Nate Stevens pulled into the driveway of the apartment he shared with his boyfriend. “Fuck,” he swore under his breath when he saw the car parked in the driveway. Luke had told him he was going to be working late. He tried to think of a reason for why he had been out so late. Things weren’t great between him and Luke, but at least he had a roof over his head and food to eat. He’d been hungry many times in his life. He didn’t miss those days. If he’d have thought Luke would be home he never would
I think the key word in your comment is "seemed." He seemed okay... to Billy. The seeds of this story were planted throughout Commencement, and that's why I had to come back.
Not going to lie, this is a dark story. After everything Dustin went through in WAR, there are deeper scars than the ones on his wrists. And just like he tried to cover up the physical scars, he tried to cover up the mental ones as well. He can't keep all that trauma buried forever. Dustin's World is kind of a study of PTSD.
Yeah, no mention of Dustin in that last paragraph of WAR. Anything could happen in Dustin's World. Only three characters are guaranteed to make it through to the end; B&B and Nate. No one else is safe.
The Monongahela – The very definition of a workhorse river. Propped up and bloated by years of technological advances in order to give the coal industry a thread to connect the rich coal country of West Virginia to the steel industry of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is said that George Washington once crossed the river on horseback. But in the hundreds of years since that day, a collection of locks and dams allowed the river to become navigable, thirty feet deep in some places.
But in
One last journey to the outskirts of nowhere.
Dustin Smith isn't looking for love. He feels trapped in the black hole that is life in the Valley. Will he find light in the darkness, or will the darkness consume him?
Yeah, Dustin is a tragic character for sure. Billy's note of Dustin's lengthening hair at the end of the story signifies Dustin reverting back to his old ways, his future uncertain, having severed his ties to Billy. It's not easy to get over what happened to him.