LittleBuddhaTW

There will be a lot more on his treatment in chapters to come.

Somehow, I’d made it through another week of school. The whispers had started to die down. The stares had faded a little. Most of the students had moved on to other gossip – the swim team “speedo incident,” the junior prank war, a rumor about a faculty affair that Jonah had probably started just to get attention. Mr. G had checked in on me more than usual throughout the week. Always gently. Always with that soft, concerned look in his eyes. I appreciated it. I did. But each time just l

I must have dozed off. When I opened my eyes, I was still buried beneath my covers. The air under the blanket was warm, stale, and faintly damp. My cheeks were tacky with dried tears. My legs were twisted in the sheets. I wasn’t crying anymore, but I could still feel the weight of it – like the sadness had calcified somewhere deep inside my chest. It took me a second to remember where I was. And then everything came rushing back. Noah. Jeff Purdell, that fucking redheade

I've thought of doing a rewrite of it one day, when I run out of ideas. Reworked and expanded. We'll see. It was kind of my tribute to Elton John, who did play in bars and pubs as a teenager when he was 14-15 years old.

@Talo Segura It was actually written 20+ years ago. It's not for everyone. Personally, I'm not a fan of it much myself. I only got back to writing fiction a few months ago after a 20-year hiatus (I'm a professional writer in the real world, but not of fiction). You may find my later works (currently, "Swing for the Fences" is in process, and I'll be following that with a novel called "Medellin," which is almost finished, then, perhaps, a sequel to "Swing for the Fences," but I have a few other ideas floating around in my head as well.) more appealing. I would like to think my writing has improved over the past 20 years. My day job gives me a lot of free time to write for pleasure, which is what I do. However, there are many other great authors here at GA, as well as places like AwesomeDude or IOMFATS, that you may enjoy reading more. Happy hunting!

Chapter 18 will be released early tomorrow morning. I think some of you may be pleased, although others may not. It's a critical chapter/turning point in many ways.

Who would be your dream pair-ups if you could choose?

When I came back to Harrison West after Christmas break, I’d been excited. Genuinely, stupidly excited. I couldn’t wait to pick up where we left off – late-night conversations, stolen kisses with Noah, tennis matches, cafeteria drama, dumb inside jokes with Jack, cuddles when the nights got heavy. I wanted all of it. Instead, it had been non-stop drama, and I seemed to be in the midst of much of it. People – friends, even – kept shipping Jack and me like we were a tragic gay romance no

As soon as the bus rolled to a stop in front of Harrison West, I barely waited for the doors to open before grabbing my bags and sprinting – well, half-sprinting, half-lumbering – toward Linden Hall. The wheels of my suitcase clunked violently over the walkway bricks, and my backpack dug into my shoulder, but I didn’t care. I needed to see him. I needed to see Jack. The front door swung open with that familiar creak, and I barreled inside – right into Mr. G’s sturdy frame. “Whoa,

The moment I stepped through the door, I was tackled. Or, more accurately, leapt upon by forty pounds of warm, wiggling, barking chaos. “Mr. Bojangles!” I dropped to my knees as he launched himself into my chest, paws scrabbling, tail whipping like a metronome on steroids. He licked my face like I’d been gone a hundred years, whining and circling and pressing his head into my neck like he was trying to merge us into one being. I held him tight and buried my face in his fur.

I think everyone just needs to be patient and give Nick a chance. There's stil a loooong way to go, after all. And trust me, I should know. 😉 This is a slooooooooow burn.

No, but he had one, and they were very close. He died around 5 years ago. Altimexis' point is that all the mentions of Nick's father, mostly his memories of him, may give a big hint to Nick's psyche, and had a profound impact on who is and and his underlying "issues" today. It's a very interesting analysis.

For those of you who occasionally get the "Sunday Blues," here is the official synopsis of "Medellín," part romance, part thriller: Medellín is a gripping, emotionally charged coming-of-age novel that follows 16-year-old Hunter Callahan, the son of a DEA agent, as he’s uprooted from his life in the U.S. and dropped into the vibrant, volatile world of Medellín, Colombia. Struggling to adapt, Hunter is soon drawn into a whirlwind of love, danger, and self-discovery when he meets Miguel, a charismatic classmate with secrets of his own. As their relationship deepens, Hunter must confront his own troubled past and the parts of himself he’s long tried to ignore. Torn between loyalty, love, and survival, he finds himself caught in a storm of violence and betrayal that will force him to decide who he really is—and how far he’s willing to go for the people he cares about. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving felt like it had ended five minutes ago, but December didn’t care. It arrived in full force, with early snowfall, bone-deep wind, and Christmas decorations strung up like garlands of expectation. Twinkling lights lined every window of Linden Hall, wreaths hung from dormitory doors, and Mariah Carey had apparently declared a personal residency in the hallway speaker system. I should have been excited. Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. But not anymore. Not

32 chapters to go, actually, and a lot can happen in those 32 chapters. Just be patient with Nick a little while longer. He's starting to figure things, he's getting there, but remember, he's a flawed protagonist, he's extremely young and inexperienced (Noah was his first ever kiss), and he's very indecisive, and he's got a lot on his mind -- new school, insane academic pressure, trying to make friends, and a very unexpected romantic situation that was not really part of his "plan.". So, just be patient a little while longer. I promise, this will be resolved much sooner rather than later, and we'll move on to their next challenges! It'll be a bit of a rollercoaster.

I woke up just as the sun was peaking above the horizon. I never used to be an early riser, but Harrison West seemed to have changed all that. The house was still wrapped in shadows, the faint blue of early dawn filtering in through the kitchen windows. Outside, the trees stood bare and silent, their limbs etched against a steel-colored sky. The air smelled like woodsmoke, earth, and something older – like the bones of fall were finally settling in. A long sigh before the first snow. I

Wednesday Afternoon My phone buzzed just as I was zipping up my duffel. hey sweetheart — i won’t be able to pick you and jack up on wednesday afternoon. they scheduled me for a double overnight so i can have thanksgiving day off. i’m sorry. you’ll have to take the bus. i’ll leave some snacks and clean towels out. love you. ❤️ I stared at it for a moment, not sure what I was feeling. Disappointed? No – more like... deflated. I’d been picturing it – my mom waiting in the car, window

There will be plenty more of Jonah, don't worry. He was a super fun character to write. Extremely precocious.

No, I don't have a synopsis of it yet. I'll get around to that once I finish the five remaining chapters. 😀 And I'll never, ever call it "X". Always "Twitter" to me.

Just a little hint for you guys (not a spoiler, though): Jonah is going to be a very important character throughout the rest of the novel, and very present. We'll also probably see him a lot in the sequel, which I'll start working on as soon as I finish my current novel, "Medellín," which should be coming out later this year, once SFTF has all been posted. Only 34 more chapters to go!

By the time October gave way to November, the campus had slipped into its late-autumn form – cold mornings, golden light, and the sound of dry leaves scraping along stone walkways like paper ghosts. The trees were half bare now, their branches black and spindly against the sky. Everyone walked around bundled up like fashionable snowmen, clutching mugs from the canteen like they were sacred relics. And for once, I wasn’t flailing to stay afloat. I was… okay. I’d figured out my rhythm –

The night of the Halloween party had arrived. And I was nervous as hell. I'd never broken a school rule in my life. Not even the small, dumb ones. I followed dress code. I turned in homework early. I even organized my pencils by length. But there I was, dressed all in black, hoodie zipped up, gym bag over my shoulder, creeping out of Linden Hall after lights out like some kind of teenage cat burglar. Before I left, I’d asked Jack if he wanted to come. He didn’t even look up f

The idea is that prep school students are the smartest of the smart. These kinds of fancy prep schools are often seen as gateways to get into the schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. I think in that type of "survey class," though, they're likely not going particulary "in-depth" on those topics. Of course, there is always some creative license and suspension of disbelief as well -- it is fiction, after all. 😀

The next few weeks went by in a blur. The kind of blur that wasn’t dreamy or romantic – but more like being hit by a wave of schoolwork and barely having time to come up for air. There was so much. Constant reading. Essays. Mandarin vocab quizzes. Labs. Tennis drills. Club meetings. I didn’t even remember signing up for half of it, but somehow, I was now a full-fledged member of the Chinese Club, thanks to Emery convincing me it would be “low-key and fun.” (It kind of was, to be honest), an

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