Michael looked up at the sky as he opened the door to Cate's house for the fourth time that month. It was March and the clouds rumbled in the distance, a strong wind making Michael shudder."Cate!" He called as he realized that lights in the house were dim.
" I'm in here." Said a shaky voice. He walked down the hall and into the living room where he saw a trembling Cate bunched up in the corner of the couch.
"Hey, thought I'd come b- hey, what's wrong. It looks like you've seen a ghost." He said, noticing how pale she was.
" I don't like storms."
Michael nodded, he should have known that. He set his bag down and sat on the couch near her.
"It's not too bad out there. It's just a little cloud cover and a few raindrops. That's it." He said. Just as the words left his mouth a huge lightening bolt followed by a thunder clap shook the house. Cate jumped, her eyes trained on the windows. " Hey, sssh. It's okay!" He assured her. Michael drew her close as she shook in the light of a bolt that shattered a tree in the distance. Cate only nodded. He wrapped in arm around her shoulders and use the other to lay her head on his shoulder, much to his relief- and delight- she didn't refuse his companionship.
"I'm sorry you have to see me like this." She whispered," My fear of storms use to never be this bad."
He nodded," Well, it's okay. I've got you and I'm not going anywhere, alright?"
"Alright."
He smiled. " Good! Now, since you know a lot about me, it's my turn to know all there is to know about Cate Olsen." She turned and looked at him.
"There's not much about me to know. I'm pretty ordinary."
Michael threw his head back and laughed," I'd beg to differ! You're quite possibly the most extraordinary person I know."
" Really?" Cate asked, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. She pulled at a loose thread in one of the orange throw pillows on the couch.
" Yes really." He said with a grin," Now, let's get started. Favorite food."
" Ceaser salad."
"Favorite drink?"
" Anything diet."
Michael scrunched up his nose in disgust," Diet? Why that?"
" It just tastes better." She replied. He shrugged.
"Fair enough. Favorite time of day?"
"Night time."
"Favorite movie?"
" I'd have to say Pride and Prejudice."
" Nice choice. Very classic... for a girl." He replied with a smirk. Cate chuckled and hit him playfully.
"Well what do you expect me to say?"
" I don't know... when is your birthday?"
" July 22nd, 1999."
Michael watched her as her eyes darted from him to the window and back to him. She seemed like a deer in headlights. Her eyes almost too big for her face and her cheeks sinking slowly. She had stopped shaking though and she had grown warm against him, making him drowsy.
" When do you think this storm will let up?" She asked. He shook his head.
" I don't but it looks like it won't let up anytime soon."
His friend smiled," I guess that you won't be going anywhere soon." He returned the smile.
"Nope. Say, where are your parents?"
Cate sighed," Mom's at Nana's with the kids and Dad's working till all hours of the night- again."
"Why didn't you go with your mom? It might be better than staying here alone in a dark living room while you actaully watch what scares you." Cate shrugged.
" I like being alone. Leaves me time to myself and to think." She said in a solemn voice. Michael could hear a tinge of lonliness in it. Lately she had been like that. She wasn't the same girl. He noticed the little things, the exhuastion, the puffiness around her eyes in the morning when she would drive them to school. Something wasn't right.
"Cate."
"Hm?" She asked, her voice muffled by the blanket that she had grabbed.
" What's wrong?" Michael questioned. He felt her become tense agaisnt him and her heart speed up.
" Nothing..."
" Cate, your heart is going ninety miles an hour, there's something going on." He said. Michael's hand ran down her arm and took her hand and squeezed it. " You can tell me, Cate."
" Mom and dad have been at it. " She said, voice hoarse," They're fighting at the drip of a faucet and it's really ticking me off. And I'm trying to be an example for Gabe and my sister, but it's getting hard." She wiped her nose on her sleeve," I feel alone."
Michael sighed," Oh Cate, I could have helped you. It's okay. Not every family's perfect and sometimes they have to sort things out by fighting. It's okay." He assured her and held her close to his chest. The pitter patter of rain drops against the window.
Cate breathed in his scent as her face buried into his shoulder. He smelled of grass and leather, a strange combination, but it her feel safe and.... normal. She could feel him breathing, feel his hand run through her hair. She could feel herself falling asleep. She felt his fingers intertwine with hers. squeezing his hand, she let her eyes droop.
Michael felt her hand squeeze his as she lay there, he breathed in sharply. This was his time to tell her. Tell her everything he had been holding in since they first met. Tell her how beautiful she was and how much she meant to him- and that he'd never let her go. " Cate, I..." He trailed off as he realized that she had fallen asleep. He smiled gently. " I guess it can wait till another time." He whispered and leaned down. Picking her up, he tenderly carried her up the stairs and into her room. She was a feather compared to many things he had carried, she felt like baby in his arms as her head rested against his chest. Michael opened the door carefully with his foot and walked in to the darkened room. Her bed stood near the wall, across from the window where the torrent of down pour still raged. Well at least it's not thundering anymore. He thought as he gently placed his friend in her bed, covering her. He stood there a minute with a smile on his face. "I won't let go, Cate. Promise." He whispered, walking out. He closed the door behind him and went home in the evening rain. He hated that she was in pain and stressed out about all of that. Only if there was a way to make her not feel so alone.
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125,004 Literary Works • 672,792 Reviews
Hello hello! Happy RevMo!
I apologize that I haven't read the previous installments of this. I picked this out of the green room because realistic YA romance is my favorite thing.
so I'm naturally curious about these characters, what the deal is, and where this is going to go from here.
This chapter is cute, and there's definitely a cute little something happening between these characters. (Which is half the battle when writing romance!) It's great that I'm feeling the chemistry when I've come in late and don't have any context.
My biggest qualm with this chapter is that I'm not sure the plot is moving forward in any significant way. A summary of this chapter: girl is scared of a storm and boy tries to comfort her by getting to know her using a series of random questions. girl finds some comfort, manages to fall asleep before boy can tell her how he feels about her.
That's all nice, but how is the plot moving forward? One thing to ask yourself is what important thing needs to happen in this chapter? What do you want the main focus to be of this chapter? I think the important thing that needs to happen is the boy realizing his feelings about the girl, but being too afraid or not sure if he should tell her. That idea comes at the very end of this chapter, and that was the part I found most compelling because it's a conflict and it's a problem. I think you should try to do more with that in this chapter and develop that idea and that conflict a bit more. What is he afraid of? What's stopping him from accepting these feelings and telling her? Does he think she's on the same page?
Beyond that, I think you could have a compelling story here. Not knowing much about the characters or the overall plot, I feel like you have a girl-needs-saving-by-boy trope going on here (which is fine!). I'm a fan of that trope (and when it's the other way around)
I'm not going to delve into nit-picky things (but if you want me to I can go back and do that!) so I'll leave things there. I read a lot of romance, I write romance, and I've also done a fair amount of reading on writing romance, so if you have any questions or want any sort of feedback or advice on the plot or the novel construction, I would be more than happy to help! And let me know if anything I said was confusing!
Hello!
First off, I must say, I don't read a lot of romance. At all. But I found myself intrigued by your title (and description), and as soon as I started reading, I wanted to know what was wrong with her. Great job with that! There weren't many things than what other reviewers have mentioned, but I'll do my best!
Their were a couple of tiny grammar mistakes, but since I didn't find very many, I'm assuming you know what you're doing.
I didn't know this was his actual thought until the next sentence (also, the second sentence is awkward - if I read it by himself, I'd think he was just thinking to himself as he completed a task). Maybe write it like this instead:
You could even cut out the "he thought" if you use italicization, I know of a few authors who do that.
Now I'm being EXTREMELY picky - but this is your last sentence. I just feel like it's worded weird here (might be just my personal preference though...). I would've worded it differently - switching the "only" and "if" to "If only there was...". It's not a huge deal, just found myself tripped up at it. That being said, it was a nice way to end a chapter!
Other than that, I couldn't really find anything! The whole "being stressed out and in pain because of family problems" isn't an original idea. But that is TOTALLY FINE, because it's real life . This is what some of us struggle with! Sometimes adults think we as teens are stressed out because we party all night or stay up late on the internet (oops), when really, there could be something like this going on right at home! (end rant)
So do this. Write with your heart. Make it yours.
Good luck with this, and please keep writing!
~Snazzy
Happy RevMo!
This was a cute scene between Michael and Cate. I was able to follow along even though I haven’t read anything previous. At first I thought it was a little strange for Michael to think it was “the fourth time this month” that he had knocked on Cate’s door, but since he’s obviously so in love with her knocking on her door seems like a significant event. I liked how gentle he was with her when she was so scared, how he didn’t make fun of her for being scared of storms, and how he distracted her from her fear—at least a little—by asking questions about her.
I have two notes for. The first is that you switched perspectives in this paragraph.
Until this point, we were in Michael’s viewpoint, but suddenly we were in Cate’s before going back to Michael’s. On the one hand, I liked learning about Michael’s smell and that Cate obviously liked his hug (there’s hope for you yet, boy). On the other hand, if you want to spend some time in Cate’s perspective, it might be nice to do it by having alternating scenes or chapters—one in Michael’s perspective, the next in Cate’s, and so on. Although there are certainly lots of classic books (including Pride and Prejudice, incidentally) that occasionally switch viewpoints without making it a regular thing.
The other is dialogue formatting. Here’s an example from your story.
If you use a dialogue tag after someone speaks (“she asked”), don’t capitalize it unless it’s a proper noun, like the character’s name. So the way you have this line, it should look like this.
But if you used her name, it would of course be capitalized. i.e. ‘ “Hm?” Cate asked.’
Additionally, you can sometimes choose to cut dialogue tags completely, like this.
Or, to go a step further, we could switch this sentence around so that it’s in active voice (doesn’t use the “to be” verb, which is “was” in this case).
Those are just some option to explore in your dialogue, but the main point was the first one—that personal pronouns do not[/g] get capitalized when they follow a line of dialogue as a tag, because the dialogue tag is technically part of the sentence that includes the dialogue. Since Hm? she said is all part of the same sentence, you don’t capitalize “she”—even though there’s a question mark before it.
On that note, if the dialogue is a statement instead of a question, i.e. if it ends with a period, change the period to a comma when using a dialogue tag. Like in this line.
So now it would look like this.
whispered, walking out.
Let me know if you have any questions! Sorry about all the dialogue advice, but I didn’t feel like there was much else to talk about in terms of the actual scene.
Ermigawd!!! The ship! The ship must sail!
Hi by the way xD
Sooooooo, you were definitely right when you said that I would love this chapter!!! Oh my gosh, the ship! Okay, I'll fandom in a mo. I found one little bit that was a little confusing in here, which is.....
This little bit, I think maybe you missed the word 'know' after don't? But yeah, that's it!
Now I can have a bit of a fandom because oh my gosh this was amazing! I don't think you understand how much I ship them! This chapter was adorable! They have to get together omg, they're like literally perfect! And he's there for her when she needs him, like even without her asking n they so cute. I really can't get over the cuteness.
Long story trimmed down, I'm going to go and die in awe of this adoreable chapter. This whole story is amazing! I love it!!!!!
This book is amazing
Why thank you so so much! I'm glad you think so!