Driftwood Dragon
By Emery C. Walters
The last thing my father said to me before he shipped out overseas was, if I persisted with this drama of thinking I’m gay, it would kill my mother like a dragon breathing fire on her. So of course I had to build a dragon.
I hadn’t intended to build a dragon. It’s just that after he’d moved us here to the island the base was on, he’d left. I had no friends here, couldn’t take my music lessons anymore, and there was nothing to do and no way to get to it if there had been. We lived just off base, off the bus lines, close to a rocky strip of coastline where the water was too cold for swimming or surfing, and I knew nobody at all.
I couldn’t get a job and there was nowhere I could even volunteer. Staying home with my mother until school started was a no
