Author's note and acknowledgements
This story has sat on my hard drive for four years now.
I wrote it, all twenty chapters and 95,000 words of it in eight days of a frenzied, near trance-like state, sitting on my couch with my wife's laptop. She would occasionally have to remind me to eat.
When the dust settled, and I looked up, I realized a couple of things: one, I had just written a fucking novel in a week, whoa. Two, it seemed to be pretty damn good, double whoa. And three, what the hell was I going to do with it?
I tried editing it, I even enlisted the help of a Lit-Editor, who was invaluable for early editing, and confirming it was in fact, pretty good, or readable at least. I spent several months then, editing, unashamedly forcing it on writer friends to read, regular friends to read, and total strangers on writer boards. Everyone had different opinions of course, as people do, but all of them seemed to think it was pretty good, and I should probably try to do something with it.
So I spent another year trying to sell it.
Well nothing happened.
And I can't blame them, agents and publishers. It's kind of a niche story, hard to market. It's got too much sex for a coming age story, too much teenage drama for adult fiction, and not a single word about vampires or bondage to make it work as erotic fiction.
So it's sat on my hard drive for four years. I'll occasionally open it up, tinker with a line, or try to figure out how to re-work it into something more marketable. I always end up wasting a weekend trying to figure out how to change it, without losing the essence of the thing which I, and several others, feel is, "pretty good."
So fuck it. Here you go Literotica. I just want people to read it. I want people to get to know Jack the way I did. Writing his life made me feel like I was a part of it. He's a pretty good guy, I wish I knew him in real life.
So NEXT, some disclaimers.
This is a coming of age story. Which means first it starts out when the characters are too young to have sex (on literotica.) So there's no sex for a couple chapters. I hope that's okay. Second, this is a novel length story, including the prologue and epilogue, there are twenty-one chapters in all. Some are longer than others, and there is not a sex scene in every one. (Though some have more than one.) More importantly, sex is a thing that happens, it's not written to be titillating, but rather just as events in Jack's life.
So there you go. It's a story with sex in it, not a story about sex. I think it's pretty good anyway.
If you have not read the first chapter, please click on my profile and pick the story up at the beginning, its better that way, trust me.
*****
How do you move forward after you break someone's heart?
One day at a time.
One day at a time, because time moves forward, dragging you behind it like Achilles and Hector.
The universe doesn't care about your love life, or your loss. Doesn't care that you can't think straight. Doesn't care that you can't stop replaying that moment. Doesn't care care if they left you, or you left them. It doesn't care if it was for the best, or justified, or conceived in conceited self-absorption. It just goes. The world spins on, the sun rises, sets, and rises again. You are just along for the ride friend; you can get drug behind the chariot, or you can pick yourself up out of the dirt and try to stumble along.
At least that's what I've kept telling myself. Fuck if I know anything about anything.
My parents wanted to drive me to Stanford themselves, but that didn't make any sense, it was about a nine hour drive each way, and they'd have both had to take extra time off. Especially since Anna was going too, and Abby was just across the bay at UC Berkeley an hour away.
The three of us were going to road trip it up there together. We were taking Abby's car. Mine probably would not have made the journey and I was leaving it with my parents. Anna was just selling hers. I think she sold it to Todd for five hundred bucks.
The day we were leaving, all of our parents were out on the lawn of Abby's house helping us load up Abby's Jetta; saying goodbye and generally being tearful, proud parental figures. I have no idea how we got all three sets of luggage in there, but we managed some how, and it even looked like there would be room for the three of us too.
I kept looking down the road, half hoping, half fearing to see Beth's car pulling up with herself and Kimmy to say good bye. I pretty much knew Kimmy wouldn't show up, but I was hoping Beth would have made an appearance. As I was trying for the fifth and final time to get the hatchback on the Jetta shut, Abby came around to help me close it and said, "She's not coming. She called me this morning and said she was too busy packing herself."
"Ah," I just said.
The hatchback latched and I stood back and dusted off my hands. That was it, packing done.
Time to go.
Abby just ruffled my hair. I flushed and pushed her hand away playfully. Abby was a good friend, she always knew what I was worried about, and how to get my mind off it. I shoved down the cauldron of turbulent emotions in my gut and came around the car to say goodbye to the parental units. My mom hugged me tight, tears on the edges of her eyes. Dad shook my hand. I hugged him, he hugged back.
"You'll make us proud Jack," he said.
"Maybe I'll just work on surviving until the Thanksgiving break and save family pride until grad school," I joked. We both laughed.
We got some last minute useless advice about traffic and routes. The girls hugged their parents, there were many smiles and 'I loves yous' and more advice about living in dorms. Then Abby finally said, "Lets hit the road before the term starts!" and we piled in the car and rolled out of the driveway.
Abby flipped down her sunglasses and hit the stereo - music filled up the car and we cheered. Parents waved, we waved; and then we were on the road.
I had shotgun, Abby was driving (her car), and Anna was squished in the middle of the back seat between her and Abby's boxes. We rolled through town and past the high school and the music was still upbeat and cheerful. We drove past the auditorium where I'd given my valedictorian speech and I began to get a weird feeling in my stomach. We hit the freeway and past the city limits and I fought down a wave of nostalgia.
I guess I was staring out the window in moody, sullen, sourness for too long, because by the time we hit the climb to go over the grapevine, Abby said, "This is not going to motherfucking do. We are not driving seven hours with you two acting like we're on our way to a motherfucking funeral! Someone talk!" she demanded.
I laughed and glanced back at Anna, who had been staring out the window herself, she smiled too. I smiled back.
"That's a start. Jesus Christ you two," Abby laughed.
"Yeah, yeah, alright Miss pep-talk, go for it," I said to Abby
"Hmph," she said.
"So you still haven't said why you chose Berkeley," I said, searching around for a not-depressing topic to talk about.
Abby laughed, "Because it was too late to apply to Stanford when I found out that's where you two were going."
