friends.

 

With his adolescent hormones kicking in to make every event an emotional crisis, Grady is wracked by concern when Brennan seems a little cool, and then when David doesn't show up the next day Grady is convinced that his whole life is headed for ruin. He starts to pitch an important game and is doing a terrible job. Then he looks up to see that David is sitting in the stands, watching and smiling. Suddenly Grady becomes a pitching dynamo.

 

Relations between Grady and Brennan seem to become cooler and cooler, however. Grady sneaks out with David one night to see a movie in town, despite the fact that he is already on the coach's shit list for purposely beaning a fellow player earlier that day in anger. They have a nice time, with Grady impulsively holding David's hand (which he does not object to) during the film. They head back, with Grady expecting all manner of doom to crash down on him. He discovers, to his surprise, that Brennan has covered for his absence, telling Mr. Bellinger that Grady was out running laps. But Brennan is even colder to Grady, refusing to speak to him.

 

Grady's next pitching assignment pits his team against David's Alabama team. Brennan is still being cold to Grady as catcher. Grady still pitches a good game, with his team well ahead. But when David comes up to bat, visibly trembling, Grady is visibly conflicted. His first pitch, a wicked fastball, leads to a wild swing and strike, and David's teammates heap abuse on him, even though virtually all of them had also struck out when faced with Grady's unhittable pitches. Grady gets pissed off and throws a slightly slower ball to David, which David hits out of the park for a solo home run. Grady's team still wins, but everyone realizes that Grady gave away that home run. Brennan is so steamed, in fact, that he socks Grady in the jaw when they get back to their quarters.

 

Mr. Bellinger decides that enough is enough, and puts Grady and Brennan in the coach's room, tells them they need to work out whatever is going on, then leaves. Behind closed doors, Brennan apologizes and starts to cry, and Grady starts to cry, and they basically cry for a long while. At the end of it, they seem to have reconnected, but the deal is that Brennan will be included with David (i.e., as a threesome) when they're hanging out with Grady. Grady hopes this arrangement will hold.

 

By the time we got back to our room, the rest of the team was asleep, so we quietly shucked off our clothes, changed into our pajamas, and crawled into bed. I was glad that I didn't have to face the rest of the team yet. I was still far too emotional. I needed a chance to unwind and try to process everything that had happened.

 

Just as I was about to drift off into the land of dreams, though, I heard my cell phone beep twice, letting me know that I'd just received a text message. Flipping my phone open, I saw that it was from Brennan. The message was simple and to the point:

 

I love you, Grady.

 

I chuckled softly to myself as I replied back, "I love you, too."

 

The next day is a semi-final game. Grady is not pitching. Grady's team wins against an opponent that probably didn't belong there. This was exciting, because it meant Grady's team would advance to the U.S. championship. But Grady is now facing the full effect of the strange new feelings he has been experiencing.

 

By the time we got back to The Grove, I thought I was going to collapse from heat exhaustion. The best cure for that, I figured, was to jump in the pool. The rest of the guys seemed to have the same idea, and we all headed to our room to get changed into our swimsuits. As we changed, though, I once again found my eyes drawn to the small, lithe bodies of my teammates. What was so disconcerting, though, was that while my teammates were talking about a bunch of girls, who had approached them for their autographs after the game, and how they wouldn't mind taking them out behind the stadium and feeling them up, all I could think about was how unappealing that sounded to me. I also thought that I might like trying that with someone like David ... or even Brennan. And, as those thoughts crossed my mind, it just reinforced my fear about how different from the other guys I really might be.

 

Things become much more complicated and confusing for Grady as he realizes that he is looking at a number of the other boys with great appreciation for their bodies and good looks. This just seems to add to his panic.

 

Grady discovers that he is attracted to another pitcher on their team, a lad named Tom. Tom is injured in a game-winning play and ends up with his arm in a cast. Grady discovers Tom in the shower one night, which gives Grady an embarrassing boner. Before Grady can escape, Tom asks for Grady's help to wash his back, which he can't do with the cast on. Grady greaks out, and when Tom tries to find out the problem, Grady explodes at him and calls him a pervert. This seems to crush Tom, but Grady can't bring himself to face the truth with him. He comes close to talking to Brennan about it, but can't bring himself to do that either.

 

The next day, Grady's team wins the world championship in a total nailbiter. Both sides had pitched shutouts until Brennan, the last batter with two outs in the bottom of the last inning, manages to hit a game-winning home run - which he had promised Grady he would do. It is a stunning victory for these 12-year-olds from Michigan.

 

As they get on the bus home later that night, Tom is sitting by himself, not joining the rest of hte kids at the back of the bus. Brennan, with unusual insight, insists to Grady that he needs to go sit with Tom. Reluctantly, Grady does so. After an initially chilly bit of conversation, the two decide to go to sleep:

 

Soon enough, though, the bus quieted down. It had been a very long and exciting day and it was well past our bedtime. However, I was still wide awake, and I saw that Tom was, too.

 

"Hey," I said, finally turning to look at him.

 

"Hey."

 

"You okay?" I asked.

 

He nodded, never taking his eyes off of me. His steady stare was unnerving, but as uncomfortable as I felt right then, as much as I wanted to look away, I couldn't.

 

"Tom, I .....," I began. But, I couldn't get the words out. I wasn't even sure what I was trying to say. That I was sorry? That I was feeling something for him, but wasn't quite sure what?

 

"We'd probably better get to sleep," he finally said, breaking the awkward silence.

 

I sighed and nodded, frustrated at myself. Maybe a good night's sleep would help ... well, as much as sleeping on a bumpy bus ride could be called a "good night's sleep."

 

I leaned my chair back, propped up my pillow, and offered some of my blanket to Tom, which he pulled up around himself.

 

My eyes had only been closed for a few moments when I heard his small voice. "Can we maybe have a little cuddle?"

 

I felt the same wave of fear that I'd felt the day before in the shower room course through me, but I quickly forced it down. I wasn't going to run away this time, not if it meant hurting Tom again.

 

"Sure," I said, as I shifted around in my seat so we could both lie down on the seats. I spooned up behind him and wrapped my arm around his small frame, nuzzling my face into the nape of his neck.

 

As I began to drift off to sleep to the rhythm of Tom's gentle breathing, I couldn't remember ever feeling so comfortable before.

 

And so the story ends.

 

Somewhat maddeningly, we discover that this is the "end of Part I," and there is no part II. Presumably someday we might find out how Grady ends up dealing with these scary feelings.

 

I was quite impressed with the deftness and grace in the writing of this story. It just seems to ring true at every step. Even rather amazing events, such as a private coaching session with Orel Hershiser, come across as seeming perfectly plausible.

 

It is also very exciting, in an almost cinematic sense, to see young people triumph as these kids did in winning their games. The author did an excellent job of keeping up the suspense and the tension, and making it clear how close the winners came to losing. Perhaps Brennan's home run in the world championship game was a bit of magic and a bit of a miracle, especially when he predicted it in advance, but somehow it all seems to fit in anyway. And Grady was amused when Brennan, who was perfectly at ease in front of the television cameras, was able to shine in the spotlight during interviews. Grady was not jealous, and not simply because Grady hated being in the spotlight -- he thought Brennan deserved it.

 

This is in many ways a love story, but not a soppy one. It is, in fact, a very masculine love story, albeit one involving 12-year-olds. It feels very satisfying in a guy sense -- this is the way guys should relate when they're in love.

 

What is implied, however, is that there are more kinds of love than Grady might have suspected. The story leaves us expecting that Grady will find he has different kinds of love for Brennan, for David, and for Tom. How that will all work out we can only speculate.

 

This was an excellent story recommendation. I only regret that the remainder of the story has not yet been written.

 

A

[StoriesByCirrus]

Agincourt saved me from having to do any kind of summary of the plot.

 

I'm a sucker for both sports stories and love stories, so "When I see you again" was right in my wheelhouse. I think the best adjective to describe this story is "sweet". Even though the characters have their ups and downs, you always get the feeling that things will work out alright in the end. The story has a certain innocence to it. Even though Grady says he starts thinking all sorts of illicit thoughts about the boys he encounters in Williamsport, he doesn't elaborate on the details. The action in the story doesn't get much further than hand-holding and cuddling and the occasional kiss on the cheek - and that's fine by me. The emphasis on the story is squarely on Grady's relationships with his teammates, with Brennan, with David, and with Tom, and discovering things about yourself you weren't aware of before and what they might mean for the future.

 

My only criticism (and Com probably won't believe me when I say that ) is that I think LittleBuddha might have ended it differently if he realised he wasn't going to get around to writing Part 2. It's been two years since this story was finished, so I'm not holding my breath for the next series of chapters. The final chapter left things somewhat open ended, with a suggestion of where things might develop once Grady, Brennan and Tom returned home that I would have been interested in reading. It felt a bit like a television series that gets cancelled before the writers have a chance to tie up all the loose ends

[Nephylim]

My main problem with the story, if a problem it was, was the ages of the kids involved. My son is ten and my cousin, who I am very close to is twelve. I therefore have a real problem with stories about pre teens and young teens. I have had the disussion with ricky before and I have had to get over it by concentrating wholly on the story and not think about the age. It was quite hard here.

 

One of the great things about the story was that they weren't grown up minds in kids bodies. The kids here actually thought and acted like children (mostly)

 

The story was quite sweet, with all the angst and end of the world dilemmas that happen to children at that age. Every small problem is insurmoutable and every comment means a whole load of things and all of them bad.

 

I tend to find stories like this slow and I skip chunks of it but I really liked this one, there was enough to keep my interest even during the sport sections... I really am not into sport of any kind in stories but I kind of got into it here.

 

My main criticism really isn't his fault. I hate the way things are set out on Nifty and I find it incredibly hard to read. However the story itself makes up for it as it is very easy to read. As has been mentioned it has a certain innocence about it which is great given the ages of the children. Not all stories that are about children are innocent and I find that a lot of time they set the age then write the characters as a lot more mature and much older than they actually are. This one doesn't do that so much although it is totally inevitable for an adult to let adult thought processes, vocabulary, experience etc creep in and Grady in particular does seem quite old at times.

 

Yes, I like this story and I would read more.

 

 

[Red_A]

My main criticism really isn't his fault. I hate the way things are set out on Nifty and I find it incredibly hard to read. However the story itself makes up for it as it is very easy to read.

 

 

this is a link to Little Buddha story on Gay Authors which may be better formatted link

[Nephylim]

Awesome. Thanks. I'm not good at noticing detail and when I saw the word Nifty I went looking there That is Soooo much better. thanks