Un-Random Solo: Heather Rose Brown's "Shoes"

It occurred to me last week that since "Shoes" doesn't ever come up as a Random Solo -- Heather tacked a multipart sequel onto it a while after she posted it in 2007 -- there are probably a lot of people here who aren't aware of the story, which was a front-runner for inclusion in a Best of BigCloset anthology in 2011 that never got off the ground.

(Wayback tells me it's received 2849 hits and 88 kudos since 1/22/16, compared to 19,635 hits in the nearly nine years before that. Can't compare the kudos since there was a different system back then and Wayback doesn't show it.)

Anyway, here it is. 1500 words. The teaser:

What do shoes have to do with a teenage boy understanding some major life changes his younger sibling is going through? Read on and find out. :)

Eric