LittleBuddhaTW

My only association with the "drug trade" is picking up my prescriptions for high blood pressure and cholesterol! 😁 But I do have some friends and many acquaintances who have been involved, in some way. It's almost impossible not to be, especially if you're in the lower classes (which most are). My ex father-in-law was a rural peasant who was kidnapped by the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the former biggest Communist insurgency group) and forced to farm coca plants (precursor to cocaine). He later received a settlement from the government as a "displaced person due to the violence" that came as a result of the peace accords of several years back. We're in a very "precarious" position (the country, not me) right now because of actions the U.S. has taken recently (cutting off all aid) as well as a presidential election happening next May which is expected to be very contentious, and possibly bloody. One potential candidate (I think his name was Miguel Uribe?) was assassinated not long ago. But anyway, those are more discussions for when I start posting Medellín, and a lot of that type of stuff gets brought up in great detail.

I would just note that, according to Chapter 16, when Nick saw Jack's back, he saw "welts," which are basically elongated bruises or "stripe bruises." They typically disappear in 1-3 weeks. It was smart of Nick to take those photos. They likely wouldn't be noticeable during a medical exam that many months later. Chapter 38 addresses that the family agreed to basically "let sleeping dogs lie" with Jack's parents as long as they didn't try to do anything else to harm them or Jack. It's very difficult not to respond to some of these comments, though I usually try very to hold back!

Definitely read Medellín when it comes out next month. The city itself is as much of a character in the novel as the boys are (although it's still filled with lots of Colombian guapitos). It's a fascinating place, both unimaginably beautiful and terrifyingly dangerous (depending on where in the city you go and when).

I live in a walled compound in a suburb of Medellín, Colombia, with armed guards (with shotguns) continuously patrolling the perimeter, and a police sub-station right around the corner. My neighborhood is also controlled and "protected" by La Oficina de Envigado, established by Don Berna (now in prison in the U.S., but the cartel is still one of the biggest in the city), which is the direct descendant of Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel. So, if you can get past all that, and my dog, then maybe you've earned the last few chapters. 😁

Tommy and I stepped out onto the porch, the morning air already warming with that sticky humidity that promised thunderstorms by dinner. Mr. Bojangles let out one lazy bark from inside before collapsing back into his bed like, You guys handle it – I’m retired. “I really don’t know what got into him,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “That was… the complete opposite of who Jack is.” Tommy tipped the last of his pop can back, crushed it casually in one hand, and shrugged. “Don’t swea

Can't win 'em all! 😉 Or you can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time. Something like that! 😁

That's part of the "problem." Nick didn't have a crush on Tommy before or now. Only Jack's mind has convinced himself that that was the case. He nodded, but it bounced off him. “He used to be your crush.” “In eighth grade,” I said. “And it was never a ‘crush.’ We were just casual friends, that was it. I’ve told you this several times before. Tommy and I are just friends. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will be.”

Two observations from Nick about his mom's involvement in this. He doesn't seem to blame her at all. I think the commentary so far may be chasing down a rabbit hole or missing the forest for the trees: "Here’s the thing: Mom didn’t know when she set this up (because how could she?): there might be a little static between Jack and Tommy. Not huge, scary, lightning-strike static – more like the kind that makes your arm hairs lift. Little shocks. Little looks. Mostly Jack. Mostly jealous. Mom’s goal had been sweet and simple – get us out of the house with a friend, touch some grass, and don’t hibernate with video games all summer. She wanted laughter and fresh air, not… whatever this was shaping up to be." "Mom had meant well – get us outside, get us with a friend, keep summer from turning into a couch imprint. She couldn’t have known she’d sat us down at a table with the legs uneven. And Jack… Jack had been good for so long. Steady. Meds right, sleep mostly normal, jokes that landed, storms held at bay. But tonight I could feel a low-pressure system building – a headache behind the eyes, the way birds get weird before rain." She was also unaware when the three of them went to the amusement park. All three of them got along fine while they were there. It wasn't until the next day that Jack shared his jealous feelings privately with Nick. And, there wasn't any tension between Nick and Jack at the time that she would have been aware of. The last "big" argument they had ended the moment Jack set eyes on Nana Bev for the first time, and immediately turned to give Nick some love. So, I'm not really getting all the hate for Nick's mom. In his own words, Nick is clear on what his mom's noble (yet misguided, but not intentionally) intentions were. She's not the perfect mom, she has her faults, things she could have handled better, things she should have noticed about her own son, but I don't think this is one of those times.

We heard Mr. Bojangles before we saw him – barking in rapid-fire bursts as Jack and I rounded the last stretch of sidewalk. His big fuzzy head poked between the living room curtains like a sentry on high alert, tail ticking back and forth like a metronome having a panic attack. The second my key hit the lock, everything detonated. The door cracked open, and forty pounds of canine missile shot past my knees, shrieking joy. Jack got one syllable of “Hey—” out before Mr. Bojangles launched lik

Chapter 38 will be posted tomorrow morning! Some long-running questions will be answered, and we'll see how the boys start off their summer vacation. Let's hope they stay out of trouble, everything goes smoothly, and they have a fun and relaxing few months to wrap up Book 1. And I can confirm at this time that Mr. Bojangles will be present in abundance in this chapter.

He said that in the context of wishing that Nick didn't feel that he had to hide it from him for so long. If they hadn't had that secret between them, maybe they could have been better friends back in the day.

No, it's an entirely different story/universe/canon.

Correct, it is a total of 45 chapters, and as of now, the sequel is also planned to be 45 chapters (but the chapters in the sequel will be quite a bit longer than in Book 1). As soon as "Swing for the Fences" is done, I'll start posting my new novel, "Medellin," which is a VERY different kind of story than SFTF. For anyone who rags on Nick's "faults" (I'd love to get into an in-depth conversation on Nick's "faults" or "shortcomings" someday), the main character in "Medellin" is about a million times worse. But I like it, and I hope a few of you will as well. I've lived in Medellín for 7+ years, so it holds a special place in my heart, and, as much as the novel's regular characters, the city itself is one of the most important. "Medellin" will have a total of 30 chapters, significantly longer than the chapters in SFTF Book 1. I'm planning on posting one chapter per week (to give me time to finish up Book 2 of SFTF, so it will, hopefully, be done and ready to post when "Medellin" ends, or at least relatively shortly thereafter, then SFTF Book 2 will probably return to two chapters per week. By the way, for those who don't follow me on Twitter/X, I am very seriously considering returning to and finishing "When I See You Again" in 2026. All I can say is that the second novel will include a time jump of about 4 years or so, and I will also be going back to revise/edit/improve the original five chapters so they match the tone/style/voice and level of writing as the remainder of the novel. Thanks to @Altimexis for harassing me to finish it! 😉 Unfortunately, other than "2026," I can't get more specific about the timeline, because I have some other stuff in the works, too, and I may need a short rest at some point before I get Carpal tunnel syndrome.

Thank you very much. I'm glad you're enjoying it! Only eight chapters left to go, but they will be a very full eight chapters!

Finals week was hell. But honestly? Not the inferno I’d been bracing myself for. More like a slow, suffocating burn, the kind where you don’t even realize you’re crisping until you smell the smoke. By Monday morning, my brain wasn’t a brain anymore. It was a broken search engine, tabs left open from every subject imaginable: history dates blinking at me like annoying pop-ups, math formulas scrolling past in strings of gibberish, vocab words from three multiple languages jammed into one