Our Last Summer

By Matthew J. Metzger

Spending every summer with his grandmother in the south of England isn't Ryan's idea of a good time, and when he finds someone his own age to hang out with, he doesn't much care who that is. Alex might not say much, but company is company when there's nobody else to choose from, and Ryan will simply have to make do. It isn't, after all, like he really needs a friend.

But Alex is more than just a kid with a thing for smashing up greenhouses, and Ryan finds himself dragged further and further into a dark, uncertain world of alcohol, bruises, a mother's madness, and a father's anger. Worst of all, Alex is dragging Ryan into a world of lust, attraction, and midnight kisses that Ryan is struggling to keep confined to southern summers. This thing with Alex can't go further than summer -- but Alex, and the shadows that surround him, are not so easily forgotten.

Ryan can't forget Alex, but the longer he hangs on, the more he discovers ... not just about Alex, but about himself, his future, and the things that really matter.

But eventually, summer must come to an end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Queerteen Press
• Release date: Jan 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781611524499

Matthew J. Metzger

Matthew J. Metzger is an author currently residing in Sheffield, England, though he originally hails from London. He writes a wide variety of fiction, from contemporary fiction to science-fiction epics, but usually focuses on the people within the stories. People are, after all, the most fascinating creatures around.When not writing, Matthew can usually be found flirting with the local population, hiking in the Peak District, and collecting bruises in his Muay Thai training.

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Our Last Summer

By Matthew J. Metzger

Published by Queerteen Press

Visit queerteen-press.com for more information.

Copyright 2013 Matthew J. Metzger

ISBN 9781611524499

Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS Books LLC.

* * * *

Our Last Summer

By Matthew J. Metzger

Summer

Alexander Bexley

Alliances

Blackberries

Storms

The Ghosts of Summer

Elizabeth Alice Bexley

Tamara Joanne Taylor

From the Outside

Repeat

When Things Change

Ground Rules

Blurry

In Silence

The Scientific Method

Growing Up

The Last Summer

Summer Life

Cold Reality

Picking Up the Pieces

Freedom

Standing Ground

Being Honest

Home

Autumn

Summer

Three twenty-two in the afternoon on a Friday afternoon in sweltering thirty-two degree July heat and the unforgiving linen of a poorly-made school uniform. The rambling, distracted, droning rambling of Mr. Burke on his interpretation—because nobody cares enough to offer an alternative—of Conan Doyle’s narrative in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes creates a stupor in the room.

If they do not move soon, they will drown.

Danny, at Ryan’s left, is already asleep. He is even snoring quietly, but the hum of the bees under the open window detracts from the noise, and little else can be heard over Mr. Burke’s stutter anyway. Tom is texting openly, not even hiding the phone, and probably arranging a date with the latest conquest to fall victim to his swaggering charm. Even Maria Marquez, she of the endless poise, grace, and triple-sized cleavage, sags in her chair.

It is the last day of school, and they all regret agreeing to take A-levels.

The school has its policy—those to take A-levels return after the GCSEs to get the first few weeks of work done. Then they can go to summer break. It is by no means the first time they have been in classrooms in early July, but it has to be the most torturous.

"And I think that-at—think that—Conan Doyle, or W-Watson, is trying to-to-to—to—remind us th-tha-that…"

There is no energy in the room, save for the perpetual nervous fumbling of Mr. Burke. He is the kind of teacher that hates his job because of the children: they mercilessly tear him to shreds, eight hours a day, for the stammer that they themselves make worse. It is their sport: English Lit, under Mr. Burke’s ineffective rule, is a favourite subject across the entire spread of the school. Ryan knows of no one that listens to, much less respects, the bumbling man.

But in July, even with the stutter at its worst, they cannot muster up the energy to so much as smirk. It is too hot: a wet, heavy heat sinking through their clothes and melting in their bones. It is so hot that the act of thinking is a sin in itself. Ignorance is the only escape, and as his stammer creates a terrible counterpoint to the endless ticking of the classroom clock, Ryan realises that it isn’t much of an escape at all.

Three twenty-four, and time seems to want to go backwards.

Ryan already knows that he will be dropping A-level English. There is simply no way he can tolerate two more years of that stammer, and of the general uproar that trails in the wake of Mr. Burke’s teaching style. In the winter, they practically riot, just to keep warm. He is a hopeless teacher, only clinging to his job out of fear, with the tenacity of a man afraid of unemployment. He is more afraid of the dole office than the children, and that is his saving grace—or his damnation.

Ryan will take history, he thinks, and endure the endless drone and sharp commands of Mrs. Kelly over this.

A bee bounces off Danny’s ear, and he wakes with a snort.

"…W-Wa—Watson—has r-realised tha-tha—that –"

Danny’s head hits the table again, and he is gone. Ryan wishes vaguely that he could do the same.

"…life d-doesn’t st-sto-stop b-because we want it t-to."

The bell explodes into the room.

Summer breaks.

* * * *

They gather by the bike shed, around Tom wrestling with his bike lock, and a brave few light their cigarettes, defying the ridiculous heat and the threat that Mr. D’Souza, the football coach, might appear around the corner at any minute.

The heat is unbearable. Even Ryan strips off his shirt, modesty for once giving way to comfort. Tom’s cigarette is obscene, its glow repugnant in the shimmering sunlight, and Tom laughs at him when he retreats to the shade.

Bloody hell, Ryan, don’t stop the strip tease now! he jeers. Was just gettin’ into that!

When Andy—new kid, expelled from his last place, some Scouse-accented git that’s been in five fights since he showed up—sneers and curls his lip, Tom almost casually clips him around the ear, and Ryan snorts.

Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? he snaps back, and Danny laughs from the burning metal bars he perches on.

Get a room, y’fags, he mocks, and turns to peer through the slats in the wall, eyeing the girls leaving. Their skirts are hiked to their knickers, their long legs on display for the world, burnt lobster-red in the new dawn of summer. They will return in the autumn, sunburned and overweight, complaining of autumnal diets and hiking their skirts high again to show off those supposedly fat thighs. Nobody minds.

It’s been a hot year, and Ryan doesn’t look forward to visiting his Nan. She lives down south, near London, in rolling countryside where the air doesn’t move and the people sit in sleepy silence until the storms break—and then only stir to complain about the rain. It is always hotter there, and time slows in the heat, until it feels as though he’ll never come home. It is endless. Sometimes, he wonders if the people aren’t trapped there, caught in the web of the heat and the stillness, and secretly want to escape as much as he does.

But then, Nan lives in a village full of old people, so probably not.

He should look forward to visiting her. He should. He does love his Nan—he will even admit to it—and he only sees her twice a year as it is, but he can’t help but feel bored in the sweltering heat of the south, and the stillness and inactivity of village life for people whose existences revolve around their plants, their churches, and their perpetually absent grandchildren.

And then there is the vague resentment at having to go: he does not choose to visit every summer, but is handed a backpack and a suitcase by his mother and parked on the train every year, without fail, because, in essence, his parents do not trust him in the house alone for eight weeks.

In his more generous moments, Ryan can acknowledge the truth: they do not trust his friends for eight weeks. They do not trust Tom and Danny and Harry, and all the lads from school suddenly let out to the streets, not to lead Ryan astray.

He wishes he could disagree—wishes he could honestly claim to be stronger than that, but then, Tom (mostly Tom; after all, Danny and Harry have no such hold over, or interest in, Ryan’s daily life) has talked him into bunking off, into throwing stones at the McPherson house, into that official caution for shoplifting, and out of numerous opportunities that perhaps he should have taken.

Whether they trust Tom or Ryan, or not, the ultimatum is the same. He can go to Nan’s, or he can sit in his mother’s office every day and stare, paralysed with boredom, at legal documents that he won’t ever understand.

Ryan’s parents both work full-time: his mother is a lawyer, and his father trains weaker, slower, thicker people in the territorial army and the army cadets, and comes home with a voice hoarse from shouting. They are both professional, upright, strict people with a work ethic the size of Ryan himself, and a constant wariness of his slipping into the deliquent, completely irresponsible! ways of the true Mancunians that he associates with at school—people like Tom and Danny and Harry.

Sometimes he understands, but he doesn’t have to like it.

His parents, after all, don’t know Tom like he does. Tom is his best friend, to use a juvenile and girly term, and while he understands what his parents see, he also sees what they don’t—Tom’s ambition to be a police officer, his habit of getting into fights to protect his little sister, his loyalty to his friends even as he mercilessly teases them himself, and the sheer danger in insulting Tom’s mother.

Tom isn’t perfect, he knows, and sometimes his parents’ inability to see that grates.

But then, today, in the wet cloth of summer heat and watching Tom and Danny exchange lustful comments on the perfect arse that graces the inside of the very short skirt of Maria Marquez, he can also see why they don’t.

You off south again? Harry asks, already preening in the reflective face of his watch, and Tom snorts.

If you got any gayer, you’d be shagging Andy Sutherland, he mutters, and cocks his head at Ryan. "They’re not packing you off to London again?"

Ryan shrugs. Yeah.

Fuck’s sake, I’d go fucking apeshit if my parents trolleyed me off again, Harry drawls, ignoring Tom’s comment and fiddling with his hair—bleach-blond this week—again. Dunno why you don’t, you know. You’re weird.

Come off it, Tom scuffs him around the head, undoing his work. His old man’s a soldier, in’t he? You wanna pick a fight with him?

It’s a good point—and the one Ryan allows. It’s not the right one, but the right one would earn him a solid year of mockery, so he smirks when Harry huffs and drops down from the bike rack, and says nothing.

Still, Tom mutters, "fucking gay."

Protesting too much! Harry mocks, unlocking his bike. I gotta get back before the old man—cheers, losers.

Fuck off, Tom calls after him, and then he’s gone. After a moment, Danny—because it is not done to intrude on Tom and Ryan—heaves himself off the red-hot bars and disappears to pester the girls again, ever hopeful, and Tom stubs out his cigarette on the nearest saddle. You not back ‘til September, then?

Probably not.

Gay, he repeats, jumps off the rack and pulls Ryan into an awkward hug. Go on then—git. Your girlfriend’ll be waiting.

She’s not my girlfriend.

Not until you man up, Tom agrees, and waggles his eyebrows. Gothic chick—she’ll be a hellraiser in bed.

Go screw yourself, Ryan returns easily, and walks away. Somewhere over his shoulder, Tom laughs and his lighter snaps again, and then he is out of the school grounds and into the cool shade of the alley that runs along the back of the terraces towards his own estate.

Jennifer waits in the shadows, looking cold despite the black tights and the ragged skirt and the long-sleeved shirt predicting the death of the establishment, and she falls into step with him without a greeting.

Bournemouth or Penzance? he asks, and she scoffs.

Bournemouth, her voice is a raspy drawl, from screaming to her music and screaming at her teachers and screaming at her parents. Jennifer rebels; against what, Ryan doesn’t know. "To enjoy ourselves. My cousins are coming too. God."

Ryan hums in false sympathy. He rarely sees his cousins; the last time was Emily’s wedding, where she had grown up before him, and she looked very much as he imagined his mother to have been, once.

"Four weeks with him," she adds sourly.

‘Him’ could be her father, or her brothers—any one of them—or her uncle, or even the aforementioned cousins. Ryan has no idea, and it is too hot to endure Jennifer’s rants, too hot to even try to comprehend her.

I’m going to Nan’s again, he says instead, and she sighs around the cigarette that she jams into her mouth.

"Well, it’s all right for some," she sneers, and Ryan cannot quite agree.

* * * *

She waits on the platform—his mother’s mother, shorter than her grandson, but with the same brown eyes and slow smile that spreads from the centre like a sunrise.

He steps off the train and right into her embrace—she smells of lavender and laundry detergent, and her grip is strong for such an elderly woman. She feels cool, her arms a shelter from the heat that was oppressive in Manchester, evil in London, and downright fatal here, and Ryan feels a burst of affection for the woman who is, arguably, the most important relative that he has.

Hello, dear, is all that she says, kissing him on both cheeks and having to stretch up, just a little now, to do it. She is smaller than he remembers; her car, shimmering in the heat, is rickety and a tighter fit than it used to be, and with every pothole-induced bump over the country lanes towards Appington, his head grazes the roof uncomfortably.

When they pass the welcome sign, and turn off to Nan’s lane at the east side of the churchyard, he notices how the village seems to be frozen in time, standing stubbornly the same in the face of the world. It is always summer here, and each summer is exactly the same.

He is wrong.

Alexander Bexley

The clattering rumble of the bus disturbs Ryan from his book, and he tilts his head out of the window entirely (catching a smooth breeze in the face) to watch it pause at the green in front of the church.

He almost goes back to his book, when the last person drops down from the bus steps and the door clacks shut behind him—or her. And he or she catches Ryan’s eye, mostly because of the age gap.

It’s half past four. There’s the usual gaggle of elderly ladies back from their Thursday pension-shop in Thame or Oxford, but the young one is not someone Ryan knows about. Mostly because Ryan is the village ‘young one’; there’s nobody here even close to his own age.

The village is one of those reserved for retired city workers, most not so old as Nan, but still with adult children elsewhere. The young are irregular—five-year-old grandsons and brand new granddaughters, brought in their prams and bicycles with stabiliser wheels, arriving in the mornings in gleaming four-by-fours and disappearing back to their city-homelands by nightfall.

But a school uniform? A permanent—or at least not completely temporary—presence?

This is new.

The figure is too far off to discern properly—a maroon school uniform hanging off a skinny frame, and a cloud of dark

Reviews for Our Last Summer

[PernilleAa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A well written and hopefull story. Definitely worth a read.