Young Writers Society

What's happened in this novel so far:










Charlie - Continued

“You are such a creep.” Jax pushed me. “Just ‘cause you’re too scared to get hammered, it doesn’t mean you have to bring Austin down with you.”
I guess Austin had told Jax that he wasn’t drinking tonight then. Austin mouthed something to me as his face came into sight, but I couldn’t see what he said through the dimly lit space around us. Without my jacket on, the wind was able to freeze every part of my bare skin and bite at my fingertips, giving me the instant feeling of being pricked by a thousand tiny pins. Jax put his drink onto the ground as I backed away, but he was soon grabbing my arm with his sweaty hand.
“Jax, leave it.” Austin neared us now. His tone turned into a hushed whisper. “Have you forgotten about last time I got hammered or something? He’s just using some fricking sense, that’s all.” He glanced at me. “Someone has to.”
Zoey and Beth’s voices echoed quietly through the alleyway in soft murmurs as Jax’s nostrils flared. I took in as much air as possible as my body stiffened. I blinked slowly before letting out that long breath of air. It didn't help. The girls hadn’t even been able to go inside Vertigo because of me being so pathetic. If I’d have told Jax to bog off straight away, then Austin, Zoey, Beth and me would all be inside by now.
“Of course! We should all worship faggot here.” Jax nudged me again. He kept his grasp on my one arm. “Yeah, ‘cause I’m really gonna look up to a kid who's scared of his own daddy.”
I wanted to thump him. So badly. I clenched my fists together until my knuckles were white as Jax’s foul breath entered my nostrils. The rancid smell of alcohol made me want to puke. Jax started sniggering again as a gust of wind flurried my hair off my face. I just wanna go home. The odour of alcohol grew stronger. What was I saying? I didn’t want to go home. That was the last place I wanted to be. Home meant sod all to me anymore.
Jax was laughing his head off as I began stammering just like I always did. I wanted to break every damn bone in his hideous body and make his face even uglier than it already was. I stared at him. I could do that if I wanted to. There was nothing stopping me from clenching my fist and swinging at him.
There was nothing stopping me from manning up.
Jax opened his mouth again. “Speaking of your folks, I was looking for some pain killers. I’ve got a mad headache.” He smirked with his face now right in front of mine. “I was thinking of asking your mum for some actually.”
I didn’t even have to think about it. I just hit him. There weren’t any thoughts before I did it, I didn’t consider how to do it, or how Jax would react. Nothing like that. I just whacked him right in the nose. As simple as that. There was a pang of pain in my knuckles, but that was about it. It felt a though my entire body had come alive as I watched Jax flinch, and right now, it was as though it was just me and him in this alleyway. His face was clearer than ever in the darkness as he turned to me. I clenched my fist, tighter this time. Then I hit his right eye harder than I ever thought I could.
“Charlie!” Austin’s voice.
Jax stumbled backwards slightly. With a hard expression on his face, he removed his hand from his now bloody eye. He wasn’t laughing now. His lip was curled, his face sour. He pulled his arm back. With a sudden swish, his fist had collided with my lip. The feeling of his hard knuckles bashing against my lip was soon replaced by a stinging feeling. I didn’t even give him a chance this time. I swung at him and as he flinched, I pushed him against the club's wall. I had him stuck now. There was no way he'd be able to get free.
The music around me sounded as though it was getting louder, pumping into my ears. I wanted to smash his brains out, to mess up his face so badly, to show him that he couldn’t screw me about however he liked. Every single time I felt my knuckles bash against his body, the blood rushed into my head along with a wave of adrenaline. I gave him one hard hit across his cheek. Jax stumbled to the ground. I had to resort to kicking now, but it gave me just as much of an adrenaline rush. An even stronger one maybe. For once in my life, I was in control of someone else. No wonder my dad enjoyed this so much.
"Charlie!" Someone screamed my name: a girl.
“Charlie! Stop!” It was a guy's voice this time, probably Austin. Someone grabbed me from behind. “Stop, for God’s sake!”
Despite being pulled away now, I continued my attempts at kicking Jax. He was lying on the ground, groaning, as I spat every insult I could think of at him. He lifted his head up to look at me, his eyes locked into mine, and then I saw myself. It wasn’t Jax lying on the floor with blood running down his face, but me. My lip was bust open, there was blood over my cheeks, my eyes were swollen and behind all of the red was a terrified face. I looked down at my hands to see them covered in blood with the majority of it on my trembling left hand.
My dad.
No. No, I wasn’t like him. Why... What was wrong with me? I couldn't... No. I stopped struggling, stopped even thinking about hurting Jax. Austin’s voice soothed my thoughts as he spoke into my ear. He must have been the one who grabbed me off Jax. I didn’t hear what he said, but it didn’t matter. Austin let go of me. Through stumbles, I turned to see Zoey and Beth standing a good ten yards away from us. Zoey's thin build made her look as though she could snap in half as she gazed at me with her blue eyes. It was her that yelled my name earlier.
“I... I don’t... I’m sorry...” I almost whispered.
What if someone had heard us fighting? The club’s security guard? What if the girls ran away right now to tell someone? What if I got arrested? If that happened... Oh, crap, if that happened, they’d find out about everything else. I knew they would. I’d just break like some limp twig. I could imagine the look of disgust, sprinkled with a hint of amusement and pleasure on my brother's face if everything came to light. What would my dad do? Would he call me weak for admitting what I'd done, or would he be more bothered by the fact that I had done it? Or maybe he'd be proud of me. I mean, being responsible for a death seemed right up his street. No, what was I doing? Why was I even thinking about that night? I clenched my fist as tightly as I could, until my nails were digging into the skin of my sweaty palms.
No one was saying anything now. Jax was still on the ground, Zoey was staring at me along with Beth, and for once in his life, Austin was speechless. He was gazing at me with a completely dumbstruck expression on his face. I turned back to Jax to see him scrambling to his feet. He was the one stammering now.
“I’m... I’m leaving this dump.” Jax’s voice was shaky.
His cheeks were bright red, and not only because of the blood on them. He glanced back at me before half sprinting, half limping down the alleyway--in the opposite direction of the club. He couldn’t have been hurt too badly if he could move that fast. A tiny amount of relief spread through me. My throat was dry, and not even swallowing hard could help soothe it. No one even glanced at Jax as he made his way down the alleyway. Instead, they all seemed to be looking at me.
“Err...” Austin was struggling to speak. “Well, I didn’t see that one coming.” He spun around to face Zoey and Beth. “He ain’t normally like this... Seriously. He really ain’t.”
“Are you...” Zoey was almost whispering as she faltered towards us. She placed her crystal-like eyes onto me. “Are you okay?”
I simply nodded. I couldn’t do anything else. All of the adrenaline had seeped out of my body to leave me in nothing but a layer of sweaty skin. I hadn’t noticed the pulsating feeling in my head until now. It was as though the blood was piling up where I’d banged it earlier, almost crushing the back of my skull. I needed a damn good lie down.
Zoey was still walking forward, but Beth remained behind her without moving once. Zoey turned around, stayed there for a moment, then turned back to me. After another few seconds passed, she turned back to Beth. This time, I saw her arms moving in swift motions. She was speaking in a rushed whisper. I glanced at Austin. He shrugged and pulled a confused face.
“Uh, I’ve...” Beth cleared her throat as we looked at her. “Here, I think I’ve got some tissues in my bag.”
She suddenly began dashing towards Austin and me along with Zoey. Why hadn’t they gone? Phoned the police on me or something? They’d just watched me lose my rag entirely. If anything, they should have been scared of me. I would have been. Beth pulled a packet of crumpled tissues out of her tiny bag before handing them to Zoey. Both the girls’s breaths were slow and heavy once they reached me.
“Sit by there,” Zoey said as she nodded at the rubbish bags behind me.
It looked as though she was about to pat the bags because she stretched her hand out a little as she spoke, but she soon pulled it back in after wrinkling her nose at them. I did exactly as I was told. I was't sure why I did, but I think I just didn't know what else to do. I felt too... lost to do anything of my own accord. As I sat down on them, the feeling of sinking into the bags was oddly comforting. It was as though my heart was pumping inside my eardrums, but the further I sank, the more my heart seemed to travel back down to where it belonged.
“Aren’t you... Aren't you waiting to be picked up?” I asked, mumbling a little.
Zoey bent down so that she was eye level with me, but she was crouching in a pretty weird position. The only thing touching the cobbled ground was her black heels, and her bum was a good few inches away from anything that even resembled the ground. I couldn’t help but let myself grin slightly, which made me realise that I must have bust my lip open considering it absolutely killed when my mouth moved. That probably explained the taste of warm blood in my mouth too.
“Yeah, but Beth’s mum won’t be here until at least another fifteen minutes.” She moved a strand of my hair out of my eye with a tissue, immediately making me pull away. She stammered. "Uh, sorry..." She glanced towards the club's entrance. "It's going to look a bit suspicious if you go out like... uh, like you are. We can go, if you want. Sorry, I just thought--"
"No, it's alright. Uh, thanks."
I glanced at Beth, then turned back to Zoey. I didn't want them to go. Having Zoey here gave me a strange, but nice feeling. For some reason, it was comforting. She smiled at me weakly, and the way her pale lips curved was oddly familiar. She moved my hair again with a tissue. Zoey seemed to be avoiding to touch me properly for whatever reason. She must have noticed my confusion. “Sorry, I, uh, I don’t want to get my hands dirty.”
Partly because I was a bit dazed, I just went along with it. My hands were still shaking slightly, and as the blood began to dry on my palms, they began feeling stiff. Zoey was soon dabbing the edge of my eye with the tissue, and when she brought it back down, its one corner had turned a scarlet colour.
“Hey, where’s your jacket, Charlie?” Austin asked, looking over Zoey’s shoulder.
“That idiot dropped it back there.” Beth nodded back towards the front of the club. “Really good taste in friends, by the way, guys.”
I struggled not to laugh, let alone grin. I switched my eyes towards Austin, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was gazing down the alleyway with narrowed eyes. Maybe he was actually beginning to realise that Jax was a complete tool. Zoey pressed firmly on my eye. I suddenly flinched.
“Oh, God, sorry!” She bit her lip.
“It’s cool, I'm fine,” I replied as I ignored the pain that was now lingering in my eye. “Hey, Austin, go and get my jacket for me?”
Austin did some weird salute thing to me before jogging back towards the direction of the club's entrance. Every time someone passed the gap in-between these two buildings, my heart skipped a beat. If one person decided to spontaneously start walking down here, everything would come crashing down. It was times like this I was thankful to the darkness and the loud club music that surrounded us.
As Zoey continued dabbing the tissue against my boiling skin, I relaxed and began to sink even deeper into the closed rubbish bags. I probably looked like I was going a bit mental, but I didn’t care. My mind kept on racing to what happened a mere few minutes ago. I’d never lost my temper, let alone lost it like that. It made my jaw harden and mind spin like an out of control washing machine. It scared me. What I was most afraid of was the part of me that remembered back and felt incredible because of the whole thing. The part of me that adored every single punch and kick I’d made at Jax. I sighed heavily.
“Sorry...” was all I could mumble. “I don’t know what came over me then, I... I just... I dunno. I swear I’m going mental or something.”
“It’s fine. He was being ghastly anyway,” Zoey replied.
“I didn’t mean to hit him so much...”
Zoey’s voice turned into a whisper. “I'm glad someone blooming did."
I didn’t have the chance to react because as Zoey pulled her hand away from my face, then glanced at the tissue, she squealed. The tissue fell from Zoey's hand and began swaying back and forth until it hit the ground. I looked back up to Zoey’s face to see it a flushed red.
“Uh, sorry.” She nudged the limp tissue to the side. “I got some blood on my finger.”
I wasn’t too sure if she was serious or not, but whether she was or wasn’t, it didn’t stop me from chuckling at her. This chick was definitely amusing me. She pulled out another tissue and began cleaning my face again. It wasn’t long until I heard Austin’s heavy footsteps. The next thing I knew, my jacket was being thrown at me. It landed in a heap next to the rubbish bags. Austin soon appeared beside Beth.
“Thanks,” I muttered to Zoey as she pulled away for the last time. “I really am sorry about all of this.”
“Honestly, Charlie, don’t worry about it. It’s been...” She smiled weakly, but there was something more powerful in her eyes. “It’s been distracting.”
I didn’t have the foggiest idea what Zoey meant by distracting, let alone whether it was a good or a bad thing. I guessed good, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it, to be perfectly honest. Using a clean tissue to do so, Zoey grabbed the bloodstained tissues and dropped them into one of the rubbish bags that was open. She rubbed her hands together and stood up.
“Hey, Zoey, my mum just texted me. She’s waiting around the corner,” Beth said with her eyes scanning her mobile phone.
Zoey turned to her and nodded. All four of us were quiet for a moment then. Maybe the others were trying to grasp everything that had happened. I know I was. I kept on thinking about it, about hitting Jax. How good it felt, and how damn horrified it made me. Why the hell had I let myself do that? Did I want to get Austin and me into trouble? I dug my nails into my palm like I'd done earlier, except this time, I didn't stop until I felt myself tearing the top of my skin. That was better.
“Um, well, bye then, I guess...” Beth stole my attention as she finally spoke.
I lifted my eyes up to see Zoey facing me. With one last smile and a subtle nod, both her and Beth were soon out of sight. Just like that, they were gone. I begged to God they wouldn't tell anyone about any of this. They hadn't told anyone yet, and Zoey had even helped clean my face, which by the look on her face as she was doing so, wasn't something she exactly got pleasure from. That was a good sign, right? The second the girls were out of sight, Austin turned to me and shook his head in disbelief.
“Now that, mate, was a fricking weird night. We must have a fetish for fights or something. Two in one month. Wow.” He delved his hands into his pockets as he came and sat next to me. “I’ve gotta say, Charlie, you’re a lot harder than I thought. That was awesome.”
“I’d hardly call it awesome,” I mumbled, standing up.
“Okay, it was a bit freaky at the time, but hey, Jax is fine and you might have actually taught him to wise up. Plus, he never saw that coming.” He grinned. "And you had Zoey's face right in front of yours when she was sorting out your cuts and junk. I'd hardly complain, even if it was a bit weird that she did it. Plus, she was acting as if she was terrified of your face whe she was cleaning it... Weird."
I didn’t answer Austin this time. Instead, I just stood back up and began wandering back and forth, allowing my thoughts to flow. I never should have gotten myself worked up like that. I’d heard plenty of drug gags before, so it wasn’t anything new. Despite almost beating Jax’s brains out, I felt weak. I’d let myself lose my temper. What if things had ended up far worse? What if they’d ended up like that night?
“Is it alright if we walk home?” I finally spoke. “I can’t be arsed to call my dad.”
“Pfft, I’m the one that wanted to walk in the first place.” Austin jumped up after grabbing my jacket. “We’ll have to go the long way though.” He nodded towards the bottom of the alleyway. “No offence or anything, but Zoey was right: you look kinda... not too good. I think we need to lay low.”Austin threw my jacket to me.
I nodded in agreement as we began ambling down the alleyway. Austin must have been aware that most of me was aching because he was walking quite a bit slower than usual, and for once, I didn’t have to quicken my pace to keep up with him.
I hoped Zoey and Beth didn’t think I was some lunatic now. Every single thing about Zoey put my mind at ease. There was something there, a familiarity, that almost felt as though it took me back to my childhood or something. It was a feeling that seemed so distant to me, and to have felt it once more with Zoey was so electrifying. I couldn't explain it. What was weirder still was the fact that what really put me at ease with her was the way she did things like refuse to touch the ground with her knees. It was odd, but if it stopped my body from tensing and my palms from sweating, then so be it.
I shut my eyes for a moment, but they were soon opened again at the sound of Austin’s voice. “Oh, and listen, what Jax said...” Austin put his arm around my shoulder and ruffled my hair. “Ignore him. He’s just jealous ‘cause his mum’s a complete munter.”





Click here to read STOP AND STARE (PART TEN)

Skinsy, tis me!

Well, can I say something? How about putting your spoilers at the end? Because it distracts me to read it at the beginning, and I concentrate and analyse too much.

I bet you're saying, "Well, Tanya, DON'T READ IT." But you see, I can't not read it. The spoiler button is so attractive looking. Seriously. But, really, Skins, you have to trust us enough that if something is rotten, we'll tell you. So stop telling us what bothers you: we'll figure it out.

I thought Charlie's reaction was perfect. Just the right blend of not wanting to fight, thinking of manning up, then swinging. I loved the details of the music pounding as his blood pounded. Great imagery, very vivid.

I love Zoey squealing when blood touched her finger. It's a freaking surprise she doesn't carry some latex gloves on her at all times haha. I have to wonder why they didn't freak out, considering the trauma Zoey has just gone through, but maybe she saw him as her hero, defending her from Jax. Anywho, I trust you to explain it, as you always do.

I really love this chapter, I was really into it: you did a great job.

Much loff,
Tanya

Hey Skins! I had been meaning to do this review, and I had almost been finished with it, but then I went to write something which turned out a total failure. I should have reviewed you.

First of all, I have to say this again that your writing is getting better with every chapter and one has said the right thing--"Write, write. That's the only way to improve." OMG! But how do you write so good? You have every part in detail and it's mind-boggling to see how much you've improved and how better you can write than most of the YWS-ers here, including myself. Sometimes I come read it, and then switch back to what I've written and it seems like a total rubbish compared to your work.

I really don't have much to say, which is becoming a regular phenomena, but seriously, I thought this was the most perfect chapter in terms of not having much flaws. And by much, I mean 1 or 2. One thing I would like to say for sure, even though it doesn't concern only this chapter. Sometimes I think that he's acting too girly with all the 'nail digging into the skin' thing. It's fine sometimes and just like you mentioned for my novel, every guy doesn't need to be portrayed in that 'manly' sense, but I'll still advise you to slow down with this phrase. A lot of times I stumble across 'nail digging into my skin' kind of a thing, and sometimes it looks good, but at other times it's too repetitive and crazy.

Other thing that I have to tell is that even though in the end you had how Zoey looks a bit, and there's been a bit of how she looks from her POV, but a bit only. I want to say that right now for all I know she could be damn ugly, maybe average looking or some Megan Fox material. So, my point is that show how she looks, not by describing her features only, but go on maybe asking somebody(charries) saying how pretty she is, or how she herself thinks she looks ugly or something, and somebody else says she has gone nuts. I mean, figure that out, but I want to know how her physique is and how she looks. Is she some pretty lass or some average high-schooler. Maybe you could bring her thoughts since she is a high-schooler and girls of that age often have complex about their looks even if they're very pretty.

Other than that I really like how you never let Zoey's 'cleanliness maniac' die and write about botht he characters as if they were you. It's very good to read, and I can't tell how much you've improved since your last novel. I like this one better maybe because it has that street(ly) feel to it, which I really like. Other than that I don't have much to say, but I would really like to tell you that maybe you should have bit more of his father or brother. I am not going to whine since this is officially the third chapter, and you have lot of time to bring them in. But he never thinks about his twin, or he never gets mentioned about in his conversations with Austin, too, which makes me question if you have removed his character from the new version?

Anyways, I am not sure how much this review would help you, but you were amazing, so you can't blame me.

Keep Writing, and I think you should ask Zee or some other good reviewer to review since you don't have much critique till now.

~Shrubs

Hey. You thought I wouldn't review this, didn't you? Well I'm back because I love fight scenes have oodles of time don't have anything better I should be doing right now like reviewing novels and I like you, and thus I like reviewing your novels. :3

This is looking good! The character-interactions are getting very interesting, and I really love Charlie's reaction after the fight. You did well portraying the dazed, I-can't-believe-what-I-just-did feeling, and I really liked the fact that he was haunted by feeling like his father. That was powerful. Zoey's also interesting. I feel like she changed a lot from your last draft, though, so I'm not sure I know her all that well anymore... I keep getting surprised at how bold she is! It's not a bad thing, just a little surprising because I have this image of her as being really timid and shy and scared, but then she goes and cleans the face of a boy who she just met, when all she's really seen of him is him fighting. I thought it was interesting that she wasn't more scared of him, especially after what happened to Aimee. Like I say, this stuff isn't necessarily stuff I think you should fix--it just makes me more eager to get to know her.

So. His reaction after the fight was great, but I'm not so sure about his reaction during/leading up to the fight. He feels too detached, in my opinion. It's okay for him to feel attached afterwards, it works brilliantly, in fact. Actually having him detached during the fight wasn't bad either... but I just don't think that you should do both. If he's detached before and after, it just means he's detached through the whole chapter, which gets a little monotonous. I'd rather see some change in him, whether it be from detached to more aware, or from more aware to detached--just to show that the fight changed him in some immediate way. (Don't count how many times I said 'detached' in that paragraph. >.>)

Also, is it just me or is Zoey's tenderness a little weird? I know she's supposed to like him/feel bad for him/really want something to keep her mind off Aime, but it just seems rather odd to me for her to go up to this stranger who's just been in a fight and start cleaning his face. :/ Especially because she's so mysophobic. I kind of wish we could see what's going on in her head during all this, but I'm not sure whether you plan on showing us that or not. And doesn't Charlie find it a bit odd to have a strange girl dabbing at his face? What about Austin?

I'm also not sure about that second-to-last paragraph--I don't think it's really needed. We all know already (unless you've done some chapter-rearrangement that I'm not aware of) that Zoey is Aimee's sister, so that bit with the "it was almost like I'd seen her before" stuff is just a bit over-the-top, in my opinion. It's sort of the paragraph that you thought you had to write, but I don't actually think you did. Maybe if the readers didn't know about the stabbing, or if Charlie knew that she was Aimee's sister (he still doesn't know that in this version, right?) then it would be okay for her to haunt him in this way, but as it is I think it would be perfectly fine if Charlie didn't suspect a thing.

I also think the whole bit where he convinces himself, essentially, not to fall for Zoey was a little sudden. He's just met her, and he's just been in a fight which is particularly harrowing for him for personal reasons (because of his dad) and he seems pretty distracted by all this for most of the chapter. In fact, most of the time she's dabbing his face he's thinking about other things... I think his thoughts about her could wait for another chapter. In this case, I would like to see him remain detached. As for the part where he thinks about the fact that he doesn't have her number--I was a little confused. Why did he assume that he did have her number? It almost seems like he was expecting to get... really close with the girls, and it might just be a culture-clash thing but that seems a little weird to me.

Anyhow, 'tis looking good, sir. Sorry I didn't get to this sooner. >.>

a

Hey Skins!

I'm back again

As usual, I really enjoyed reading this. I liked how Charlie finally stood up for himself, but instead of it being all heroic, we got some insight into why he's been fighting to stop himself reacting in the past - the whole thing with his dad beating him up. I liked when you had Charlie seeing himself lying in Jax's position, after his dad would beat him up. You had me sympathising with Charlie. I liked that you hinted about Charlie's mum too - with Jax's comments.

It was cute how Zoey cleaned Charlie's cuts up too - it added a little more to their growing relationship

I did spot a few typos again - honestly, typos should be sent to Mars

as he turnd to

'turned'

a stinigng

'stinging'

imediately making me pull away

'immediately'

Did I want to get Ausitn

'Austin'

got leasure from

'pleasure' ?

Jax’s nostrils snarled

I'm not really sure if nostrils can snarl... maybe use 'flare' instead.

I loved the end part - the humour helped to break the ice a little as the end part of the chapter was serious and full of thoughts/ emotion.

I didn't notice anything else

Post more soon!

I hope this helps!

xDudettex

Hey Skins, here for a review! Sorry again for my lateness.

H'okay, so once again I feel like this is a useless review; your progression is fantastic and I love the consistency of your story and characters.

Your development into Charlie's character is great; I love getting a window into his life and finding out more concerning his past. He just feels so human. It's beautiful.

He lifted his head up to look at me, his eyes locked into mine, and then I saw myself. It wasn’t Jax lying on the floor with blood running down his face, but me. My lip was bust open, there was blood over my cheeks, my eyes were swollen and behind all of the red was a terrified face.

I do understand what you're trying to get at and I like the segue into this area of his past. However, it feels a bit odd that he would have a good idea of his own face...I don't know how much sense this makes, but it feels like he should be remembering the scene with his father from a different viewpoint, so that he's not seeing himself. I can understand him relating to Jax, but not identifying, if that makes sense. Erg.

Well, aside from that confusing nitpick, I've got nothing else to say! Great work.