Published July 27, 2010
Some of you may have read my poem with the same title. This is basically the story version of that poem but extended (because its a novel)
She stared, long and hard, past rows and rows of aged library books, at the back of his head.
Maybe, just maybe, if she stared enough he would turn around. His sad, grey eyes would meet her blue ones. Maybe everything would be better again.
"Catherine?" A voice startled her and she whipped around, a little harsher than she intended, "can you shelve these books for me." The little librarian seemed uncomfortable with her unintentional glare.
Catherine nodded, shaking his vision out of her head and pushed the cart of books over to the shelf wishing she'd never sacrificed third period to volunteer at the school library.
She shelved meticulously, an easy task, allowing her mind to wander.
She thought back to him, there was rarely a moment when she wasn't thinking about Lucas Jones.
He was, according to her friends, the ugliest guy in school, well, that was an exaggeration but her friends didn't seem to think so. Even Catherine could be persuaded to admit that he wasn't the hottest but why, then, was he the absolute object of her affection. Even she didn't know the answer to this. She used to tell everyone it was his personality, a cheesy excuse but if any personality triumphed looks than it was his.
She moved down the shelf, sliding each book into place. As she moved into the next row she realized how close she was getting to his seat.
As she worked, she watched him.
He was reading, slouched down in the seat so that his long hair - too long for any guy, her friends insisted - was spread behind the back of the chair. He'd once asked her if she thought long hair on guys was a turn off. She told him it wasnt, too infatuated to care. His heavy legs sprawled in front of him, he stared intently at the page, pausing to take a quick, illegible note.
She shelved another book and moved down the row, her heart thumped wildly as if it felt his proximity. She didn't doubt that it did.
Every cell in her body started to react, her knees and hands trembled. She stopped shelving. The book in her hand shook with her. She was staring.
Suddenly he looked up, as if he, too, had felt her there. His reaction was different, though. He snapped his book shut and placed it in his bag. As if she weren't there, as if she weren't hurting, he turned his back and left the library without even a second glance.
~~~
"You're kidding me, he just left, just like that?" Sophie asked incredulously over her overly sauced pizza.
"What a jerk!" Anna commented after taking a bite of her ham and cheese.
Catherine nodded mournfully, letting her straight auburn hair fall in front of her face so none of them would see how upset she really was.
Again, she wished she hadn't recounted the whole story to her friends yet again she had opened her big mouth. She knew what it was to them, more to the endless conflicts of Luke and Cat. You could practically give it a title.
It's not that her friends didn't care, or that they weren't helpful it was just that they didn't understand.
Luke was Cat's crush, they said, which to her was a juvenile term. A crush is thinking the guy next to you in history is cute, it's when your heart flutters when he asks to borrow your pencil.
Catherine’s heart never fluttered, her heart thudded, big, heavy beats as if it were trying to escape through her rib cage. Even it knew it was in a hopeless situation.
"What do you even see in him?" The question came from down the table from Julie, a tall, skinny girl who hadn't even been in this conversation. Catherine thought about telling her that, shutting her up fast, but she was too depressed to be mean. Instead she sighed and muttered, "I don't know."
"Nobody knows," Anna added.
Catherine wished she could melt into her seat.
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140,133 Literary Works • 673,031 Reviews
Hey LittlePrincess! Thanks for entering the First Chapter Contest! Here's your thanks-for-entering review
These are two paragraphs, that should be combined into one.
"than" should be "then"
This was pretty interesting, short, but alright. Your writing itself is pretty good, interesting and humerous to read which is the first step.
Good luck and keep writing!
Again, thanks for entering!
-Lauren-
Hey ya'll!
First of all I like the title. I'll spend hours at my local library writing. I just thought that was cool.
Anyway I can totally relate to her heart thumping when she sees the guy because that happens to me when I like a guy, so . . . yeah. Next thing I saw that I liked was that it all takes place in a library. Nobody ever writes a love story that takes place in the library. Another thing was that I like how you had your characters own opinions versus her friends. I liked how she defended- well sorta- defended her opinion.
Keep going!
-Charlotte Grace
A quick thing about these - I swear that you just described me with my crush!
Eeps! He likes her! I don't know if that's what you intended but that's the impression I got.
This depresses me, in a good way. It makes me feel campassion to Cat, it also makes me think Lucas is a jerk but that's not the point. Just this one sentence has me already loving Cat.
They don't like him, and yet they say this. Good friends
This is good too. It shows that they will sympathize with her but they also hold their own opinions.
Overall--
This is really good. You got me interested in the first paragraph. It's something that I'm sure a lot of people can relate to, even if they won't admit it, and that's great! I hope you continue with this. PM me when/if you post more.
Hello! Loveless here to review your story. Well, let's get started.
First off, "Can you shelve books for me" is a question, you need question mark behind it. You put a period instead, a very little mistake that can be easily corrected. Also, you put a question mark behind 'Catherine' which is okay, but, being that you meant "Catherine?" as a complete sentence, you need to change the comma behind "intended" to a period and capitalize the 'c' in 'can' to make the rest of your dialogue correct. If not, without the breaks, it would look like this: "Catherine?, can you shelve books for me?
As you can see, that does not make much sense. Okay? Gosh, I hope you can understand all what I'm trying to tell you. I tend to get confusing at times.
Nothing majorly wrong in this piece, just a few missing commas.
I think the first sentence could be split in two. The way it is right now, everything just seems to run together and it's a bit crowded. The word 'than' in the last part is just taking up already filled space. The sentence would flow much better if you just took out the word 'than' completely.
The two commas in this sentence are not needed.
You need a break before the phrase "yet again". Without putting some type of stop before it, it runs into the sentence and does not make much sense.
I like where this story is going, I just wish I could have more of a background on Cat and Lucas. All I know now is that they were probably dating before and have now broken up. There is not much else to this part of the story. I understand this is only the first part, so I won't grill you too much on that matter.
You did not have many mistakes, just a few comma and period mix-ups.
I liked reading this, I kept me interested to the point where I'm excited to read and review the second part. Well, Bah-bye!
Loveless~
This was really, really good! I was able to connect immediately with Cat. I've experienced that exact situation, okay, maybe slightly different, but that was really, really awesome. I love being able to connect with the characters, and you made that possible. I want to read more! The title is great, the descriptions are amazing. I absolutely love it! Please, keep writing it!
Hi there!
You have a beautiful title, I like it. Also, gosh, I'm working on a romantic novel right now and your character Lucas has the same name as mine so I thought it was funny. Anyway, on with the review!
Alright so I really liked this first chapter, it was sweet and I could totally relate to the way her heart thumps when she sees the guy she likes. You grammar and punctuation was done pretty accurately too so I'm glad I didn't have to point out anything. There's one thing I'd like to address though. That was the rush, I mean you introduce your character and her conflict right away that we're left asking a lot of questions as in, what happened? Who's he? How did they meet? Why does she like him? There has to be some reason, somewhere out there, even if it's not a very good one.
It's hard to connect with your character because of this. Show us some back story as in how they met and her thoughts. You don't exactly have to rush her feelings in. Anyway, it was a really fun read, I like it thus far.
~Pink
ErrmmmmWOW your really good, theres nothing to point out...keep writing funny think is aswell my crush has the exact same name! but its just Luke not Lucas
PM me when you write more!