VOLUME 1 AFTERWORD

thank you for reading BBR, it means so much to me that someone out there enjoys something i wrote. as you can imagine, this is not the end; it's the beginning of a story waiting to be told in full.Bookmark here

like my peers, i wanted to write this afterword to thank my proofreader (redacted) for staying up late countless times to check my grammar and helping me find the right words, something i truly could not have done without their help. this person was with me from the beginning and never once gave up on me even when i gave up on myself. Bookmark here

for the people that know me irl and those i met through this competition, thank you also for your support. if you know me, you must also know by now that i loathe talking about my personal life. it keeps me from easily forming bonds with others, but as i am now, i'm much better at it than when i was a teen. Bookmark here

i created romeo as an embodiment of that teenage angst, where it's easy to blame others for your shortcomings instead of assuming responsibility; an embodiment of that bizarre moment in life when we are both narcissistic and extremely self-loathing. i wanted him to meet people and see different, little parts of himself in all of them so that, through empathy, he could learn how to overcome his own barriers. Bookmark here

i must confess romance, in its first definition pertaining to love, is my least favorite literary genre. thankfully romance has another definition: a feeling or longing for remoteness of everyday life. maybe it's misleading to place this story under the impossible romance category when i had that second definition in mind, but it's not wrong, is it? romeo wants nothing more than to escape his status quo as a delinquent, longing for a life much different than his own. in this volume of the story i kept yuri purposely away for most of it so that she would remain as mysterious and mentally embellished to the reader as she is to romeo, instead of getting to know her real self. for that, i apologize to yuri. sorry, babe. Bookmark here

anyway, this was written for my fourteen year old self, who would have benefitted from reading about someone so frustrated with himself, so closed off about his feelings and who would rather die than be open and honest with anyone, and that slowly begins to learn how to accept himself. Bookmark here

also, i just like guys beating each other up idk. that was like, 90% of it tbh.Bookmark here

okay this got long and i'm embarrassed now. i am writing this in lowercase because this is how i normally write everything lmao writing properly is so exhausting and i'm glad that's over. even these apostrophes were a pain to type. i hate them and i want them gone. i wanted to write more blood and violence and curse in every page but the laws of pg-13 land held me back, yall. one day you will see me untamed and then you will Realize. for now, again, a big THANK YOU to everyone that stuck around!!!!!! your comments made my day :pleading_face:Bookmark here

TILL NEXT VOLUME!Bookmark here

-MakechBookmark here

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