Young Writers Society

So I published my first draft of this chapter the other day and got some really great critiques. I also read it over multiple times, filled in some blank ideas and tried to make it better. I ask one thing. critique anything you see, I want the good and the bad, but I have an especially hard time with tenses. I jump in and out of memories a lot and I want to make sure I approached the tenses correctly. If you do see a tense error, please note it and explain what it needs to be instead so I can fix it. Thanks so much, I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1

Sirena

I looked in the mirror and plastered on my best fake smile. But I hated fake. It looked fake, felt fake and it was the ultimate fake! Argh. I threw the fake off my face and scowled as I tried to fix my hair, but no matter what I did it still looked like it always did. Plain, brown and boring and in my opinion a crappy contrast to my fair skin. Closing my eyes I sighed. What’s the point in even trying? He’ll never look at me the same way that I want him to. He’ll never look past those toned leggy blonde girls that he’s always hung around. Some things never change, I thought to myself, no matter how badly you want them to.

I have been in love with Jay Cameron for almost three years now, and I can still remember the day it happened, so vividly.

I was walking down the empty Junior High hall all alone. It was early, and for some reason I had gotten up well rested, quickly ready and had nothing else to do so I left. When I arrived at the school, the hallways were empty of course. The only human beings there were the teachers and the gossiping office ladies. I was headed toward my locker, but then I heard something, music coming from the auditorium. A piano? It hooked my interest so I walked back quietly and snuck into the vast room filled with hundreds of empty seats. I looked up and saw him. Jay. He was playing the piano, facing sideways. Eyes closed and his fingers gliding across the keys so effortlessly. I never heard the song before. He must have composed it himself. It was beautiful. I had quietly sat down in the back corner and closed my eyes, drowning in the music. I remember thinking about him in that moment.

We never interacted but I had seen him passing by. He was popular, all the girls attached to his side all the time. Fist bumping his friends (there seemed to be a million of them). I tended to stay away from that crowd, so I never really knew him.. I had opened my eyes and looking closer. He was surely handsome. Defined jaw, tan skin, toned arms, nice body for an eighth grader. Like he already worked out every day. But there was more to him. I could see emotion in his face from across the vast room. Passionate, and he was going and going never stopping, surrounded by the music. Soaking it up like he was the flower and the song was his sun. It had my mind running in circles and my heart swelling to it. I could feel it the way he was feeling it because I was crying and sad though there was nothing to be sad about. The song made me sad and if he composed it than he was sad. These whirling thoughts of him and the song were all interrupted when he had all of a sudden stopped, fingers frozen at the keys. He had opened his eyes slowly, turning his head, and looked straight at me. I sat there frozen as a statue with his eyes boring at me wide and full of alarm. There had been an energy there, that I had never felt before. It was between us, I opened my mouth to say something but before I could he flew off the stage, never looking back. And he never did again, except for once.

It was last year, Sophomore year. I was backed into a corner by my own personal hell and I knew that there wouldn't be much time before I passed out, puked or started uncontrollably crying because I had to keep myself from doing those things even just passing by him in the hallways. Nathan had me cornered in up against two connecting rows of lockers. There was no one around because it was the middle of class, I had taken the pass to use the bathroom. It backfired. The scary thing about it was that in seventh grade when he... well he didn't say one word. Just did it with a blank stare, a tight lipped mouth, emotionless. Like he was doing something normal like pissing in a toilet or making a sandwich. Then he never spoke to me or looked at me and I had convinced myself he wouldn't do it again, that he felt bad for the emotional terror he inflicted on me. Or he had forgotten. Either were just fine. But he didn't, because now he had me backed in, no escape. I was hyperventilating on the brink of an emotional breakdown because my throat was constricted and I couldn't just scream out to where someone through the open doorway ten feet away could come save me. I had no voice. I had been so sure that was it; His black, hairy arms reached out to grab my wrist and it was over. it was happening once more.

I never saw Jay coming. I just felt the shake of the locker when Nathan was ripped out from in front of me and pulled sideways getting slammed into a locker face first by the piano playing boy I never stopped loving. Don't you ever talk to her again, Jay said shakily into Nathan's ear through gritted teeth, or I will kill you. Then he took my hand, led me into our class and never spoke to me again. Never looked at me, never acknowledged me, even now, three years after the auditorium, not even a year after the hallway. Juniors in High School, having almost every class together he still never did. But I did, because I loved with him with all of my heart. I know there's so much more to him than anyone else ever knows. I took one last unsatisfied look in the mirror before heading off to the last five minutes of third period. But before I could get out the door, the ground started shaking suddenly, uncontrollably. The fear raced through my body and I tried to balance myself but it was no use. I slipped, falling backwards and then everything went black.

Jay

The ground was shaking violently beneath me. This was an earthquake. Connecticut doesn't have earthquakes like this. Even when we do they can't be felt. So this was highly unusual. There was no procedure for this crap. I looked up, people were screaming, everyone was yelling and panicking but my mind was focused on one thing. Sirena. I had to find her. She wasn’t safe. She wasn't in her class. She was in the bathroom. I knew that because she went everyday at this time, 15 minutes before class ended, and walked by my classroom. And today was no exception. So with out a though I Ignored the teacher telling us to get under our desks, dropped to my hands and knees and started crawling out of the room.

“Jay!” Mrs. Grett shouted, “Get back in here now!” I didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, until I found her. I started the long distance to the restroom, everything still shaking violently. My brain was rattling in more ways than one. as I turned corners and stretched hallways trying not to break my bones. She has to be okay, I kept telling myself. I never got to tell her how I felt.

Ever since that day back in eighth grade where she found me lost in playing the piano, ever since I saw her look at me like no one else had looked at me before, I had loved her. When I saw her, she was light. So beautiful I couldn't believe I had never seen her before. Her long dark locks hung low over her face as we stared at each other. My heart was beating. No one had ever heard me play before. I wasn’t aloud to. She had opened her mouth to speak and I bolted. Like the coward that I was I bolted. And I never acknowledged her existence again until last year.

She had been gone longer than normal to the restroom. I thought I was just being paranoid but still asked our teacher to use the restroom and went to check to see if she was okay. Creepy, I know, but I really cared about her. Maybe that's why I always instinctually memorized her bathroom schedule. I'm glad I did when I walked out and just ten feet away saw her getting backed into a corner, hyperventilating with undeniable fear in her eyes. I could tell Nathan Hook wasn't just trying to strike a friendly conversation.

I don't remember much after that because I was blinded by rage. I'm pretty sure I just slammed him into a locker and threatened to kill him, pulling her back into the classroom. Still, like the dumb ass I was, I could never work up the courage to talk to her again. Never even asked her if she was okay. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Three years after the auditorium, and not even one after the hallway, she was still my everything. Now I had to find her, she needed to stay safe. I tuned the last corner finally making it and crawled into the girls restroom. There she was. In the midst of all the violent shaking, there she was laying on the bathroom floor, unconscious.

“NO!” I screamed, “No!” I crawled over to her, pulling her under the door frame and positioned her in my arms, on my lap. Her neck was bent back and her eyes were closed. I touched the back of her head and felt something sticky. When I looked my hand was covered in blood. That was when I started praying. For the first time in my miserable life I started praying for the only thing that was left that mattered to me, Sirena.

I sat there with her in my lap for what seemed like hours, but in reality it had only been about a minute. Eventually it started to gradually lighten before it stopped completely. I heard sirens and people running. Lifting her in my arms after gaining my composure I raced down the two flights of stairs. Everything was a blur. Students, teachers, but none of it mattered. The plight of running the length of the huge cafeteria and out the double glass doors didn’t even phase me as I called out, “help!!”

Two paramedics ran up to me, “pulse?”one said.

“Slow, but still going,” I answered, “her head is bleeding, she hit it.” They took her from my arms and put her on the gurney.

The paramedic turned to me, “Are you coming?” As they lifted her into one of the ambulances I climbed on with them and prayed for the best.