The Unheralded King of Preston Plains Middle

Description

Trajan Hopkins is the prototypical adolescent male, protected on all sides by the soft cushion of family. He worships his brother, Langston, invariably from a crouched defensive position in an effort to fend off the latest sequence of moves his brother is working to perfect. Langston is widely regarded around town as Preston’s most prolific fighter; steeped in martial arts, his ambition is to someday reaching the Olympic stage. The dutiful second seed, Trajan fits neatly inside his brother’s shadow.

When his brother Langston dies, it’s like one leg of a chair going missing, warping Trajan’s sense of connection to anybody near to him. He ventures into the world alone, steps out on the call of the wind, the rise of the moon, the tide pulling against him. He returns at the end of the night to diminished ties, the weave of familiar cues strewn loose about him, waves crashing in, pushing him ever further from the shelter of home.