Chapter 1: just the beginning
7:5o a.m.
Senior year last year of being a victim of a bully, Lux walks to the bus with her sketch pad in hand. She notices everyone in New York City is in a pack, like their wolves leaving her all alone walking to school.
She sits down, starting out drawing a circle, for the head. She never has been an amazing artist like the four world famous people of the art world, that’s now in a TV series. She then draws her guidelines for the unnamed figure. So far she has finish the hair and eyes, so far she almost sees a boy in her photo.
“Hey, how is it going?” Lux looks up, and notices a boy; with floppy brown hair, brown eyes, and a perplexing smile. He looks like Tristan Lockhart, the linebacker on the Jr.Giants football team.
He almost looks like my drawing, right now, except he has a mouth, nose, and of course his uniform for school. Lux thinks to herself while, her mind is now fluttering with thoughts of repeating, the same phrase over and over again.
I don't say a thing now, since I'm just amaze that a popular guy like Tristan s talking to a girl like a lame girl like me. "So, why are you talking to me?" I say while marking my pad with the hawk feather that I received from the farmers market that was downtown City hall.
Tristan's facial expression looks almost glad that he's talking to me. His big smile upon his face, and that look in his eyes that he looks like he's having an excellent time. "What is there something wrong with chatting with you?" He says while I see more pure white teeth, this time.
The school bus finally arrives, while the doors swing open. Instead of the regular yellow bus, it's more of the regular city bus, but is just for driving kids to and from school. Tristan walks onto the bus, while turning his head and looking at me, not saying a word.
~
When I get to school, I hurry up to my locker before everyone crowds my locker and block it on purpose. It seems like everyone in this school, bullies me except my only friend Joey Mullins. She and I have been friends since sixth grade at Harlem Success Charter Academy.
I see Randy and Hannah near my locker, and making out in front of it. Randy is co-captain of the football team and Hannah his girlfriend is cheerleader captain. There two brats that are the Main bullies to me. I'm walking over towards my locker, while they are pressing their bodies against it while I grab my stuff for first hour of the day. While pushing Hannah out of the way, I'm tired of them blocking my locker every day and I'm unable to retrieve my belongings for class.
Finally, I just push them out of the way, “Excuse me do you mind?” Hannah says while pressing her hand to Randy’s chest, “we are trying to do something here.” She says while my thoughts are now on negativity.
Yeah, blocking my locker so you and your boyfriend can do some PDA, that’s totally sounds like a business that needs to be done. I think to myself while not really saying anything.
Randy’s finger is pointed in a direction and says “We have our selves a trouble maker here, guys.” Ten boys suddenly pop out while I notice Tristan the boy that we chatted earlier today. “Hannah go this might get a little ugly.”
Hannah nods, while saying “Randy be careful, and don’t get caught doing this.” She walks off kissing Randy’s cheek. She releases her dirty blonde ponytail while falling down into waves at the end. She walks off leaving a note on the floor.
My head is at Randy, but my eyes are on Tristan’s facial expression, almost leaving his face in a depressing way. Why is he being a different person all of a sudden? I think to myself while seeing Randy’s fist hit my face while I’m seeing only black, pitch black.
~
I’m in the Nurse’s office, while seeing the nurse wearing almost like one of those first nursing outfits. She’s sitting at her desk while typing up some records; it’s probably another page of all the times I have been in the school’s nurse’s office.
I hear yelling going on, and noticing Principal Hincleans scolding Randy and the other boys who were involved. I sit up, noticing Tristan rushing over towards me; I don’t want to talk to him after for what he done to me.
My skirt looks almost as beaten up, as if I just survived a fight off the street. “Wow, you look,” He stops while I press the ice pack onto my forehead, “horrible.”
I row my eyes while tucking more of the blanket between my legs. “Thanks for the help, mister perfect.” I say while rolling my eyes.
"What did I do?" Tristan says
“You know what you did, don't lie." I say while a sense of vexed in the tone of my voice. "You are with Randy; I knew I shouldn't have trusted you." Tristan is on my last nerve right now, I thought he was there to help protect me but I am wrong again.
“Hey, don’t get mad at me,” he says while grabbing my wrists again. “I was only doing it, because; Randy will kill me if I didn’t follow through the plan.” What plan is he even talking about, is there something that he’s doing to me, which I don’t know about?
I pull my arm away from him and inch away from him. “What plan, is Randy trying to do something to me?” I say to Tristan while his face is just in a blank expression. Things seem different this year of my senior year, and almost strange.
“Listen, there’s this party tonight at one of the football team’s houses.” He says while handing me the party invite, while I see Randy and his finger wanting Tristan over. “I have to go, but I do expect you to be there.”
Tristan walks off, while my hand is stroking my name in the gorgeous cursive in my name, Lux in the most beautiful cursive I ever seen. It says:
To: Lux
What: party for all seniors
Where: Randy’s house @ 293 Lafayette Street 10012
When: Tonight @ 7 p.m.
Dress attire: fancy (but fits with the theme)
Theme: Space and Time
R.S.V.P: Contact Tristan Lockhart @ (391)-858-9512
P.S.: This party is going to be out of this World
I put the invite back into the laver envelope, while moving my hands over the crease of my name over it back and forth. . “Wow, in all the time that you were in here” the school nurse Gloria says while grabbing a pass from her desk. “I never have seen you and Tristan talking to one another.”
She hands me the pass and I just nod while chewing on the inside of my cheek. “Well thanks Gloria, but I’m considering on not going.” I’m not trying to be rude here, but this seems like a bad idea that this party is being hosted by Randy; my nemeses since Kindergarten. We call each other by name, since I’m in here every day.
I grab my bag while tossing it over my shoulder, “Well Lux I think it will be a good idea for you to go this party.” She says while I start to exit and then she grabs hold of my arm, while I turn around. “I hear it’s going to be a night to remember.”
I yank back while, saying “how do you know about this party? Were you snooping at the invite?” I say while a sudden gasp at her, I can’t believe her. Then again, sometimes word does get around. So I exit without her saying a word, while the pass in my hand.
Chapter 2:
3:00
After school I stay a little bit watching Tristan practice, mainly to see what he does for practicing for games. I’m in a huge green grassy area sitting under a tree watching the football team and also listening to the Marching Band practice.
“Okay, all I see hear is a bunch of boys’ crying to their mom!” Coach Santos says, he’s my Astrometry teacher which is my absolute favorite class. I never would have guessed that he was that mean on the field yelling at the football team.
My phone buzz while seeing who it was, it’s my mom. I quickly swipe and unlock my phone hoping that I am not into that much trouble. The text reads:
Mom :) <3
Hey where are you, you're usually home by now?
I start texting and to tell her that I’m staying after school late, I will come home soon and then I will head out with a few people I know to a late night chat at someone’s house. My mom took about ten minutes to reply to the message while just waiting listening to some Hunter Hayes.
Mom :) <3
Oh, okay see you soon and love you be safe. XOXO
I responded quickly while looking up noticing Tristan wearing his Jersey number forty.
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140,379 Literary Works • 673,129 Reviews
Great start! I really liked the characters and how it shows a problem that people can relate to. There were just some things that I would have changed.
1. Narration: It seemed like it was changing from third person to first person. It switched from 'Lux does this' to 'I do this.' I don't know if the first chapter was just setting the scene and then it zoomed into Lux's thoughts, or if it was just a mistake, but I suggest keeping it consistent as not to confuse readers.
2. Grammar: I'm not going to get really nitpicky about all of the mistakes, but there were quite a few. Although since they were small, I understood what it was saying, but the little mistakes made it a bit hard to read. Maybe go over it once just for editing before you hit publish so no typos get through.
3. Phrasing: The first line was a bit hard to understand. "Senior year last year of being a victim of a bully, Lux walks to the bus with her sketch pad in hand." I saw down in the comments that another review had mentioned it, so I won't go into detail about corrections. That was the biggest error, but there were some others. As with the grammar, just try to go over it once.
That's all I have to critique. It was a really cool idea and I liked how you hinted a future romance between Lux and Tristan. It was very intriguing!
Hello I'm Remington38 and have a review!
I really enjoyed the story so far and feel it has a lot of potential. The characters so far and just the idea is relatable but I almost feel like you can bring in some more emotions bring it out to the story, let us know how human these characters really are. I am definetly looking forward to see and read how you continue it and how yountake this. Great job! Keep writing.
Remington38
Hello, HayleyEllison! Artemis here for a little review! How ya' doin'?
Okay, let's start. First off, your time. There's a little issue with that. It seems you used an "o" for the "50" instead of a zero?... Is your zero key not working or something like that? Because the "7:50" looks kind of... Garbled, if you ask me.
I like this sentence, sort of. It shows me that Lux likes to draw, apparently. But the first half doesn't make much sense. "Senior year last year of being a victim of a bully" just doesn't sort itself out in my mind. Maybe you could change that to, "Her senior year, her last year of being a victim of a bully, Lux walks to the bus with her sketch pad in hand." (Well, that was what I thought it meant. Apologies if that's not the right idea, but you get the point.)
"Senior year last year of being a victim of a bully, Lux walks to the bus with her sketch pad in hand."
There is no need for a semicolon here. In fact, you could just leave out any type of punctuation mark. You don't need one there.
"Lux looks up, and notices a boy; with floppy brown hair, brown eyes, and a perplexing smile."
Usually, when someone is thinking something, people put it in italics or do something to make it look like a thought.
"He almost looks like my drawing, right now, except he has a mouth, nose, and of course his uniform for school. Lux thinks to herself while, her mind is now fluttering with thoughts of repeating, the same phrase over and over again."
Okay, now this chunk of the passage is kind of strange. You suddenly switch from third person to first person. Stay consistent, don't change. There's a "d" after "amaze", and I think you meant "is" instead of "s". "Talking to a girl like a lame girl like me" also doesn't make sense, you should just take out "a girl like". After you tell us what Lux says, the sentence after it is waaaay to long. Make it into two sentences, like this: "I say while marking my pad with a hawk feather. I got it from the farmer's market that was downtown, at City Hall." You can see I made a few other edits in that sentence, too.
"I don't say a thing now, since I'm just amaze that a popular guy like Tristan s talking to a girl like a lame girl like me. "So, why are you talking to me?" I say while marking my pad with the hawk feather that I received from the farmers market that was downtown City hall."
If you want to signify the fact that Tristan stops while he's talking, you gotta use dashes (--) instead of commas. I was confused about that for a sec.
"“Wow, you look,” He stops while I press the ice pack onto my forehead, “horrible.”"
The rest of this passage has a lot of typos are grammatical errors, but I think you can sort them out. Time for praise! I really like the main plot behind this, and how you show us a lot but don't ruin it by telling us everything. Good job on this piece, and keep writing!
-Artemis28