Chapt 1:Not after everything we'd shared..

If you spent most of your life with a person, wouldn't it cross your mind that he could be the one you would marry? If you grew up with that person, learned to love him, shared your first kiss with him, wouldn't all that matter be when you were together? What if that person turned and said goodbye, that everything you had was false, he never meant anything? But underneath you knew he loved you back, that he cared. You knew he was running from something he wanted to something he was to scared to reject.
I searched the sea of T.B.S students for a glance of him. Unable to see him I turned back to the rampage of books that was my looker. He stood at my left with an unusually tense stature and a serious face.
“Alicia, can I talk to you..outside?”
Confused by his demeanor and his choice of using my full name rather then 'Lesh' I answered,
“Um yeah?”
I followed alongside him until we were outside the stone building. He cleared his throat and looked down at his hands as if searching for the right words.
“I..” He began,avoiding my eyes, “I mean, this can't..I don't feel the same way anymore about you as I did. Things changed for me I guess and I don't have any reason just..” He choked.
“Wait, are you leaving me?” I paused sucking all of this in. This was the one guy I had come to love and it wasn't as if it had been a couple of weeks-We had grown up together. “It's over now, everything?? You don't want to even.. think?” I stuttered completely overwhelmed.
He simply shook his head opening and closing his mouth like a gold fish. We stood there for what seemed like ages as if controlled by an unseen force rooting us to the spot. By now my tears were rolling down my face, spurting out of my blue eyes like waterfalls. I looked up at him searching his eyes for a bit of remorse, guilt.. love. Nothing. He lent in and kissed me softly on the lips for the last time.
He walked back into school hands in pockets, shoulders hunched and head down. He has to care. He has to. I had never felt so empty, alone in my life. He hadn't only ended a relationship, he had ended our friendship-no more meeting after school, no more texts, he had made his point by avoiding me every single day.
I can't put it into words, I spent every second of every day with him. It had all evaporated into nothingness. There was no longer a we in my life. It was me. But I knew everything we had just couldn't change. He was hiding something. I couldn't let him just go like that. No not after everything we'd shared.

Days passed slowly at school and Luke continued to ignore my urgent stares and text messages. It confused me how things could go from being perfect too.. not perfect? There was something in his eyes that had changed, regret, coldness could I say hatred? I shook my head and turned back to my geography book. Unable to concentrate I picked up my phone and called Luke's number. Pick up, pick up..
"Hello?" Luke's soft voice answered the phone.
"Luke its me Alicia," I whispered into the phone.
"Alicia.. don't do this, let it go okay?"
"But you didn't explain, you can't just change. What about.." Words didn't come to me. I just hoped he knew what I needed to say.
"I know and I'm sorry but.. it's complicated. It's for your own good. I have to do something and well, I have to leave the country for a year and it's better that we're apart. It's not easy to explain or for you to understand but.. please just know that I'm not being.. I don't know but I still care enough not to bring you through this." He finished his breath quivering. My heart bled.
"Through what? We can do it together. Luke I can't do this without you, I'm no good without, it's like I'm not filling my potential when I'm without you. It's like wasted time," I began to sob down the phone. He said nothing for a while, I only heard him sigh before clicking the phone call to an end.
I dropped my head into my hands and curled my knees close to my chest sobbing uncontrollably.
Its not fair
Its not fair
Its not fair.
My door handle turned and my older sister, Lucy, walked in.
"Did you take my Ipod again?! Oh Lesh.. what's wrong?" She ran to my side and crouched down to the level of the chair.
For a while I ignored her and stared persistently at the wall. She didn't move which comforted me and before long I was pouring out every little detail to her. She seemed shocked as she replied,
"Well from what you've told me," She patted my hair and entwined her fingers through the long strands of blonde, " Hmm, well I can only give you some advice. Love is never easy, it hurts and sometimes it never heals, you're left broken forever. But every rose has it's thorn and once you pluck it out, it's beautiful again and pure. You can take what I've said either way. Take the hurt out of your heart by finding someone new or take out Lukes as he obviously still loves you but the thorn in his life is preventing him from having you. Its your choice and unfortunately no one can do this for you. Take chances, risks but always follow your heart," She looked me in the eye as she finished and breathed out slowly before standing up and walking briskly out of the door.
That left me on my own again.
Well Alicia Ronnie Cole what do you choose? Help Luke? Forget Luke and get a life?
The choice was simple. I loved Luke, he was my soulmate and my best friend. I would take out his thorn and help him because I couldn't let me go. Not after everything we had shared.
I WILL WRITE MORE SOON WHEN I HAVE TIME.. XX KAKA SORRY ITS SO SHORT BUT I WILL BE BACK X

This was the one guy I had come to love and it wasn't as if it had been a couple of weeks-we had grown up together.

I stuttered, completely overwhelmed.

This is a cool beginning! I can't wait to know the real plot of the story

Keep writing!
Alzora

(Hi! I'm new here)

Dude, this is pretty intense. I mean, like, I can totally see what she's going through, and although it isn't exactly a story yet, it's good. I love emotional scenes like this... In fact, besides a gramaric error or two, I can't really complain. Great adjectives. Great imagery. I can't wait to hear more.

--
TabbyGirl

That was really emotinal.
I loved this though you should describe luke.
Is he tall? and when he says (“I..” He began,avoiding my eyes, “I mean, this can't..I don't feel the same way anymore about you as I did. Things changed for me I guess and I don't have any reason just..” He choked.) You don't have to say i don't (I don't have any reason just..") You could say "I'm sorry I just..." or something along those lines.
( I paused sucking all of this in.) You could say, I paused trying to inhale all that he was saying. Just a suggestion.
(Love is never easy, it hurts and sometimes it never heals, you're left broken forever. But every rose has it's thorn and once you pluck it out, it's beautiful again and pure.) I cried, thats exactly what it's like. If i could write like that I wouldn't stop. Try to get a plan for it because it is amazing so far.

I enjoyed this. and agree with most of the reviewers. From what I have read you have left it open to go into as many different directions as you want. I am curious as to what is going on in Luke's life, and my own over active imagination races to imagine what it could be!

Some pretty basic 'mistakes' but I would jot that down to you trying to get the story done. So many tell us to just get it down then worry about editing later That was what that whole NanoWrimo thing was about eh?

I think that it would be nice to have a little bit of background to establish ourselves. Maybe a prelude of their happiness so we can initially share the shock at the break up.

Hello kakagirl

I don't have time right now to get into the small nitpicks, but I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this beginning. It's interesting to see where the characters are taking us and I like that this has sort of started 'in the middle of things' rather than right at the beginning.

There were two things I wanted to say:

Unable to see him I turned back to the rampage of books that was my looker

I don't really understand this line? Maybe you should look over it and phrase better because it isn't relating well.

You knew he was running from something he wanted to something he was to scared to reject.

This is an AWESOME line. I don't know what it is but I read it and I was like, wow...

I like where this is going and I'll carry on reading Feel free to check out my new project if you like.

Keep writing,

~^~Chelsea~^~

Hiya Kaka! You asked for me to review, so here I am! My color system is red for grammar and spelling, purple for word choice, and blue for my commentary.

kakagirl wrote:If you spent most of your life with a person, wouldn't it cross your mind that he could be the one you would marry? If you grew up with that person, learned to love him, shared your first kiss with him, wouldn't all that matter be when you were together? This sentence doesn't make sense to me at the end. I would try fixing just the end portion of it.What if that person turned and said goodbye, that everything you had was false, he never meant anything? But underneath you knew he loved you back, that he cared. You knew he was running from something he wanted to something he was to scared to reject.This was absolutely beautiful! I felt everything you wrote.
I searched the sea of T.B.S students for a glance of him. Unable to see him I turned back to the rampage of books that was my looker. He stood at my left with an unusually tense stature and a serious face.
“Alicia, can I talk to you..outside?”
Confused by his demeanor and his choice of using my full name rather then 'Lesh', I answered,
“Um, yeah?”
I followed alongside him until we were outside the stone building. He cleared his throat and looked down at his hands as if searching for the right words.
“I..” He began,avoiding my eyes, “I mean, this can't..I don't feel the same way anymore about you anymore. Things changed for me I guess and I don't have any reason, just..” He choked.
“Wait, are you leaving me?” I paused sucking all of this in. This was the one guy I had come to love and it wasn't as if it had been a couple of weeks-We had grown up together. “It's over now, everything?? You don't want to even.. think?” I stuttered completely overwhelmed.
He simply shook his head, opening and closing his mouth like a gold fish. We stood there for what seemed like ages as if controlled by an unseen force rooting us to the spot. By now my tears were rolling down my face, spurting out of my blue eyes like waterfalls. I looked up at him searching his eyes for a bit of remorse, guilt.. love. Nothing. He leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips for the last time.
He walked back into school hands in pockets, shoulders hunched and head down.
New paragraph He has to care. He has to.
New paragraphI had never felt so empty, alone in my life. He hadn't only ended a relationship, he had ended our friendship-no more meeting after school, no more texts, he had made his point by avoiding me every single day.
I couldn't put it into words, I spent every second of every day with him. It had all evaporated into nothingness. There was no longer a we in my life. It was me. But I knew everything we had just couldn't change. He was hiding something. I couldn't let him just go like that.
No. Not after everything we'd shared.

Days passed slowly at school and Luke continued to ignore my urgent stares and text messages. It confused me how things could go from being perfect too.. not perfect? There was something in his eyes that had changed, regret, coldness could I say hatred? I shook my head and turned back to my geography book. Unable to concentrate I picked up my phone and called Luke's number.
New paragraphPick up, pick up..
"Hello?" Luke's soft voice answered the phone.
"Luke. Its me, Alicia," I whispered into the phone. The dialogue in here should be broken up a little bit. It will show how pained Alicia feels.
"But you didn't explain, you can't just change. "Alicia.. don't do this. Let it go. Okay?"
"What about.." Words didn't come to me. I just hoped he knew what I needed to say.
"I know and I'm sorry, but.. it's complicated. It's for your own good. I have to do something and well... I have to leave the country for a year and it's better that we're apart. It's not easy to explain or for you to understand, but please just know that I'm not being- I don't know, but I still care enough not to bring you through this." He finished his breath quivering. My heart bled.
"Through what? We can do it together. Luke, I can't do this without you!Do what? Specify. I'm no good without- it's like I'm not filling my full potential when I'm without you! It's like wasted time!" I began to sob down the phone. He said nothing for a while, I only heard him sigh before clicking the phone call to an end.
I dropped my head into my hands and curled my knees close to my chest, sobbing uncontrollably.
Its not fair
Its not fair
Its not fair.
My door handle turned and my older sister, Lucy, walked in.
"Did you take my Ipod again?! Oh, Lesh.. what's wrong?" She ran to my side and crouched down to the level of the chair.
For a while I ignored her and stared persistently at the wall. She didn't move which comforted me, and before long I was pouring out every little detail to her.
She seemed shocked as she replied,"Well from what you've told meThis sentence doesn't make sense to what comes next. Add something that would add on to this sentence.," she patted my hair and entwined her fingers through the long strands of blonde, " Hmm, well I can only give you some advice. Love is never easy. It hurts and sometimes it never heals. You're left broken forever. But every rose has it's thorn and once you pluck it out, it's beautiful again and pure You don't have to do this, but it would flow better if you put 'and pure' after the word beautiul. Again, it isn't necassary, but it would sound better.. You can take what I've said either way. Take the hurt out of your heart by finding someone new or take out Luke's as he obviously still loves you. The thorn in his life is preventing him from having you. Its your choice and unfortunately no one can do this for you. Take chances, but always follow your heart." She looked me in the eye as she finished and breathed out slowly before standing up and walking briskly out of the door.
That left me on my own again.
Well Alicia Ronnie Cole what do you choose? Help Luke? Forget Luke and get a life?
The choice was simple. I loved Luke. He was my soulmate and my best friend. I would take out his thorn and help him because I couldn't let him go. Not after everything we had shared.
I WILL WRITE MORE SOON WHEN I HAVE TIME.. XX KAKA SORRY ITS SO SHORT BUT I WILL BE BACK X

Grammar:
Grammar is never fun! That was probably the only problem with your story here. Most of the grammar issues revovled around sentence structure and commas. My freshman English teacher (a very wise woman) told me that when you are using commas, put them in anywhere you think that they are necassary. They might not be needed there, but you will likely get every comma that is needed. As for sentence structure, that all goes back to the commas. One last thing with grammar: an ellipses (...) they have three periods in them. There were several of these that needed an extra period.

Word Choice:
Word choice is perfect!

Overall:
This was an incredible, heartfelt story that I felt every emotion in! I cannot wait for more!

Best of luck and I'll be back to read the next two chapters!
Luxy

Hey there, Flower here as requested!
The first thing that I noticed about your peice is your lack of indentions. This really distracted me because it makes it look sloppy. I think it makes it look longer even. I'm not sure why I am commenting on that because I know you want me here for content, but I thought I would just get it out there. Anyway, moving onto the story.

kakagirl wrote:If you spent most of your life with a person, wouldn't it cross your mind that he could be the one you would marry? If you grew up with that person, learned to love him, shared your first kiss with him, wouldn't all that matter be when you were together? I don't quite know what you mean after the last comma.

What if that person turned and said goodbye, that everything you had was false, he never meant anything? But underneath you knew he loved you back, that he cared. You knew he was running from something he wanted to something he was to scared to reject. Again this sentence doesn't make much sense. He wanted to something he was to scared to reject?
I searched the sea of T.B.S students for a glance of him. Unable to see him I turned back to the rampage of books that was my looker. He stood at my left with an unusually tense stature and a serious face.
“Alicia, can I talk to you..outside?”
Confused by his demeanor and his choice of using my full name rather then 'Lesh' I answered,
“Um yeah?”
I followed alongside him until we were outside the stone building. He cleared his throat and looked down at his hands as if searching for the right words.
“I..” He began,avoiding my eyes, “I mean, this can't..I don't feel the same way anymore about you as I did. Things changed for me I guess and I don't have any reason just..” He choked.
“Wait, are you leaving me?” I paused sucking all of this in. This was the one guy I had come to love and it wasn't as if it had been a couple of weeks-We had grown up together. “It's over now, everything?? You don't want to even.. think?” I stuttered completely overwhelmed.
He simply shook his head opening and closing his mouth like a gold fish. We stood there for what seemed like ages as if controlled by an unseen force rooting us to the spot. By now my tears were rolling down my face, spurting out of my blue eyes like waterfalls. I looked up at him searching his eyes for a bit of remorse, guilt.. love. Nothing. He lent in and kissed me softly on the lips for the last time. I would use your italics for only thoughts. It get's kind of confusing if you do it otherwise.
He walked back into school hands in pockets, shoulders hunched and head down. He has to care. He has to. I had never felt so empty, alone in my life. He hadn't only ended a relationship, he had ended our friendship-no more meeting after school, no more texts, he had made his point by avoiding me every single day.
I can't put it into words, I spent every second of every day with him. It had all evaporated into nothingness. There was no longer a we in my life. It was me. But I knew everything we had just couldn't change. He was hiding something. I couldn't let him just go like that. No, not after everything we'd shared.

Days passed slowly at school and Luke continued to ignore my urgent stares and text messages. It confused me how things could go from being perfect too.. not perfect? There was something in his eyes that had changed, regret, coldness could I say hatred? I shook my head and turned back to my geography book. Unable to concentrate I picked up my phone and called Luke's number. Pick up, pick up..
"Hello?" Luke's soft voice answered the phone.
"Luke its me Alicia," I whispered into the phone.
"Alicia.. don't do this, let it go okay?"
"But you didn't explain, you can't just change. What about.." Words didn't come to me. I just hoped he knew what I needed to say.
"I know and I'm sorry but.. it's complicated. It's for your own good. I have to do something and well, I have to leave the country for a year and it's better that we're apart. It's not easy to explain or for you to understand but.. please just know that I'm not being.. I don't know but I still care enough not to bring you through this." He finished his breath quivering. My heart bled.
"Through what? We can do it together. Luke I can't do this without you, I'm no good without, it's like I'm not filling my potential when I'm without you. It's like wasted time," I began to sob down the phone. He said nothing for a while, I only heard him sigh before clicking the phone call to an end.
I dropped my head into my hands and curled my knees close to my chest sobbing uncontrollably.
Its not fair
Its not fair
Its not fair.
My door handle turned and my older sister, Lucy, walked in.
"Did you take my Ipod again?! Oh Lesh.. what's wrong?" She ran to my side and crouched down to the level of the chair.
For a while I ignored her and stared persistently at the wall. She didn't move which comforted me and before long I was pouring out every little detail to her. She seemed shocked as she replied,
"Well from what you've told me," She patted my hair and entwined her fingers through the long strands of blonde, " Hmm, well I can only give you some advice. Love is never easy, it hurts and sometimes it never heals, you're left broken forever. But every rose has it's thorn and once you pluck it out, it's beautiful again and pure. You can take what I've said either way. Take the hurt out of your heart by finding someone new or take out Lukes as he obviously still loves you but the thorn in his life is preventing him from having you. Its your choice and unfortunately no one can do this for you. Take chances, risks, but always follow your heart," She looked me in the eye as she finished and breathed out slowly before standing up and walking briskly out of the door.
That left me on my own again.
Well Alicia Ronnie Cole, what do you choose? Help Luke? Forget Luke and get a life?
The choice was simple. I loved Luke, he was my soulmate and my best friend. I would take out his thorn and help him because he couldn't let me go. Not after everything we had shared.
I WILL WRITE MORE SOON WHEN I HAVE TIME.. XX KAKA SORRY ITS SO SHORT BUT I WILL BE BACK X

Ok, so I really did like this. It is very interesting but I think you could make more out of it. It didn't drag like most stories do, that being said, it didn't exactly flow through. You didn't really give any description in this peice. You told us that her locker is messy, and that her eyes are blue.

You also didn't really give a backdrop on their relationship. I think this could be given later in the story and be efficient.

I feel that the bit about him leaving for the year came at random. I would work up to it. Make her dig for him to tell her. It would make the story more interesting.

Other than that I think it was lovely. I will review the other chapters soon.

-Flow-

Hey Kaka, I'm here as requested!

kakagirl wrote:You knew he was running from something he wanted to something he was to scared to reject.

This sentence really doesn't make sense. It seems like you're in need of rewording or addition of words; something like, "You knew he was running from something he wanted, something he was too scared to reject." Even that last part, about the rejection, is a little confusing. Are you implying that he's scared of rejection, or scared of rejecting someone else?

I searched the sea of T.B.S students for a glance of him. Unable to see him I turned back to the rampage of books that was my looker locker. He stood at my left with an unusually tense stature and a serious face.

First off, I'd suggest writing out TBS instead of using initials; we don't know what it stands for, and you need to introduce the full name before you can start initialing it. Secondly, "rampage" is used to refer more to a stampede or rushing herd, not a jumble of books.

“I..” Hhe began, avoiding my eyes,. “I mean, this can't..I don't feel the same way anymore about you as I did. Things changed for me I guess and I don't have any reason just..” He choked.

I noticed you have a bit of difficulty with dialogue punctuation, so I'd like you to take a look at this link. It does a really good job of explaining where to place commas and which letters to capitalize, etc. And ellipses ( ... ) have three dots, not two.

He lent leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips for the last time.

I can't imagine him kissing her if he's telling her that his feelings have changed and he doesn't want to be with her anymore. Also, the "for the last time" doesn't need to be italicized unless it's her own direct thoughts, in which case it should be noted that that's what she's thinking.

Its not fair
Its not fair
Its not fair.

I know what you're trying to do here, the emphasis you're trying to place on her thoughts, but it just is too repetitive. Also, "its" should be "it's." If you're ever not sure which one to use, simply plug in "it is." If it makes sense (like "It is a beautiful day!") then you know to use "it's." If it doesn't make sense (like "The cat lost it is toy"), then you know to use "its."

Okay, so that's all I'm going to nitpick on. You need to work on your grammar and punctuation; looking at the link I gave you should help. Also, you tend to rush the story and just tell the reader the facts, instead of showing us, like we're watching a movie. This is something that a lot of writers (including yours truly!) struggle with; here's another great link that explains the difference between showing versus telling, and how to recognize and change it in your writing.

Another thing I'd like to mention is your character development. There's not much, and to be honest I don't really care for Alicia; we don't know much about her save for the fact that she's been friends with this Luke guy for a while and she's upset about their breakup. Understandable, somewhat relatable, but also pretty clichéd and a bit boring. Let's hear a little more about Alicia, just on her own, and let's get to know her a bit so that when she gets the news about the breakup and is feeling devastated, we do too. Having a good plot is all very well and fine, but it's really the characters that keep us reading and wanting to know more. They're the ones we connect to and root for or hate during the story, so they're the ones you want to develop.

Okay, that's all I have to say. Thanks for asking for a review, hope this helps! Please PM me if you've got any questions or whatnot. Cheers! (:

Hey kaka!

I'm here to review this for you. Okay, because you've got three chapters so far, I'm going to give you two rather brief reviews on the first two chapters. When I come to review the third one, I'll give you a kind of overall review that will probably be a bit more detailed than the first two. Oh, and can I apologise in advance for any typos or anything in this review... I'm on my dad's laptop and I have no spell checker. D:

I'm not going to give you any grammatical nit-picks or anything because they always distract me, so I don't tend to concentrate ont he deeper stuff as much. I will say though that you do have some grammatical problems here. Don't worry too much about it because I have seen far worse. It's mostly things like comma placements you appear to be struggling with. The other reviewers have pointed out most nit-picks, so I'd suggest taking their advice and editing this up a little bit.

My main issue with this right now is that I don't feel all that connected to the story, especially not your MC. Because of that, the whole break up thing didn't really phase me. The reason I don't feel connected to anything yet is because I simply don't know anything about Alicia. This is kind of what Ranger's said. I want to see a bit of Alicia's life before you kick in to any of the deeper parts of the plot. A great way of connecting readers to a character is by showing their background and giving us time to get to know them before something bad, or good happens to them.

What I'd suggest is to add some more details in before this. For example, show us Alicia's school day or something. Maybe you could have her waking up in the morning with a horrible feeling at the bottom of her stomach, suspecting that something was gogint o happen today. You could have her on edge all day, and when she sees Luke, she feels a wave of relief by seeing someone who cna always comfort her or whatever. Then when Luke breaks up with her, it could be quite effective.

As well as expanding the beginning, I think you could tell us more about Alicia's life overall. You could even have this as the second chapter and add in a new first chapter, describing her background a bit more. You know, who her parents are, what they're like, who her sibling(s) are, what they're like. Also show us her personality a bit more. Is she rather quirky, and is a bit of a perfectionsist? Or maybe she's a bit lazy and hates having to work in shcool? Do you see what I'm getting at? I'd love for you to be adding in some mroe details about everything, basically.

I think that's about it for now. For this chapter, anyway! I've only come up with one real critique, so that's a good thing. If you fix that, I think this could be a really great first chapter. I also like the beginning, by the way. The whole speech thing; it was cool. Your grammar could so with a bit of work, but it's nothign you can't fix. All that you need to do is to add in some more background and details about things, especially Alicia and also about Alicia and Luke's relationship.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins.

Okay cool. I'll work on that. Thank you skinsy.
*Bows*
Thanks everyone foryour reveiws they mean so much to me.
Love and merry christmas
Kaka x

Hey Kakagirl, here Iam as promised!
*cracks knuckles and starts reading.......

Well ok here goes. Everything has pretty much already been said but I'll just give you my review anyways!
This was a very well written and emotional piece. I did feel sad over their breakup, but I will tell you that I think it could have been so much more heartwrenching if you had given a little more background into the characters. Instead of just saying that they grew up together, why not mention some of the things they had done over the years? What was the turning point when their relationship became something more? It would help me relate a lot more.

"He lent in and kissed me softly on the lips for the last time." The last part here bothered me, when you made the font change I just got the feeling like you were being a little too dramatic. Sometimes there is more emotion in understating a sentence.

One more thing that bothered me a little was the part about her sister coming in and consoling her. The idea of doing that is fine but it came across to me as if she entered, blurted out a few sappy analogies, and then left. I think the tenderness of her being a caring older sister was a little lost in that, perhaps if you trimmed that down a bit and made it a little less lengthy...? That's just me though.

Overall like I said, it's very well-written! No major grammatical errors except for your commas but I won't go there lol
On to chapter 2!
~day

Hey Kakagirl! Thanks for entering the First Chapter Contest! Here's a review!

Unable to see him I turned back to the rampage of books that was my looker.

locker

“I..” He began,avoiding my eyes, “I mean, this can't..I don't feel the same way anymore about you as I did. Things changed for me I guess and I don't have any reason just..” He choked.

There are a few issues with your dialogue punctuation. Not to worry, they're so easy to correct. I had problems with it myself for a long time. Here is a great article about punctuating dialogue that'll set everything straight better than I could.

I paused sucking all of this in.

Sucking doesn't seem like the right word. Maybe something like "soaking" would be better?

I shook my head and turned back to my geography book. Unable to concentrate I picked up my phone and called Luke's number. Pick up, pick up..

Wait, is she at school? The setting is pretty unclear throughout the course of the chapter. Be sure to include all sorts of sensory descriptions as you write (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell) and it'll make the story and characters seem so much more real to a reader.

This is a good basis for a story, like a good frame/structure of a building, but it's missing something. It's missing the walls, the roof, to stick with the metaphor. What it needs is description, plot, detail, dimension. While plot still has time to come out, this chapter can still use a healthy dose of showing. While the reader is told a lot of what happens, they don't particularly get to see it. We, as readers, want to be able to picture everything that is happening. You have some good starts at this, such as at the locker and in the bedroom. What you need is to amp that up and flesh it out. Use the same sort of theory for your characters. Bring out their personalities more, use the same sorts of showing descriptions of personality and actions. Show us how they act. Here is a great article about showing, as opposed to telling, that you should definitely check out.

I think this can be a really great chapter, it just needs some work. I'm confident that you can do it. If you have any more questions, or want to talk more about anything I've said feel free to shoot me a pm anytime. Keep writing!

And thanks again for entering my contest!

-Lauren-