"Just wondering, Shoemaker. Are you going to tell your parents? Or should I?" When I was little, I was terribly afraid of heights. One day, in a bleak attempt to rid me of this, my father climbed onto the roof of our one story house with me on his back. I may have been hyperventilating, but otherwise I was doing well- until my foot slid across the shingles. It was only a foot or two that I moved, but my heart stopped. Right now, I feel like I've slid ten feet down the roof of my house on a bitterly cold day. "Because, last I remember, aren't they kind of conservative?" he continues. August is a 16-year-old closeted bisexual girl. When a girl moves in next door, her calm life is slightly shaken, and then turned upside down. Because she isn't just any girl next door: Emily is a gorgeous, red-haired, baseball-playing, fully out-and-proud lesbian. When the two girls grow close, things begin to change in their small town. ***Cover made by Emmy07*** (FICTION) (ROMANCE) (HUMOR) (GIRLxGIRL) (GIRLxBOY) (C) 2012 S.W. Stromberg. All Rights Reserved.

"There was something so awfully strange about him that I don't think I could put it into words if I tried. He was so distant, so out of touch with the world around him. He could stare at something, and stare for hours, but never really see it. It was like he wasn't living in the same world as me. If I saw something solid and definite, to Gerard that something would simply be present in his vision but, somehow, not there at all. It was as if he lived in a state of continuous dream, like everything around him was solid but malleable under his palms if he needed it to be." -Frank, The Ghost Room.

A dialogue short story about the things we wake up to that remind us there are still things in this life worth waking up for. ante meridiem - [adv. & adj.] "before noon;" Abbr: A.M. Or a.m. [credit to owner of image (not me)]

"There's a reason we are white and pure, and they are black and dirty. There's a reason they stain our skin. That we are shamed if others see those stains. They're bad people, Frank. They're disgusting."