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LittleBuddhaTW

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  1. LittleBuddhaTW
    The car ride home was… weird. Not bad—just off. Like someone had put Noah on a stage and handed him a script he was reading a little too perfectly. He was charming. Like, excessively charming. Like he’d watched a YouTube tutorial called “How to Win Over Your Boyfriend’s Mother in Under Ten Minutes.” He complimented my mom’s driving. Her taste in music. How her hairstyle was perfect for the shape of her face. Her sensible choice in shoes, for God’s sake. “And this playlist is amazi
  2. LittleBuddhaTW
    I woke up around ten, the sunlight pouring through the crack in the curtain and hitting me square in the face. For a moment, I just lay there, groggy and warm and half-tangled in the sheets. Something felt… off. Not bad, exactly. Just different. Then I realized: the bed was empty. Jack wasn’t there. It felt weird – how quickly I’d gotten used to the feeling of another body beside me. The quiet weight of someone breathing in sync with me. The solid presence of a boy who someho
  3. LittleBuddhaTW
    I woke up to sunlight warming my face and a heavy sense of relief in my chest. Saturday. For the first time since I got here, I hadn’t woken up to an alarm blaring at the ass crack of dawn. No drills, no class bells, no tightly scheduled anything. Just a gloriously late 9:30 and the first real breath of freedom since arriving. My first thought was that the weekend had finally arrived. My second, groggier thought was that I wasn’t alone in bed. Jack was pressed up against
  4. LittleBuddhaTW
    The rest of the day passed in a haze of classes, hallway chatter, and a tennis practice so intense I was sure my legs would never forgive me. By the time I got back to the dorm to change for dinner, I was drenched in sweat and half-asleep on my feet. Jack was already there. He sat cross-legged on his bed, a sketchbook propped on one knee, one earbud in. He didn’t look up when I came in, just kept dragging a charcoal pencil across the page with fast, practiced strokes. There were smudge
  5. LittleBuddhaTW
    Happy to be back, and working on LOTS of new stuff in addition to my latest, Swing for the Fences!
  6. LittleBuddhaTW
    Classes had only just started, but I already felt like I’d stumbled into a different universe. Gone were the rows of plastic desks and droning lectures of public school. At Harrison West, students sat around large oval Harkness tables – real wood, polished smooth, with enough space for everyone to be seen and heard. The teachers didn’t just talk at us; they asked questions and expected responses. Real ones. Opinions. Arguments. Defenses. Everything was a discussion, even math. I wasn’t
  7. LittleBuddhaTW
    When I opened my eyes, Jack was already gone. His bed looked slept in, messy. One pillow askew. A shirt draped over the chair. But no Jack. I checked the time — 6:30 a.m.— swung my legs over the edge of the bed, heart already ticking faster than it should. Today was the real start. The first day of classes. The first schedule. The first chance to screw up and embarrass myself. I got dressed slowly, dragged myself to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, ran a comb through my messy hair—
  8. LittleBuddhaTW
    He hadn’t heard me come in. Or maybe he had and didn’t care. Jack sat cross-legged on his bed, earbuds in, head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed. The sun streamed in from the window and hit the edge of his face, catching the lines of his cheekbone, the mess of wavy hair dyed blond, with dark roots creeping in beneath. There was a faint shadow of peach fuzz on his upper lip, and a stillness to him that didn’t quite read as calm – more like practiced detachment. He wore an
  9. LittleBuddhaTW
    The bus pulled away with a hiss of brakes and a puff of diesel, and just like that, I was on my own. I tightened my grip on my duffel and stepped away from the turnaround, blinking in the morning sun. The sky was that kind of flat, cloudless blue that only exists before noon in late August. Already warm, already humming with whatever came next. Around me, boys were peeling off toward buildings, dragging trunks, hauling duffel bags, balancing boxes. A few parents lingered, taking last-minute
  10. LittleBuddhaTW
    Swing for the Fences is a coming-of-age LGBTQ+ romance about Nick, a shy freshman at an elite boys’ boarding school, who unexpectedly falls for his mysterious and troubled roommate, Jack. As their friendship deepens into love, they face mental health struggles, family rejection, and the chaos of teenage life. With the help of their quirky, loyal friend group, Nick and Jack fight to hold onto each other—and discover that first love, no matter how messy, can be real, raw, and worth it.
  11. LittleBuddhaTW
    "Strike three, you're out!" Boomed the voice of the home plate umpire. Before I had fully realized what was going on, I found myself lying flat on my back, with our team's catcher -- and my best friend -- Brennan on top of me, hugging me tightly. Brennan wasn't a big boy, but it was still enough to knock the wind out of me. And it wasn't exactly a pleasant experience as our other teammates began piling on top, one-by-one, either. The strong smell of a pack of sweaty twelve-year-old boys wh
  12. LittleBuddhaTW
    I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I stepped off the bus at the Little League compound in South Williamsport. It was like I'd died and gone to baseball heaven. Just a small town with a population of around 30,000 people, Williamsport is located in Pennsylvania, bordered by the Susquehanna River, and nestled among the beautiful green rolling hills of the northeastern part of the state. Normally a non-descript blip on the map of Pennsylvania, Williamsport's quaint, small-town atmosphere was
  13. LittleBuddhaTW
    There are two great loves in Grady's life -- baseball and his best friend, Brennan. However, after a trip to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where their bond becomes even stronger, they are separated by circumstance. When they see each other again, nearly four years later, how have their lives changed? What will become of their friendship now? PART 2 COMING IN 2026!
  14. LittleBuddhaTW
    "'Cause I'm a Voodoo Child; Lord knows I'm a Voodoo Child, baby; I want to say one more last thing, I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time ..." The music was blasting as I walked out of the dugout and trotted over to the mound to start taking my practice throws. My adrenalin was pumping, but I just wasn't as focused as I usually was. I hadn't talked to David since the day before at breakfast. Even though I did see him that morning in the mess hall, sitting alone in the corner again, I co
  15. LittleBuddhaTW
    I hated when I wasn't able to control a game. It was the worst feeling in the world to be sitting on the bench, watching the game unraveling in front of my eyes, and not being able to do anything about it. We were in the top of the second inning, and our opponents, the team from East Texas -- which was favored to win the whole tournament -- had already scored four runs off of Rory's pitching. Rory was obviously frustrated, as was Brennan, who had already made several trips out to the mound, and
  16. LittleBuddhaTW
    Saturday morning was eerily quiet, unlike most mornings before games, when the whole dorm was bustling with activity. While the teams that had been eliminated were allowed to stay for the duration of the World Series, a few kids had opted to go home, and most of the others were either off sightseeing, or taking part in pick-up games on the unused practice fields before the day's "big" games started -- the U.S. Championship and the International Championship. The winners of those two games would
  17. LittleBuddhaTW
    August was hot. Too damn hot. And that's why we had been in the pool in Cody's backyard almost every afternoon. The pool was a recent addition, but it hadn't been installed for the specific purpose of giving Cody and his friends a place to cool off during the summer. Tatyana was pregnant, and she didn't believe in giving birth in the traditional manner. Instead, she insisted on delivering the baby in water. If she wanted to do that, I didn't see why she couldn't have just done it in the batht
  18. LittleBuddhaTW
    "Connor, I think we should break up," Ryan said, matter-of-factly. "Excuse me?" I replied, thinking my ears needed a good cleaning, since I could have sworn I heard him say that we should break up. And that was just ... ridiculous. "I said, I think we should break up," he repeated, this time more firmly. The only thing I could do was stare blankly at him. In the week since the memorial service for Mikey at school, these were the first words Ryan had uttered. We'd all been extremely conc
  19. LittleBuddhaTW
    Yes, those were definitely slurping sounds I was hearing coming from Toby's room, and since Cody had come over just twenty minutes before, I had no doubt who was involved in making those sounds. It seemed like someone had an excess saliva problem, though. Now, I typically wasn't one for eavesdropping, but when it came to what was going on between Toby and Cody, my curiosity got the best of me. Hence, I had pilfered one of Maggie's stethoscopes and was now standing with my ear pressed up again
  20. LittleBuddhaTW
    As June turned into July, the oppressive summer heat was becoming almost too much to bear. I was extremely thankful that I was working in the air-conditioned piano store. I wondered how Ryan could handle all of the outdoor sports activities that he had been participating in, when the most I could deal with was the occasional trip to the swimming pool with the twins, or our combination football-wrestling matches played in their backyard, with the sprinklers turned on full-force. Ryan was also sup
  21. LittleBuddhaTW
    I knew I shouldn't have told Ben about what Ryan told me, about how much he missed me. I should have known there would be some drama. My life seemed like a never-ending soap opera. "Ben, you're over-reacting!" I pleaded with him. "Connor, calm down," he said, stroking my arm gently as we sat on the sofa in his living room. It was just the two of us, for once, and I'd been hoping for some "quality time" together ... namely, some making out, some naked cuddling, and maybe a little bit mor
  22. LittleBuddhaTW
    "So how did it go?" I asked Derek, as we were talking on the phone the afternoon after our "intervention" with Mikey. While I was at Ryan's baseball game earlier that day, I had been so anxious to get back home that I was practically crawling out of my skin. My mind was definitely more focused on Mikey that day than ogling all of the cute butts that were running around the bases. "He came over and stayed the night, and seemed a little better until it was time to go home again, and then he got
  23. LittleBuddhaTW
    As April turned into May, and the weather grew warmer, I felt an uneasy sense of trepidation. Toby was still continuing his chemotherapy and drug treatment, and the doctors were hoping that they could get him into a state of remission, and then continue managing his condition with lower dosages of medication to destroy any remaining cancer cells. The typical length of time for someone to be on the highest doses of chemo was about four weeks, and he still had a couple more weeks to go. With ea
  24. LittleBuddhaTW
    "Boys, we need to talk," Maggie said, as she placed her fork down next to her plate after finishing off the meat loaf I had made for dinner. Yes, I could cook. Aren't all good little gay boys supposed to be able to do that? But the tone in Maggie's voice was not a positive one, and a million terrible thoughts started racing through my mind. Ryan and I were supposed to be leaving for Las Vegas in a week. Had she suddenly changed her mind about letting two sixteen year olds go to Las Vegas on t
  25. LittleBuddhaTW
    When Ryan and I ran into the hospital, I was once again accosted by the strong smell of disinfectant. And added to the intense sense of anxiety and trepidation I was already feeling, it was like hitting a brick wall of nightmares and bad memories. But the knowledge that something was wrong with Toby was enough to make me suck it up, grow a set, and keep running, with Ryan hot on my tail. I had been a little disappointed in myself when I had woken up Ryan that morning and told him that his mom
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