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Young Writers Society


12+ Language Violence

Our journey to happiness (chapter 1, part II)

by Bita


After he dropped her off at school, he went to school and went inside the classroom. Robert and his friends weren’t there yet. Alexis hoped they would just skip school that day and not come at all. He heard the chair next to his moving and looked up to see one of his classmates sitting next to him. Alexis was a bit surprised that she sat next to him, she usually sits on the other side of the classroom. Her name was Nayomi, she was very quiet and didn’t have any friends. She didn’t seem interested in school or people. She used to get bullied in the first year but the bullying stopped when she beat the shit out of her bullies. She never even got any punishment and that was thanks to her brother. Her older brother was the CEO of the security company that worked with the school. It was thanks to her brother that the school had tight security and that made the school very popular in the neighborhood. All the parents wanted to send their kids to a safe school. And once people realized who her brother was, no one dared to lay a finger on her again. Alexis had heard that her parents were dead and that’s why she lived with her half brother. According to what Alexis had heard he was a very respectable man in society and loved to help people and better the community. Alexis always wondered how a sister of such a man ended up a loner and so nonchalant towards everything. Still Alexis was envious of her, she got to beat up her bullies and get away with it. “Must be nice” he thought to himself, “I’d love to beat the shit out of those assholes and get away with it, what a wishful thinking” he thought as he let out a long sigh.

“Ew dude you’re gross hahahaha”

Alexis could hear Robert and his friends in the hallway. “Fuuuuck here we go again, can they just get into an accident and die or something”, Alexis’s body started to shake, his heartbeat raised and breath got shallow and fast. He hated to admit it but he was scared of them, the bathroom incident actually traumatized him and left him scared. He noticed Nayomi looking at him so he tried to calm himself down. “Calm down, it’s okay, remember just mind your business, and don’t let them catch you when you’re alone”.

The class started and Alexis had managed to calm himself down, he was focusing on what the teacher was saying and taking notes. After an hour the bell rang and as soon as the teacher left the room he got a paper cup thrown to his head.

“Obs sorry i was aiming for the trashcan” one of the guys said and they all started laughing. Alexis pretended like nothing happened, maybe if he pretended hard enough they would actually just disappear. Another paper cup was thrown but this time it hit Nayomi.

“Oh sorry that was a mistake” Robert said.

Nayomi got up and walked over to him and poured her chocolate milk on Robert's head.

“But this wasn’t a mistake, I wanted to pour my chocolate milk on your disgusting head. Tell me Robert, why do you guys go around the school acting like you own the place, i mean you aren’t even smart or at top of class or school, you aren’t even good looking so how about you guys humble yourselves. I mean have you ever looked at yourselves in the mirror, you guys look like fucking coacroaches. Now get up and pick the cups threw at us and throw them in the trash can”

Everyone was quiet, no one said anything, no one dared to say anything. Robert got up and picked the cups that were at Alexis feet, he looked up at Alexis and smirked, a look that said “just you wait, I’m gonna fuck you up”. He then threw the cups in the trash can.

“You better pray I don't see you outside of school” Robert whispered to Nayomi as he walked past her.

Alexis was left speechless and scared. He didn’t like what Nayomi had done, he didn’t appreciate it, in fact he was angry at her. The rest of the school day passed without Robert and his friends doing anything, they didn’t even look at Alexis. It felt like the calm before a storm. After school was over Alexis walked up to Nayomi.

“Why the fuck did you that!” he asked her angrily.

“I stood up for myself, why are you bending over and letting them do anything they want to you” Nayomi said, irritated.

“Easy for you to say little princess, you can do whatever the fuck you want without any consequences because BIG BROTHER has your back, if it wasn’t for him you’d be expelled long time ago”

“Nayomi what’s going on?” a voice said. It was her brother who had just pulled up in his car to pick her up.

“Nothing, just talking to a classmate” Nayomi said as her whole voice and body language changed. Alexis was shocked, it was like she became a different person. She was always cold with a resting bitch face in school, acting like everything and everyone was an eyesore to her, but now she is soft spoken, quiet and has her head down.

“Oh, does your classmate want a ride home?” her brother asked with a smile.

“Yea that’d be really nice of you” Nayomi said and opened the door for Alexis before he even got to answer. He got into the car, it was a fancy car. It was his first time being inside a fancy car, the seats were more comfortable than the sofas at home and it smelled like vanilla inside the car.

“Put your seatbelt on” nayomi’s brother said

“Oh right”

“I’m Nixon, Nayomi’s brother” he said with a smile.

“My name is Alexis. I’m Nayomi’s classmate. Nice to meet you” Alexis tried to sound as polite as possible.

“So how was school?” Nixon asked, turning his head toward Nayomi.

“It was good, like everyday, nothing special” Nayomi answered.

Alexis was still shocked by Nayomi. “So she acts like an innocent fucking angel in front of her brother, that’s why he always has her back, if he knew what she actually was like in school he’d probably punish her” Alexis got lost in his thoughts.

“By the way, where do you live?” Nixon asked, snapping Alexis out of his thoughts.

“I live in Fleet street but you can just drop me off at the Fleet elementary, i have to pick up my sister”

“Oh so you also have a little sister?” Nixon asked, trying to make a conversation, “how old is she?”

“She’s 9 years old”

“So you have a bit of age gap there, well i shouldn’t say anything about age gaps when there’s 18 years between me and Nayomi hahaha” Nixon sounded like a dad who was trying to convince his kid’s friends that he’s one the cool adults.

“Hahaha, you guys are half siblings?” Alexis immediately regretted asking that question, thinking it was inappropriate.

“Yes we have the same dad but different moms, well we HAD the same dad” Nixon answered and the atmosphere got serious.

“Oh I’m sorry” Alexis said, trying to act like he didn’t already know that.

“Anyway we’re here, take care of yourself Alexis and it was nice to meet you” Nixon said with a smile.

“Thank you for the ride and see you at school Nayomi” Alexis said, trying his best to act like the conversation they just had wasn’t awkward. Alexis glanced at Nayomi and saw her fidgeting her fingers, he was still shocked by how much she had changed. “Whatever, I got my own problems” Alexis thought as he waited for his sister at the school grind.

Few days passed and Robert and his friends didn’t do anything to Alexis, they acted like he didn’t exist. But Alexis was still scared and nervous, it still felt like the calm before the storm. Nayomi kept sitting next to him everyday but they didn’t talk at all.

During the last period on a friday the teacher gave the class a group project. They could choose their own partner and they couldn’t be more than two people.

“Wanna do it together?” Nayomi asked.

“Sure” Alexis answered, he’d rather do it with Nayomi than a classmate he has never even talked to. He had at least talked with Nayomi a bit even though it was more like a fight and he had even met Nixon.

“Do you wanna come over during the weekend? We can work on the project” Nayomi asked.

“Yea I’m free both saturday and sunday”

“Come over on saturday, Nixon won’t be home then, but don't get any funny ideas, the only reason is that he can be rather annoying and not let us work in peace.”

“I wasn’t thinking of any funny ideas” Alexis said blankly.

“Ouch, I was expecting you to be at least a little disappointed,” Nayomi said jokingly. It was the first time Alexis had seen Nayomi show any kind of emotion at all, seeing her relaxed and joking around made him feel at ease, he almost forgot about Robert and his friends. He wanted to see more of this side of Nayomi, the side that acted like a normal human being and not some unimpressed asshole who acted like everyone was a bother to her.

“We’ll probably need each other’s phone numbers” Alexis said.

“Oh yea, give me your phone”

Alexis gave his phone to Nayomi and she saved her number on his phone.

“Text me so I can also have your number” Nayomi said as she handed Alexis phone back.

“Well I’ll see you tomorrow at 12 pm” she said and walked away, not even asking if 12 pm suited Alexis. Alexis felt like meeting Nayomi was a new beginning. A beginning that would later crush all of his dreams.


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Tue May 24, 2022 4:07 pm
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MailicedeNamedy wrote a review...



Hi Bita,

Mailice here with a short review! :D

I've skimmed the first chapter now to tie in here and also to have an idea of what this is about. So let's start; you have a writing style that takes some getting used to but is interesting. It has a mixture of narration from an inner depth as well as an external view of it. I was amazed at how you managed to make everything so vivid, especially in the previous chapter part and also here in between. I think that's the biggest strength you have.

I like the way you've done the introduction well here, going over everything again briefly before moving on to the dialogue. I just noticed something:

After he dropped her off at school, he went to school and went inside the classroom.


Since this is your very first sentence in this part, I would recommend you rewrite it or change it so that you don't use school twice, so that it doesn't sound too repetitive in the first sentence.

Another thing I've noticed, especially in the dialogue, like here for example:

“Ew dude you’re gross hahahaha”


The punctuation is not always there, so it sometimes feels a bit hard to read everything because I miss some commas or full stops. But I think this is only a minimalistic point that can be changed by rereading before publishing.

I also noticed positively how you make the characters reasonably specific here, so that despite sometimes not being able to tell who is speaking, you can tell who is saying it. All in all, I can recommend reading over it again to correct the few mistakes, but all in all you create an interesting start for the story here, where we have got to know the characters.

Have fun writing!

Mailice




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Fri Apr 29, 2022 1:30 am
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Horisun wrote a review...



Hello! I hope you are having a good day or night!
Getting right into it, it's great that Alexis has made a friend. I really like the idea of Nayomi jumping in to defend him.
I do think Alexis was a little harsh, all things considering. Especially since you skip right past the cruel things he said and thought about her. I thought you might be going in a bullied becomes the bully direction for a second there, but it almost feels like we're missing a couple pages.
There are a few simple fixes, depending on what you want to do. You could revise his initial reaction to Nayomi, so that he is grateful (or just annoyed) for her interference, or you could have them dislike each other at first, only to work past their differences.
Obviously, these are just suggestions, but personally, I think the latter would fit much better. Having a flawed character is great! In the last chapter, Alexis implied that the reason he didn't have friends was because he wanted to study, and therefore came off as abrasive. Seeing him work past that to befriend Nayomi would be a wonderful character arc for him.
Of course, it's up to you. The core issue here is that the chapter comes off as jarring because he goes from despising Nayomi to working on a project with her.
I'm excited to see where this story goes! Keep on writing, and have a great day :D





Ghosts, demons, and ghouls cannot scare the cat's underling.
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