Summer lingered still, and though it was grey out, the boy knew he would have no need of a jacket. In two days there would be school, and this was the last solitude he would have before then. It meant the buses and the taunts, fumbling about in the locker room to undress and get into his too-short uniform as quickly as possible while avoiding the gazes of those boys who had hit maturity faster than he had – you must not look – and wondering why why why everybody and the world seemed to have it in for him…

I’ve been writing Long September in some form or another since I was 17.

 

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