by John Goode
I sighed and walked over to Tyler, who was at my eye level since he was sitting, and I wrapped my arms around him. I saw Matt tense up out of the corner of my eye as Tyler buried his head into my shoulder and cried. I didn’t say anything. I held him tight and rubbed his back until he calmed down a bit and stopped using my shirt as a snot rag. I tried not to look at the pair of eyes that were staring at me from the bulletin board in front of me.
I failed.
Tyler raised his head a little and rested his chin on my shoulder. “You promise you’re going call me? Or Spyke me when you’re up there?”
I laughed and pulled away from Tyler, making sure I gave Matt an “At ease, soldier” glance. “Yes, Tyler, I will call or Skype you when I’m back and settled. And you can do the same when you get sick of constantly talking to this moose over here.” I smirked at Matt, and he laughed nervously. I think we were still on the fence on whether or not we liked each other.
Tyler smiled. At my little jest or because he was head over ass in love with the moose, I would never know.
“All right. Enough of this fairy shit,” Tom bellowed. “Another round, and no more goddamn crying.”
Thank God Tom wasn’t here to see me now.
I shoved the tissues back into the glove compartment and shut the door.
I looked at the time and saw that the car movers would be at my house within the hour. I pulled myself together as best as possible and drove the couple of blocks to my old store. I still hadn’t given back the keys to the landlord and most likely never would.
I parked my car in my usual spot for the last time and got out. I unlocked the door to my second home for the past two years and slowly opened it.
The place was dark and empty except for a few racks and hangers scattered on the floor. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Memories flowed in my head of Foster people coming in here, not knowing what the hell just sprang up in the middle of town, with a colorful homo standing behind the store counter giving them all a welcoming but evil look.
The act I put on became a lifestyle. I packed the old, real me into a small cage inside my bitter and angry heart. It wasn’t until a floppy-haired and terrified teenager with worn-out clothes came through that very same door that the bars of my cage started to melt.
After that, everything in my life had been a butterfly effect—right up to now.
I opened my eyes and knew I had one last thing to do before I closed this part of my life for good.
I found an old sign, flipped it over to the blank white side, and placed it on the counter. I went to the storeroom and found a red Magic Marker and brought it back to my makeshift canvas.
I carefully wrote the words out in big, bold print and colored in the letters. Satisfied, I gave my creation a nod of approval and hung it in the window. I wasn’t sure how long it was going be up there, but I hoped the people it was meant for would see it before someone took it down. I took one last look around and, before I started to lose it again, I walked out of the empty shell of a store and locked the door behind me.
I started my car and looked at the sign I had hung in the window.
“Make your own happy ending,” I read out loud.
I smiled proudly.
“You’re damn right I will.”
Don’t miss how the story began!
Maybe With a Chance of Certainty
A Tales from Foster High Story
By John Goode
Kyle has worked hard at being the invisible student, toiling through high school and life in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. Brad is the baseball star at Foster High. Both boys are damaged in ways that the rest of the world can’t see. When they bond over a night of history tutoring, can they discover the pieces in each other that will mend what is broken?
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Tales from Foster High
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About the Author
JOHN GOODE is a member of the class of ’88 from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, specializing in incantations and spoken spells. At the age of fourteen, he proudly represented District 13 in the 65th Panem games, where he was disqualified for crying uncontrollably before the competition began. After that he moved to Forks, Washington, where against all odds he dated the hot, incredibly approachable werewolf instead of the stuck-up jerk of a vampire, but was crushed when he found out the werewolf was actually gayer than he was. After that he turned down the mandatory operation everyone must receive at sixteen to become pretty, citing that everyone pretty was just too stupid to live, before moving away for greener pastures. After falling down an oddly large rabbit hole, he became huge when his love for cakes combined with his inability to resist the commands of sparsely worded notes, and was finally kicked out when he began playing solitaire with the Red Queen’s 4th armored division. By eighteen he had found the land in the back of his wardrobe, but decided that thinly veiled religious allegories were not the neighbors he desired. When last seen, he had become obsessed with growing a pair of wings after discovering Fang’s blog and hasn’t been seen since.
Or he is this guy who lives in this place and writes stuff he hopes you read.
Twitter: @fosterhigh
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TalesFromFosterHigh
Last Dance with Mary Jane
By John Goode
Peter was devastated when he lost his love, Shayne, in a car crash. Though he knows nothing will bring Shayne back, Peter takes solace in listening to Shayne’s voice mail, just to hear his voice one last time. He’s not prepared when one night, Shayne answers the phone.
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Kyle
Part One: Sex, Chinese Food, and Doctor Who
Part Two: Boomerangs, Karma, and the Past
Part Three: Broken Hearts, Humpty Dumpty, and The Beatles
Part Four: Jean Grey, Love, and Disco
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
Epilogue Three: Time, Your First Heartbreak, and True Love
The Stuff at the Real End of the Book
Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from
Don’t miss how the story began!
Tales from Foster High
About the Author