thestrangerweare
the summer before the city by thestrangerweare
In the long, golden summer of 1952, two boys meet beneath an old oak in the Hampshire countryside.
Louis dreams of London - of music, escape, and a life that feels his own. Harry dreams of staying - of fields, poetry, and the quiet certainty of love.
When the world begins to close around them, one leaves and the other stays, their bond surviving only through letters, memory, and the echo of a promise neither can forget.
Years later, in a changed England, fate leads them back to where it all began - to find that some loves never fade, they only change their sky.
"The summer never really ended. It just learned to live in quieter light."