My Falling Sun Ch3.1

Eventually, Ethan, Anna and Kevin returned, all sopping wet. I looked up at Kevin but he avoided eye contact with me. Tristan gave me a comforting smile.

We decided to go back to the house, all hungry, the sandwiches Mrs. Mahoney had packed were long gone. We were all silent on the way up, both from exhaustion and not wanting to talk. Up at the house we watched TV until dinner time.
"So, how was the beach?" Mr. Mahoney asked while drenching his corn in butter. "It's a nice beach isn't it, basically private."

We all muttered "mhm" over our food.
"Lively bunch, I see," Mr. Mahoney said skeptically.

"Honey, they're probably just tired-you guys must be tired, right." Mrs. Mahoney said.

We all nodded and I caught Tristan’s eye from across the table. The look made my heart flutter and I remembered earlier at the beach.

These were dangerous feelings, I was supposed to love Kevin, I do love Kevin. Thinking about this made me nauseous and I felt like I needed to leave the table.

"Do you have any salt?" I asked hurriedly, after surveying the table and seeing that there was none.
"Oh, of course," Mrs. Mahoney said, starting to get up.

"No, I'll get it," I stood up abruptly, causing my napkin to fall onto the floor, and hurrying into the kitchen.

"Are you okay?"
I spun around from where I was leaning on the counter and was partly relieved that it wasn't Tristan but I wasn't too happy on seeing Kevin either.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just needed salt," I turned around again and absentmindedly flipped through the cabinets.

"Look, if you're upset about today at the beach-"

"I'm not," I told him stiffly, loudly going through cabinets, my back still turned to him.

"Here," he thrust the salt shaker in front of me after taking it out of the drawer behind him, "But wait. It's not that I don't love you, because I do."

I leaned against the counter, trembling, waiting.

"It's just that..."He seemed to struggle for words, "I mean, look at you, you're so...young."

Young wasn't the adjective I had expected and it caught me of guard. I was so young? What does that even mean? "I'm only two years younger than you," I added defensively.

"I know, I know," He let out an exasperated sigh. "What I mean is, well, sex can change a lot of things, for a person and a relationship. I was just shocked when you seemed so eager, is all." I felt like I was getting a lecture, Kevin was supposed to be my boyfriend not my father. I nodded anyway, unsure of a better response.

"I’m sorry for being so weird about it, babe," He said, and pulled me into a tight hug. I just stood there and let him hug me.

We walked back into the dining room and took our seats at the table as if nothing had happened. “Where’s the salt,” Ethan asked as we entered.

Kevin went back into the kitchen and Tristan shot me a questioning look. I stared down at my plate.

Whoa, I like this. I see you went somewhere with Tristan and the main character. You do some really intense character play in this piece. The whole thing with the salt was really clever. A lot of people forget to bring that up again at the end, but you remembered, which created this awkward kind of moment. Loved it. Keep writing.

Your story gets better!

I looked up at Kevin but he avoided eye contact with me.

I looked up at Kevin, but he avoided eye contact with me.

"Are you okay?"

I spun around from where I was leaning on the counter and was partly relieved that it wasn't Tristan but I wasn't too happy on seeing Kevin either.

I spun around from where I was leaning on the counter and was partly relieved that it wasn't Tristan, but I wasn't too happy on seeing Kevin either.

Hey again!

I'll get straight to the critiques for this one, I think. My main critique for this chapter would probably be the same as my main critique in my last review. Although you wrote this effectively, I felt as though you rushed things a bit. Like I said before, you need to give us readers time to digest what's going on and what your characters are feeling. I've gone into a bit of detail about this in my previous review, so I won't bother repeating what I've already said. That would only annoy both you and me!

My other critique for this chapter would actually have to be part of your descriptions. Like I've mentioned many times before, you can create some really nice descriptions. What I'm not seeing and would like to see though are descriptions of your characters. So far, I only know that Tristan has brown eyes. Except for that, I don't know what any of your other characters look like. To begin with, I don't know what Sophie, your MC, actually looks like. I don't know what Kevin looks like either. What your characters look like isn't one of the most important things in a novel, but it's nice to know about.

Negatives aside, one of the things that I liked in this chapter was the atmosphere that you created. It wasn't a nice atmosphere but that was good; it was an effective, awkward atmosphere. It was obvious that there was tension in the air after what happened down the beach with Sophie and Kevin. It was also clear that Tristan didn't like Sophie and Kevin being so close again. It was the minor details, like the way Sophie seemed to get rather obsessed with the salt that made the atmosphere in this effective. Little things like that really give out strong feelings and make big statements. Your characteristics in this chapter was also very nice, by the way.