A/N: Inspiration came to me and I started this. I know I really shouldn't, but I couldn't resist. The ideas would torture me, if they only stayed in my head.
Out of Reach – Chapter 1
by Kat
I just want to show you she doesn’t love you.
I was once again listening to Taylor Swift. How could I resist, when I could so easily relate to her songs?
There’s a fire inside you. She’ll never see that light.
I looked at the watch on my bedside table: 11:45 p.m. I should get some sleep. I closed my eyes; I wouldn’t cry. Not for this. I can bear it.
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The blue clock belted out its awfully irritating sound, telling me it was seven a.m, and time to get up. I sighed and sat up, kicking the covers aside. The green sheets could not have felt any better. I groaned and laid back down.
Something hard hit the door. “Get up, Casey!” My mother screamed. I sighed again, and got out of bed. I could feel my hair all tangled around my shoulders with knots and I shuddered in fear. I hated brushing my hair in the morning.
I walked to the bathroom and leaned down by the sink. The marble counter felt fresh and cool, making a quick shiver run through me. The shiver was replaced by a pleasant feeling of following a familiar routine. I turned on the faucet and the cold water started running. I washed my face and looked up to the mirror. Just as I suspected! My hair looked like a rat's nest.
“Ugh,” I complained.
My mother passed by the door. “Morning, sunshine!” She smiled and went downstairs.
I mumbled, sleepily,“to you too,” but she didn’t hear me.
I walked back to my room, and glanced at the clock again. It was already half past seven! I ran to my closet and opened the wooden doors with too much strength, making a bang.
My eyes widened and I searched for some sign of a split on the door. Nope, it wasn't damaged.
Phew. My father would have ground me for breaking the closet door for the third time. I had issues with this closet. Normally, I was always in a hurry and I would treat things not so carefully.
My eyes scanned the closet and stopped at my dark pair of jeans. Great! I took them out and opened the top draw, the one with the t-shirts and tank tops.
“What shall I wear today?” My hands started searching through the piles of tops for something that I was in the mood to wear. My mobile phone vibrated and I left the tops, walking over to my bedside table. It was text message from Kaitlyn.
Today is… brown.
I replied, Okay.
She usually had perfect timing. Some mornings, she would text me saying which color I should wear, so that I wouldn’t have such a hard choice in the morning.
I went back to my chest of drawers and pulled out a plain brown tank top. I got dressed and, after I had pulled the sheets and arranged them as best as I could, I went back to my dresser. I put on some perfume, Black XS, my favorite, and deodorant. I seemed to sweat a lot. My aunt would say I got it from her. Not a pretty thing to inherit. I returned to the bathroom, to do something I could not avoid: brush my hair. I was very careful to not hurt myself and to not destroy my curls. I loved my perfect big curls. It took me five minutes, and my hair got really bulky, so I tied it up in a ponytail.
I put on my watch, and my lucky necklace. I wore it every time I went out. I didn’t actually believe it gave me luck, but I loved it so I called it my lucky charm. It was a simple black thread with an oval onyx pendant. Small, but beautiful.
I picked up my mail bag; school books are really heavy. I think the government ordered us to buy so many books so that we’ll all have back troubles. Then, we’ll have to go to the hospital and get some expensive surgery that will take away all our money. That way, the money will go back to them. No one believes me, obviously.
I went downstairs and dropped the bag by the door, on the hall. I proceeded to the kitchen, and ate my normal bowel of milk and cereals. I watched “How I met your Mother” on FoxLife, as every morning, and delayed my breakfast until it was over. Barney’s hilarious.
I got up, happy, and washed my dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. I stared up at the clock on the wall. Eight o’clock. I went to the door and sat on the front porch. My phone was in my pocket; I was waiting for Kaitlyn’s call. She would call me when she was close to my house. The phone vibrated once more, and I saw it was her. I turned down the call. She wouldn’t have to pay for it that way.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Reed’s car stopped in front of my gate. I got up; my back was cool from the pavement, grabbed my bag and closed the door with a loud bang. My parents had already left.
Mrs. Reed unlocked the doors, and I opened them, saying immediately, “Good morning!” I crawled to the back and sat next to Kaitlyn. One of us would have sit in the passenger’s seat but this way we could talk.
It would take fifteen minutes to get to the school, through traffic and all. Mrs. Reed was an English teacher at our school. I never had a class with her, but the students that had said she was pretty scary. I stared at the back of her head, until Kaitlyn caught my attention.
“So, how was your weekend?” She asked.
“Okay. Nothing really exciting.” I replied. I could see she had something really good to tell me, and was controlling herself to not blurt it out. “And you? What have you been up to?”
Kaitlyn flashed me a big smile. “You know how Todd asked me out this weekend, right?” Oh God! How could I forget? I nodded, hiding that I really had forgotten. “Well, things worked out great and he even kissed me, when he was dropping me off.” She was whispering now, her mother would not be pleased to hear this.
“You’ll tell me more at school,” I replied. I said exactly what she wanted to hear. She smiled widely at me, as something vibrated in my jean’s pocket.
“What the he-” I stopped myself when I got the phone out. It was incredible how I could get surprised by a text message. It was Max.
Where are you?
I’m running a bit late, I replied.
A few seconds later, he texted me back. Okay. I’m waiting for you, at the gate.
I smiled. “Max…” Kaitlyn murmured.
“Oh, come on! Give me a break!” I threw my head back. Not this again.
“When are you going to admit it?”
“I have nothing to admit.”
Silence fell upon us, and minutes passed slowly. She knew me too well for my own good. My best friend of twelve years could read me like a book.
I revived our first meeting in the few minutes I had left of the car trip. I was in the park, my mother sitting on a bench. A tall blonde lady stopped by her.
“Melody!” She called, happily.
“Oh my! Is that really you, Sandy?” My mother replied as happy to see her, too. They continued babbling: how have you been? Are you married? Oh, a daughter!
Only a few moments later I had noticed the little girl that was holding the lady’s hand. She appeared to be my age. A four year-old girl. I walked up to her.
“Come,” I offered, stretching out my hand.
She smiled and took it. We skipped joyfully to the swings, hand in hand, and we sat side-by-side, swinging. An hour had passed until my mother called us. After that, the girl would stop by every day, and eventually we came to be in all the same classes.
I giggled at some of our stupid childish jokes. One of Kaitlyn’s favorite was one we came up with when riding home from school, in this very same car. It was in fifth grade, if I remember correctly. It was about how if we were hit with a soccer ball, that was kicked very strongly, our eyes and our brain would turn into porridge and would come out through our face.
Kaitlyn eyed me, and I whispered, “Soccer ball.”
She instantly fell into laughter and I joined her. Her mother pulled into the teacher’s parking lot, and parked the car at the back of the school. We got out quickly, saying goodbye.
“Have a nice day!” She shouted, when we were already a few steps away.
“I have to stop by the gate,” I told Kaitlyn.
“Yeah, I’ll be heading to our locker.” We shared our lockers, here at Meadow High School. I believed it was because the school didn’t have enough money to buy lockers for everyone, so we paired up. I was obviously sharing mine with Kaitlyn.
“I’ll meet you there! And don’t close it!” I shouted, already heading to the students door. I walked up the path quickly and saw Max near the gate. He waved at me, and I smiled.
End of chapter
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Hmmm, I like your story, and the main character, but it's kind of "Safe" for me. Is it going to get more exciting?
You do have a few grammatical errors here and there, but nothing I could point out that someone else already hasn't.
Happy writing!
=]
Ha! She reminds me of one of my friends
The image I get from the first sentence is that she is kneeling down in front of the sink, but the image I get from the second sentence is that her hands are on the counter-top around the sink and she's leaning on it. Clear up which one, (if it's either), it is.
This line doesn't flow very well for me. The 'making a bang' part is what I don't really like. Try something like, '...the doors slammed against the wall.'
Combine these two sentences. Something like, '...on the door, luckily it wasn't damaged.'
Because this is her thoughts, you can get rid of the " " and just italicize it.
I think this is overly detailed. You can just say she pulled out a pair of dark jeans and then she got a text from her friend saying what color of top to wear.
Again, this feels overly detailed to me. Like 'right now I'm doing this and now I'm taking four steps this way to do this...'
Oh I believe you. I've gone to the chiropractor so many times since starting high school because of my stupid back pack.
What a cute first thing to say to someone when you're four
Characters:
I don't really feel connected to any of your characters right now. They feel kind of flat and bland to me. I think what might help is to give less descriptions about the place and every detail Casey does, and more of her feelings, thoughts, memories, etc. We'll get to know her a lot better that way. Telling us about her relationship with Kaitlyn and giving a lot of thought and feeling will make us like Kaitlyn and make us feel like we know her. Same way for Max.
Overall:
You described Casey getting ready for school in extreme detail which got a little tiring to read. Just give us the big picture because it's not really an essential part to the story. Give us more background and characters.
You've got a good start here. I'm interested to see how this develops
-Carly
Hi!
I'm looking forward to how you carry on with this, I like how you have introduced the main characters so far
I noticed some little mistakes that might be easier to point out in one long quote so thought I'd do that here- I've crossed out and put in bold possible corrections you could make and also extra comments in bold and brackets, they're all just my opinion though so ignore them if you like
Overall: I did enjoy this as a beginning, I loved how you managed to show the relationship to the reader between Casey and Kaitlyn!
I do think though that maybe you could cut out quite a bit of the actions in the beginning as there isn't that much happening there whereas later on when she is in the car we get a clearer idea of what is going on and who the characters are. I think it's a good introduction to begin with her waking up, but it might keep the story interesting to skim over some of the more everyday tasks that she goes through
I think you did well in showing the expressions and actions of the characters but maybe a little more on how she is feeling could be added, perhaps through changing some of the words that show her movements like 'got' and 'went' to add in more of how she is doing it and so give more of an insight to her feelings. Although I got quite a good sense of Casey's appearance, I can't really picture Kaitlyn so perhaps some extra pieces of description on her every now and then would help the reader to picture the scene a bit better
Overall though, I really liked this piece! I think you have a good beginning here, I'd maybe just add some more detail where it is needed and leave a bit out at the beginning but it's up to you
Sun:
Bothered? O.o That doesn't sound too good. How bothered?
Thanks!
Meep:
Don't worry; I avoid cliches like the plague. About the verbs, yes this was a bit monotonous. I was trying to explain her everyday morning, in a way that was so boring, always the same that you would get the point that she has nothing really interesting to do. My English vocabulary is limited, because it's not my first language and I imagine and write the stories in my head in Portuguese, and it's hard to translate that very well.
Example:
In Portuguese, we say it like opened the faucet. xD
Thanks, for the review. it makes me feel bad, because I re-read this three time and spell checked twice -_-
Again, thanks!
*Kat*
Hey Kat!
I can't point out all the mistakes due to lack of time, but I've done some.
Overall, two things stood out in this story:
1) The plot sounds like its travelling down the path of typical-cliched-teenage-romance. Surprise in the next few chapters, eh?
2) There was a lot of telling not showing. Throughout it was she did this, she did that. Implement your descriptions, girl! Use less common verbs with more specific functions to paint a more vivid picture for us.
Anyhoodledoodle, don't be discouraged! Though I mentioned it could go down the path of cliches, it also has a lot of promise to develop into something spectacular. I'll be watching!
PM me if you've got any questions and stuff! ^^
I hope I helped somewhat!
Have a fabulous day!
~Meep(:
hey there writewatiwant
Good story. I was a bit bothered by your writing but i was caught up in it that it didn't matter.
Anyway, i didn't see many mistakes except for a few typos but they're understandable.
^^just like this.
well, that's it. Keep writing. Can't wait to know more about Max