Whisky on a Sunday: Year 1

I agree -- this establishes a bit more of who Eric really is. To be honest, I'm quite surprised they he and Sarah were so innocent. So it shows that he really is a good guy who just got into some nasty stuff. We definitely needed this piece to help solidify his character. Plus, it's a very positive entry, and a break from the downward spiral. Still, I have a feeling everything's about to crash down around him.

I really liked how Sarah tried to be nonchalant, but wanted to be with him more than anything, so she let it go. Very realistic, I think.

Keep it coming!

I love this bit. It doesn't seem pointless at all. ^_^ It really made me smile, and the interaction between Eric and Sarah seemed very realistic. This part did a great job of defining her character more.

I can't think of any critique... I really love this story, and with every chapter you write, it gets harder to think of something. XD

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

So the first thing I saw when I looked at this post was "miracle nose warmer" out of context, and it was so random that I started cracking up XD

She sat down on the settee beside me as I set down the cup and saucer. She smiled warmly, which heated my heart, frozen by both the alcohol and the weather. I wanted to hug her then and there, but instinct told me that was a bad idea.

Because of the saying to warm someone's heart, the "which heated my heart" sounds kinda funny. And yes, I get the feeling that Eric hugging Sarah right now would be a very bad idea indeed.

“I love you too, Sarah,” I said, taking her in my arms. She hugged me, but that wasn’t what was on my agenda.

“Damn you, Eric!” she shrieked as I started to tickle her ribs. She squirmed in my arms, laughing uncontrollably. I held her tighter the more she struggled.

This seems awkward because one minute, she's rather upset with him (and they haven't seen each other for a while), and the next minute she's in his arms. The joking's cute, but the contact seems rather ~fast. And then she's happy that Eric woke up her mom; like she's forgiving him too fast.

I continued small talking Sarah’s mum until she bode me good evening and went back to bed.

^ should be "bade me good evening"

Towards before the first set of plus-signs,


----

Agh! I must dash for now >< But I will be back later to finish ^_^

ta ta!

----

EDIT: I'm back! Now to finish...

One of these days I’ll get a hold on these empty promises of mine, I thought, leaning my head back again and drifting off to sleep myself.

I think this would be more effective if simply stated, rather than his un-italicized explanation afterwards (the "I thought..." etc.)

Personally, I think Chester's a riot. But how did he know Eric'd be at Sarah's house? Seems like everyone's back on good terms too quickly.

Again, I think the brick thing's a little too obvious.

“Relax, I was only joking. I don’t mind not going to the flicks. There’s nothing out that I want to see, to be perfectly honest.”

The "I don't mind not going to the flicks" sentence is redundant in context.


Bring on the next section! ^_^

We're almost to the end of year 1! This next bit might be a bit too long, let me know if it is. Too lazy to read over it myself and come up with something else to add here. Heh.
P.S. I love you all. <3

+++


A door slammed, jerking me out of my sleep.

I sat up at breakneck speed- literally. Massaging my neck with one hand, I glanced out the glass front of the shop.

“Shit,” I swore, lashing out with one hand and seizing my bottle of whisky. I dove into the back room as Dad opened the door, holding it for Mum and Penny. I buried it hurriedly and haphazardly behind the boxes.

“Eric?” Dad called out. I smoothed my hair down and walked back to the shop front as nonchalantly as I could, acting surprised to see them.

“Looks like someone fell asleep in back,” Penny teased as she passed me on the way to the stairs. I was caught between wanting to push her and wanting to make up some lie about what I’d really been doing- lying about a lie- but my mind decided it wasn’t going to make a choice between the two.

“How many times have I told you not to fall asleep when you’re responsible for the shop?” Dad said, exasperated. I grinned sheepishly, feigning shame.

“Sorry, Dad,” I said aloud. Mentally, it went more like Well, maybe you should have taken care of your own damn shop for once.
Another brick was drying in its proper place as I sat back down behind the counter and swept up the deck of cards. Dad looked at me, cocking one eyebrow. I stared defiantly back.

“What?” I said.

“Your mother isn’t supposed to know about those,” he said in a secretive tone, pointing to the cards in my hands. I glanced at them, then looked back at him.

“Dad, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but everyone who’s ever set foot inside this shop knows you have these,” I remarked.

His jaw opened as if he was about to say something, but he thought better of it and closed it again. I cocked an eyebrow at him, tilting my head inquisitively.

“Oh, forget it,” he said at long last, waving his hands in surrender. I smiled.

“Care to join in, then?” I said, holding up the deck. He shook his head.

“I think I need to go upstairs and try to figure out a better hiding place for those… anyway, Mum will take over the shop in a few hours so you can have yourself to yourself again, alright? Tomorrow we’re closing the shop to celebrate Penny’s birthday properly.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, we’re closed anyway,” I called as he disappeared up the stairs. I shook my head, my dirty blonde hair falling in the way of my eyes as I dealt myself a game of solitaire.

I should really cut my hair, I thought idly as I propped my feet up on the counter and started playing.

+++

At one point or another, I got drunk alone in my room and threw my clock at the wall, breaking it, but time halted for no man. January was soon a bitter cold memory (as it always is in Glasgow) and February wasn’t much better. Mid March brought a fresh burst of life as it usually does, the plants and trees flowering beautifully. The start of spring found the four of us roaming the city with no boundaries and all the time in the world- so we thought.

It had taken a long time to regain the trust of Clyde most of all. He had long since stopped providing me with whisky and we hadn’t spoken in months. I felt a wee bit awkward in his presence. I felt like there was something I had to say to span the abyss between us, but I couldn’t quite figure out what those magic words would be.

Of course, the shortcut was drinking, which I did frequently.
We still went drinking, late at night and wherever we could find good alcohol in town. We broke away from some of our usual places to try out new ones, but we always went back to basics. We were creatures of habit.

I found out pretty damn quickly that I had acquired the ability to drink Clyde under the table, which started happening frequently. Most of late March is a blur. I know there was more than one occasion where Chester and Clyde had to bodily drag me home. How my parents never said anything to me was a mystery. I had a strange gut feeling that they knew- at least, a strange gut feeling when they were sober- but I couldn’t begin to explain why they never brought it to my attention.

Of course, the alcohol told me that I was invincible.

There were many times that I stopped bothering to worry about the shop. The times when I covered it became endless hours of me staring at the clock and sighing, drawing idly on scraps of paper as I waited for someone to come and relieve me of my duties. I started being short with many customers, my once-endless patience shortening to a few moments, a few words that were “wrong” to me.

Of course, the alcohol made it all their fault.

My mind was slowly losing the battle against the poisonous substances I was forcing upon it.

Of course, the alcohol told me I was perfectly fine.

+++

I had the day off at the tail end of March.

I spent it mostly reading in the back room, at least during the morning. By mid afternoon, I’d gotten a bit stir crazy from being voluntarily cooped up for so long. That, and I’d run out of whisky. So I slid upstairs with hardly a twitch of the eyebrow from Dad, who was covering the shop front at the particular moment.

I laid flat on my floor by my bed. Burrowing under it, I fished out my bottle of whisky and took a deep drink. My hands rested over my knees as I sat up, cross-legged. I stared at the heap of random rubbish I had to dig out from beneath my bed to reach my stash.

"I wonder what all is in there," I said to myself.

"Wonder what's in where?" a voice said.

I jumped nearly a foot in the air, hurriedly shoving the whisky back under my bed as my mum walked in. She took one look at the pile of junk on my floor and sighed.

"Oy, Eric, you are unbelievable. An impossibly die hard work ethic downstairs and yet upstairs you're lazier than Wyatt. How is that possible?

He hands were on her hips by that time, a sure sign that she meant business. There were times when I was younger that my mum scared me more than my dad. That was before I learned how effective smooth talk was on her.

"How do you know that I'm not just cleaning?" I said, cocking one eyebrow. "This rubbish was under my bed, I'm just going through it now."

Her eyes narrowed, and I smiled sweetly. I could see the corners of her mouth twitching slightly.

"I win," I said lightly, and her control broke. She laughed loudly, sitting on the floor beside me.

"You are terrible, honestly," she said, still laughing. I smiled charmingly, trying to calm my pounding heart. Silently thanking a teacher I had in school who gave crash courses on acting, I leaned forward and plucked a jumper off the pile.

"Isn't this Jasmine's?” I asked, holding it up. Its purple fuzziness stuck out like a sore thumb against everything else in the room.

“It is, actually,” Mum said, taking it from me. “My word, she lost this years ago. She was very upset about it.”

“No clue how it got under my bed. Probably Wyatt put it there as a prank and forgot about it,” I remarked. Mum shrugged.

We passed a decent hour or so like that, sifting through the clothes, books, and oddly random objects that had found their way beneath my bed. Eventually, after the pile had shrunk and split into several different piles- one for clothes, one for rubbish, one for books, and one for everything else- I moved aside a pair of Mark’s old jeans, revealing a beaten-up shoebox.

“What’s in here?” I said to no one in particular as I picked it up.

“Open it, silly,” Mum said. I obeyed, tugging off the top.

Photos, figurines, and other random objects spilled out onto my lap. I picked up the nearest photo- it was from ten years ago, when we had repainted the shop front.

By “we” I mean my dad and myself, since Mark and Wyatt had miraculously “forgotten” what we were doing that day. Catherine eventually jumped in to help at the end, smoothing what I’d done and covering what I couldn’t reach.

Look here, Eric, smooth strokes. Big and bold, just like you. Here, you try.

She’d been the one to take the photo after we’d finished a few hours after we planned. My dad was laughing his head off, and I was grinning ear to ear- covered head to toe in paint.

Hey, Dad, look. Eric blends right in with the wall. If he wasn’t so twitchy, we might’ve painted right over him and cemented him to the shop!

As an eight-year-old, that kind of concept terrified me.

Convinced that she and Dad were planning on carrying out such a deed, I hid for the next two days in the storage room. I even convinced Mark to bring me food so I wouldn’t have to leave.

I probably would’ve stayed there for weeks if I hadn’t overheard my mum talking about buying sweets at the store, something she’d said for the purpose of coaxing me out of the back storage room.

“I never did get those sweets,” I remarked to her.

“What sweets?” she asked, staring at the photo. I reminded her of what had transpired all those years ago, and she laughed.

“I can’t believe that you still remember such an intricate story from so long ago,” she said. I shrugged, grinning myself.

“Well, I wanted and still want sweets. Not many kids forget those kinds of things.”

She smiled, spreading out the other photos. All of them were five years old or more. I remembered the story that went with each of them. There was one of Clyde, Sarah, Chester, and myself on the day that we started secondary school, the four of us nice and neat and pressed in our school uniforms. Another was a candid photo Penny had taken of Mum and I standing in front of a family grave at Necropolis- the sun had been setting, causing us to appear as dark silhouettes. It was very beautiful, and the first time Penny had expressed her interest in photography.

I picked up one photo that had ended up by my foot. It was me holding my orange cat that an uncle had bought me for Christmas one year. I named him Teague. He had to live on the first floor, above the shop. Back then, we had a regular customer who was highly allergic to cats.

Teague had disappeared four years after I got him, when I was eleven. I had been heartbroken- I loved to curl up with a book in my room as he would lie on my chest or next to my head, purring.

“Teague didn’t really run away, did he?” I said to Mum, who shook her head.

“He got out one day when you were at school and was hit by a passing car. I wanted to be honest with you, but Dad was too nervous.”

I set the photo down. Truth was that I had forgotten all about Teague. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly angered at my mum for not telling me the truth.

I was old enough to handle it, I thought with a wee bit more fury than necessary.

I shoved aside my rage as Mum put one hand on my shoulder. I felt five years old again, internally wishing that she would stop touching me.

“I know you loved Teague, Eric. We would’ve got you another cat, but it would’ve been too expensive.”

I nodded. “It’s alright, Mum.”

I swept up all the photos and put them back in the box along with everything else that had come out of it. Shoving it under my bed, I leaned back, putting my hands behind me to lean on. I stretched my legs out in front of me and looked at Mum.

“I still want those sweets, though,” I said, giving her the cheekiest grin I could muster. She hit me on the leg playfully.

“You’re a big boy, get them yourself,” she teased. I donned a wounded puppy look.

“But you’re the one with all the quid. I’m just an underpaid slave, that’s all I am.”

“Oh, woe is you,” she said, standing up. I followed suit, towering over her diminutive form. She looked me up and down, her hands resting on her hips.

“My word, stop growing,” she said.

I smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “I can’t help it, Mum.”

She smiled. Looking back, there was plenty of sorrow, worry, and love hiding just beneath her gaze. I didn’t notice at the time. She must have known then that I was walking down a path to self-destruction, although she didn’t know the specifics. I suppose it was just her maternal radar going into hyperdrive.

She turned and walked away. I waited until I heard her bedroom door close before shoving my massive pile of clothes back under my bed. I followed it with the pile of random rubbish before gathering up all the actual rubbish and shoving it in the rubbish bin that sat next to the desk- the Desk of Uncertain Ownership, Wyatt used to call it. It had been a gift for Mark, but I used it primarily. Mark wasn’t exactly keen on reading or homework, which is what I used the oak behemoth for.

I gathered up the books and went downstairs and into the back room. I stacked them within easy reach of my favourite reading spot, plucked the first one off the top, and curled up inside the pages, lost in the escapism glory of literature.

“Looks like someone fell asleep in back,” Penny teased as she passed me on the way to the stairs. I was caught between wanting to push her and wanting to make up some lie about what I’d really been doing- lying about a lie- but my mind decided it wasn’t going to make a choice between the two.

hehe, lying about a lie. Not only awesome characterization but humourous as well ^^

I like Eric's mental conversations (in italics) and the real out-loud conversations. Well done.

“Your mother isn’t supposed to know about those,” he said in a secretive tone, pointing to the cards in my hands. I glanced at them, then looked back at him.

*flails* Isn't it just a deck of cards? Or is this supposed to imply that the dad is a bit over-enthusiastic about card games?

“I think I need to go upstairs and try to figure out a better hiding place for those… anyway, Mum will take over the shop in a few hours so you can have yourself to yourself again, alright? Tomorrow we’re closing the shop to celebrate Penny’s birthday properly.”

Have yourself to yourself? Sounds a bit odd.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, we’re closed anyway,” I called as he disappeared up the stairs.

(grammar aside: should be "Tomorrow's Sunday ; we're closed anyway)

I should really cut my hair, I thought idly as I propped my feet up on the counter and started playing.

Nice ending to the section bit ^_^

At one point or another, I got drunk alone in my room and threw my clock at the wall, breaking it, but time halted for no man.

I think this would be more effective if but time halted for no man were its own sentence.

It had taken a long time to regain the trust of Clyde most of all.

The most of all bit was oddly worded/structured with the rest of the sentence.

Of course, the shortcut was drinking, which I did frequently.
We still went drinking, late at night and wherever we could find good alcohol in town. We broke away from some of our usual places to try out new ones, but we always went back to basics. We were creatures of habit.

I think some words in this bit could be cut or combined to make things tighter.

I found out pretty damn quickly that I had acquired the ability to drink Clyde under the table, which started happening frequently.

What's that mean: drink Clyde under the table?

Reading seems such a significant action for Eric, but we never see any emotional impact from it. Like a character who's always running will probably have to run fast to save the day. Does reading have any effect on Eric other than it being an action to keep him occupied? :has now read last sentence of chapter: huh.

Hey, Dad, look. Eric blends right in with the wall. If he wasn’t so twitchy, we might’ve painted right over him and cemented him to the shop!

Cement seems such a careful word. Does it have anything to do with Eric's brick wall? That's the only other place it's used in the story, and there're certainly other words that could be used above. I can kind of see it if you're trying to make a symbol, but if you're not, I'd highly suggest changing this word.

“What sweets?” she asked, staring at the photo. I reminded her of what had transpired all those years ago, and she laughed.

“I can’t believe that you still remember such an intricate story from so long ago,” she said. I shrugged, grinning myself.

Transpired and intricate, in context, sound like lofty words used for the sake of vocabulary. But I'm just being picky

Okay, I know it's really soon and I've only gotten one critique for the last bit, but I'm just so eager to end Year 1 and get Year 2 underway!
Yeah, I'm impatient. So sue me!

+++

I fell asleep, having completely forgotten about my life away from the pages as Sarah called it, and nearly had a panic attack because I’d slept past one of my regular drinking times.

I had overshot it by about an hour, which I realised the exact same second that I woke up. Something in some internal clock was going of like an alarm- an alarm in a bank that had just been the victim of a robbery.

Silent yet dangerous.

The first word through my head was shit, quickly followed by a mad scramble into my makeshift den to find my hidden bottle of whisky.

I drank deeply the second that I found it, breathing a tiny sigh of relief when I’d finished.

Jesus, MacAllister. You can’t do that to yourself. Don’t let something like this happen to you again.

I replaced my den back into its monolithic glob as I simultaneously cemented a fresh brick into place. Faux crisis averted, I replaced the book I’d fallen asleep with on my stack and walked out into the shop.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Penny sang from her place behind the counter. I nodded, pretending to be groggy, and leaned against the counter. I rested my head on its smooth surface- unusually clean, but that was probably a side effect of Penny’s obsessive compulsion- and spoke to my elbows.

“Where’re Mum and Dad?” I asked.

“Out,” my right temple responded, sounding uncannily like Penny. “There’s a wee bit of dinner left over for you, I’m pretty sure that Mum left it on the table. If not, check the oven or one of the usual places.”

“Not hungry,” I mumbled. I felt Penny watching me, sensed her mimicking my pose beside me.

“Suit yourself, but Dad was eyeing your plate. You might just go hungry if you don’t eat before Mum and him get back.”

I lifted my head, wondering why the hell I put up with her irritating energy and simultaneously gluing a new brick into place. To her face, I said, “Do you need any help covering the shop?”

She shook her head. “Nope, but Dad told me to ask you to do a spot of cleaning or two, or all the spots that need cleaning for that matter, and would you please check into the squeaky hinges on the front door, please and thank you?”

I shot her a look as I straightened up.

“What? I’m just telling you,” she said defensively.

I bit my tongue to keep back a vicious and unfair remark about how annoying she was repeating Dad’s orders to me. In a different lifetime, I would’ve teased her about her squeaky voice. I would’ve given her all kinds of flak for it- but the kind of flak that just expresses love- and things would have been okay.

But things were far from okay, and no amount of crash acting courses from primary school teachers would come close to fixing things.

I yawned, stretched- more play acting to convince Penny that nothing was wrong- and climbed the stairs. In the kitchen, I pulled my dinner out of the oven and started eating.

+++

There was loads to do when it came to cleaning the shop.

Downstairs in the actual shop itself, the shelves were in constant need of organizing. There were rubbish bins to be emptied, cardboard boxes to be disposed of (or added to my makeshift nest, it didn’t really matter), floors to be swept, new shipments to be registered, a counter to be cleaned off- although Penny had taken care of that for me- and my personal least favourite, windows to be cleaned.

Upstairs was a wee bit less complex and important. There were two rooms I didn’t have to bother with- Penny’s room and the room my parents shared- and hardly anyone used the sitting room, so I only needed to waste a few minutes in there. The kitchen, dining room, and my room were the most important. It took loads of time to do alone- more time than I cared to really bother with since I had started drinking- which was why I was secretly glad for my dad. When he and Mum returned from whatever they were doing- a night out with their friends, perhaps, but it was completely different than my definition of a night out- he jumped right in to help me. I had already tackled most of upstairs and had drifted down into the shop.

“Alright there, Eric?” he called, coming down the stairs. I was in the nonfiction corner, alphabetizing and shelving a new shipment of book son addictive substances- heroin, alcohol, cocaine, and the like.

“Aye, just restocking,” I said, not bothering to turn around or even look up from what I was doing. I felt him walk up beside me. I secretly hissed mentally, wanting him to get away from me.

“How much have you done?” he asked, leaning over my shoulder to see what books I was holding.

“There’s only one box left,” I said, still not stopping my systematic and fluent motions- alphabetize, find a place, shelve. Alphabetize, find a place, shelve. Just like clockwork. Just like a routine.

I shelved the last book and let my arms drop to my sides. Chewing my tongue to keep my anger at my father’s proximity at bay, I turned to face him.

“I’ll let you take care of that then. What haven’t you gotten around to, then?” he asked, taking a step back, out of the nonfiction corner. The way the shop was laid out, it really wasn’t designed to have more than one person in that particular corner.

“I haven’t done any of the nitpicky cleaning stuff. Sweeping, cleaning the windows, details like those.”

He nodded. “Alright, you shelve those books. I’ll do the ‘nitpicky cleaning stuff,’ as you so eloquently phrase it.”

I feigned a grin and disappeared into the back storage room, grateful to be alone. I looked up at the wall clock I’d hooked up just above my makeshift den- mostly so I could know when I needed to (reluctantly) leave. One of my scheduled drinking times was coming up. I took the few spare moments to lock the storage room door and to dig out my bottle of whisky. I sat down heavily on my den, taking the lid off of the whisky bottle.

At least you didn’t miss this one, MacAllister, I thought as I watched the clock tick over a minute and drank deeply. Can’t miss another one. Not something worth risking.

I downed a quarter of the bottle, corked it, and buried it back beneath my den. I replaced the rubbish and sat down on top of it, awaiting the alcohol to permeate my bloodstream and make everything magically better.

It was the same time it had always been. Same time, same place, same damn rap.

Just like clockwork. Just like a routine.

I got up and spent the rest of the night shelving the last box of books.

+++

The rest of the year was just like clockwork. Just like a routine.

April was just like any other month, passing like the countless Aprils before it, or at least the 18 or so Aprils I had experienced. It faded imperceptibly to May, the city starting to feel the first vibes of summer.
I had finally gotten a proper handle on how to make myself and the alcohol talk as one. I managed to get proper control over my life- well, at least that’s what the ever devious bottles of whisky had convinced me to think.

The alcohol was a clever wee bugger. I felt like I was the one in control, but I lost whatever control I had every time my hand lifted a bottle to my mouth. On the surface, I was just fine- the shop was running smoothly, I had my friends back, my family was fooled well enough. And the surface was enough to trick my rational self into thinking that my problems had magically gone away. It was pretty damn tricky. And I bought the whole façade. I fell for the whole song and dance. I was suckered in.

I was a slave to the alcohol.

I passed out drunk just after midnight had changed the day to May 17th, and I woke up and knew I had to get running, and get running fast.

Traditional Scotsmen went west to find understanding.

I decided to go east.

+++

And thus concludes Year 1! Only nine more to go, hehe.

I didn't get as much of a sense of the setting from this chapter as I have from previous chapters; it's like the characters are taking for granted the world they live in. Not to say that they don't, but I like the setting ^_^

I decided to go east.

So much for "go west, young man" XD If this becomes significant, that'd be cool.

And I bought the whole façade. I fell for the whole song and dance. I was suckered in.

I was a slave to the alcohol.

I passed out drunk just after midnight had changed the day to May 17th, and I woke up and knew I had to get running, and get running fast.

The running bit? I'm rather confused. I know it's just a general statement, but it seems so random after the being drunk at midnight part.

Rawr! I have so little to say about this chapter! I guess now I'm just waiting for something big to happen. In that case, yay end year one!...? lol

Sorry I'm so late... *shame*

I love the ending to the second chunk. It definitely gives a sense that something big is about to happen, I can't wait to find out what.

Um... in the first bit....

lost in the escapism glory of literature.

I thought this sounded a little bit cheesy...

And I agree with Amelia that "intricate" sounds a little strange. "Transpired" I don't mind, but since "intricate" is in dialouge, you might want to go with a smaller word? I dunno.

And in the second...

a new shipment of book son addictive substances

Typo. ^_^ Should be 'books on."

In any case, you, my friend, are brilliant. I love this story and can't wait to read more. ^_^

Year 2 >> topic23705.html

wow... that was pretty good... i know its a personal question but dose any of this come from personal experience?

MADD94 wrote:wow... that was pretty good... i know its a personal question but dose any of this come from personal experience?

Hehe, thank you. ^^

None of it comes directly from personal experience. I have plenty of alcoholics in my family (I'll freely admit that my blood is 5% Irish, 5% Scottish, and 90% whisky) but none of the events in this story are directly drawn from personal experience. It's based off cases that I've read about from doctors, tales from the mouths of alcoholics, and a bit of my own imagination.

All of the characters are fictitious, too, except maybe Craig, who hasn't been introduced yet. He's based off of my grandfather, who is amongst the people I dedicate this to.

[/rambling]

Prologue

Kind of odd--why are they recording?

You had some really good lines there [carpet crawling, for one] but I can't help but nudge. You say only those will be in second person, but still, the resulting first person and the present tense grate on my mind. The second person hurts... his first person I can't much judge yet as I'm not far into the story, but you have to be damn good at that. And present tense is... strange. I've never liked it. You have to make me not realize you're writing in present tense, otherwise it looks gross--if that makes sense. I don't like those things, haha. But that isn't something big, because someone else might think it works well, lots of people may think it works well, besides, I'm only on the prologue. I'll make more sense and be able to say more when I read more.

I like how it begins though, it's subtle, but you know something is going on, and then the last line sums it up for us. I also loved the line where Eric uses "bother" and the therapist uses "problem"--with feeling. It's laughish. Hahha. I know, this is useless babbling, isn't it? But I have to start somewhere...

Just wanna say good luck. The 2nd person thing feels a bit risky. I'm not sure making the reader part of the story is going to work well, and if the reader isn't doesn't WANT to be engaged in the story, this isn't going to work.

hey, the pm about the second person problem was for Ten Years, Twenty-Eight Days: Year 2

Heya, hon.

Here is my proper critique, if my handwriting is illegible or you need some clarification of something, please tell me.















I really liked this, and the only thing I think you have to watch for is keeping Eric's voice consistent. Also, the explanation of the siblings was a bit confusing.

Good luck with it.

Ta,
Cal.