"Tristan's Redemption" by Nicholas Nurse

[Rutabaga]

This Pick from the Past goes back to 2004, as far as I can tell.  Here:  http://www.awesomedude.com/nicknurse/tristans_redemption/index.htm

It is surprising that there seems to be no extant thread with comments about this story.  I can only assume that any previous one(s) disappeared.  It seems inconceivable that not one person would have had something to say about the story.

So:  It's really quite a journey.  Tristan is a high school junior, living in an affluent household in an affluent section of Orange County, California, with parents who spend an awful lot of time at the office.  It's not exactly a "poor little rich kid" story, although there are elements of that here and there.  The basic issue is Tristan's struggle with the realization that he is gay and in love with his best friend.  A remarkable and often frightening series of events flows from this as Tristan learns, in an almost Dickensian manner, the meaning of friendship and love and life.

This story also employs the exasperating format of a continuing scroll of chapters on the right with index links to the left.  I am so glad this format seems to have died a quick death after some early story postings.  On a desktop computer, the story text stretches across most of the width of the screen, making it difficult to read.  On a smart phone, the feeble mobile browser often chokes on the long scroll and jumps unexpectedly to other (earlier) spots, requiring a lot of manual searching to find one's place again.  Today's story formatting, thankfully, employs far more readable type, controlled line width, and actual chapters that start on new HTML pages.  

Anyway, if one is patient with this technical issue, the story is very powerful.

R