Unwanted memories of that night came back, and there were things that I needed to tell him. “He’s not my father.”
“I know. He may not be your father, but you’re still my brother.”
“Adam told you?”
“Yeah, he did. Don’t be mad at him.”
“Believe me, I’m not. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened in my life.”
“I can see that. After the hell you went through when we were kids, you deserve it. You deserve to be happy.”
There was so much sincerity in his voice that I believed him.
“Do you…resent me. For what I did to our family? Or to Roger?”
He was passionate when he responded. “Absolutely not. My father made his own choices and made you the scapegoat. You were the innocent one in this mess. You didn’t break up the family, he did.”
“I know that. Now. But it took me years to see that. Even now, I sometimes wonder if there had been anything I could have done differently to keep all of this from happening.”
“David, it was completely out of your control. You have control now. Don’t let yourself live in the past. You have a future. Take it.”
We sat and talked for what seemed like hours, reconnecting, reforming bonds that I thought had been severed years ago.
It was odd, really. After spending so much time alone, to suddenly have family, people in my life that actually cared about me, that loved me and wanted me in their life. I had spent so many years alone, hiding. Never allowing anyone to get close to me for fear that they would see who I was really was, the scarred little boy responsible for so much misery and pain, and decide that I wasn’t worth it. That feeling that you can easily be discarded never truly goes away, those lessons can’t be unlearned. But new lessons can be learned as long as you have teachers patient enough to show you.
Dylan was right. I had a future.
I had my brother back.
I had Adam by my side.
I wasn’t merely surviving, looking into my own life.
I was living.
The End
While this has been a dream come true for me, I truly believe none of it would have been possible without the help of some very important people.
I want to thank Devon McCormack, who was the first one to not only take an interest in my writing, but was also the first one to read it. He gave me the courage to push forward when I was doubting myself. It may not seem like a big deal to most, but to someone who has had this dream since they were eleven, and never thought they would be able to achieve it, that meant a great deal.
I also want to thank Annabella Michaels, who has almost literally held my hand through this process. I would have no clue what to do were it not for her. And, through it all, we’ve formed an incredibly close friendship.
Special thanks to Felice Stevens for the last-minute words of advice and encouragement.
Special thanks go to Jay Aheer of Simply Defined Art, who took an idea I had for the cover and magically made it happen.
Thank you to Pam Ebeler of Undivided Editing and Judy Zweifel from Judy’s Proofreading who made the words flow better, despite more punctuation errors than I can count.
And, finally, I want to thank you, the reader. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of authors. Thank you for taking the chance on someone new.
So, I tried to get away with a simple, “Hi, I’m Michael.” But, nnnnoooo, that wasn’t an option. So here we go.
Before getting into M/M romance, I was a total nerd. Sci-Fi, fantasy (not THAT. Sword, sorcery, that kind of thing), comics, toys. You name it, if it screamed dork, I probably did it. I was a homodork, and proud.
In addition to that, I’ve dreamed of writing since I was eleven years old when I wrote a truly awful Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. It sold exactly zero copies. My mother may have a copy lying around somewhere. Mothers keep that kind of thing. I also wrote fantasy (Yes, THAT kind: guy meets guy, they fall in love, have the white picket fence and live happily-ever-after)
I would walk into a book store and peruse all two shelves of their gay selection, and would always come away disappointed. The books were depressing, nothing spoke to me about love and happiness.
Then I read one book. I won’t tell you what book, but it had two handsome men and a dog on the cover. I read it in one sitting, and was hooked. I fell in love with the M/M genre to moment I read that first sentence, and I have been in love with it since.
I am astounded at the limitless story potential within one genre. You can literally do anything within the genre, from comedy to paranormal, mystery to sci-fi, fantasy to straight out romance, and everything in between.
Life took control, as it often does, and the dream of writing was put on hold. Then, in November of 2016, I took a leap of faith, and began writing my first novel as part of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) competition. The goal of the competition is to write a 50,000-word novel in a thirty-day period.
I failed.
However, on the advice of a friend, he “pushed through”. And so, in September of 2017, my first novel was published.
I have always believed in the power of the written word, and the ability for one story to touch the reader in such a way that it can literally change the course of their life. This one book opened up a world of possibilities for a middle-aged guy from Toledo, Ohio, and is what ultimately led me here. And, I am happy to say, I never looked back.
Links
E-Mail – [email protected]
Facebook
Goodreads
Twitter
Looking In Page 24