I have always felt wrong - like I am living in a stranger's body. When I left home for college, it was a last ditch effort to figure out how to live with myself. It didn't work. Until Jesse saved my life.

This story was written as a part of the Goodreads M/M Romance Group's 'Love is Always Write' event.The prompt was:Albuquerque during Balloon Week was insane- like Mardi Gras on laughing gas, I heard someone say. Easy to hide in the crowd. But how to get away? Once I left the festival grounds, my leg would slow me down.He was alone, trying to get his balloon off the ground. You needed at least two people to get one of these monsters in the air. Bad day, between pissed off and heartbroken written all over his face. He stared down at my leg, and I grabbed the edge of the basket for support. "e;Need some help?"e;He laughed, then looked behind me at the trail of bloody footprints I'd left. "e;Whoever you're running from, you just led them here, bud."e;I stared at the footprints, then up at him. He dropped the fuel gauge, reached out and lifted me into the basket like I was a sack of groceries. "e;Stay down before you fall down. I need six more minutes to get this balloon out of here. Have you got six minutes?"e;I shook my head. "e;I don't know."e;

Shit. You always think there's plenty of time, plenty of chances. Staring down at 20% survival odds has made me rethink a lot of things. I wish I had come out of the closet instead of letting him leave, wish I'd been more willing to rock the boat before it started to sink. Maybe he meant it when he said he'd still be there for me, still be my friend.This story was written as a part of the Goodreads.com M/M Romance Group's 'Love is Always Write' event.

Milena Jesenská, born in Prague in 1896, is most famous as one of Franz Kafka's great loves. Although their relationship lasted only a short time, it won the attention of the literary world with the 1952 publication of Kafka's letters to Milena. Her own letters did not survive. Later biographies showed her as a fascinating personality in her own right. In the Czech Republic, she is remembered as one of the most prominent journalists of the interwar period and as a brave one: in 1939 she was arrested for her work in the resistance after the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, and died in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944.It is estimated that Jesenská wrote well over 1,000 articles but only a handful have been translated into English. In this book her own writings provide a new perspective on her personality, as well as the changes in Central Europe between the two world wars as these were perceived by a woman of letters. The articles in this volume cover a wide range of topics, including her perceptions of Kafka, her understanding of social and cultural changes during this period, the threat of Nazism, and the plight of the Jews in the 1930s.

I have always felt wrong - like I am living in a stranger's body. When I left home for college, it was a last ditch effort to figure out how to live with myself. It didn't work. Until Jesse saved my life.

This story was written as a part of the Goodreads M/M Romance Group's 'Love is Always Write' event.The prompt was:Albuquerque during Balloon Week was insane- like Mardi Gras on laughing gas, I heard someone say. Easy to hide in the crowd. But how to get away? Once I left the festival grounds, my leg would slow me down.He was alone, trying to get his balloon off the ground. You needed at least two people to get one of these monsters in the air. Bad day, between pissed off and heartbroken written all over his face. He stared down at my leg, and I grabbed the edge of the basket for support. "e;Need some help?"e;He laughed, then looked behind me at the trail of bloody footprints I'd left. "e;Whoever you're running from, you just led them here, bud."e;I stared at the footprints, then up at him. He dropped the fuel gauge, reached out and lifted me into the basket like I was a sack of groceries. "e;Stay down before you fall down. I need six more minutes to get this balloon out of here. Have you got six minutes?"e;I shook my head. "e;I don't know."e;

Shit. You always think there's plenty of time, plenty of chances. Staring down at 20% survival odds has made me rethink a lot of things. I wish I had come out of the closet instead of letting him leave, wish I'd been more willing to rock the boat before it started to sink. Maybe he meant it when he said he'd still be there for me, still be my friend.This story was written as a part of the Goodreads.com M/M Romance Group's 'Love is Always Write' event.

Milena Jesenská, born in Prague in 1896, is most famous as one of Franz Kafka's great loves. Although their relationship lasted only a short time, it won the attention of the literary world with the 1952 publication of Kafka's letters to Milena. Her own letters did not survive. Later biographies showed her as a fascinating personality in her own right. In the Czech Republic, she is remembered as one of the most prominent journalists of the interwar period and as a brave one: in 1939 she was arrested for her work in the resistance after the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, and died in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944.It is estimated that Jesenská wrote well over 1,000 articles but only a handful have been translated into English. In this book her own writings provide a new perspective on her personality, as well as the changes in Central Europe between the two world wars as these were perceived by a woman of letters. The articles in this volume cover a wide range of topics, including her perceptions of Kafka, her understanding of social and cultural changes during this period, the threat of Nazism, and the plight of the Jews in the 1930s.