I Was a Teenage Space Jockey
ShortStory 4,560 words Recommended by 1 award/anthology source
"Two days after my brother turned seventeen, he was gone, just like he’d guaranteed my dad. No sad goodbyes, no notes, no taking a knee in the hall before dawn to give me any good advice for high school when I got there. My mom’s story when anybody asked was that he’d moved out, he was old enough, he needed room, it was completely natural."
Content warnings 2
racismviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Lightspeed, where the author gets the click.