Published November 23, 2007
This chapter is short, but chapter 9 is longer. That'll be out in a few days. Enjoy 
I'm still searching for titles, so bear with me.
Chapter 8
“Dang it Maria, you’ve got an angel watching you or something. That’s the worst accident I’ve seen in years. You have no idea how scared I was when I recognized your car.” My lecturing doesn’t appear to be sinking in. “Why were you drunk anyway? What idiot let you out of their driveway in your state? Well,” I halfheartedly laughed, “you won’t be doing any driving for a while from the looks of your car.” The thought of almost losing a friend makes me furious. What makes me even more furious is when that friend doesn’t respond to my efforts of empathy.
“I’m not drunk.” Maria states with unmistakable clarity.
“Then why did you barrel into that pole? Why did I have to practically carry you to my car?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She mutters. Her tone states: end of conversation. I won’t let her get off that easily, but for now I’ll leave her be.
“You’re staying at my house tonight.” This is a statement not a question. Maria nods in silent acceptance.
Maria looks out the window with the same distant stare I’ve seen so many times. I’m never entirely sure what’s going on in her eccentric brain, it’s always sparking. Thinking back to past conversations-everything from how the sea came to be so salty, or what imaginary creature would enjoy living on Calypso- It’s obvious how her mind could be classified as bizarre, but I know there’s a method to the madness. A corner of her brain worries about Julio, but she’ll never openly admit this because she knows that would make me worry even more.
Whatever she’s thinking it’s something severely important, and it’s something she’s going to tell me whether she wants to or not. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to pry secrets out of her.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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140,925 Literary Works • 673,745 Reviews
Hey, this was good. I liked it.
Way to go on more "showing" instead of "telling" this time. My curiosity was piqued with the character Maria. She's an interesting character. Weird people are always fun to read about. It was good that you managed to convey a lot about Maria's person from just the protagonist's thoughts and the short dialog between the two.
I had to look hard to find something to critique.
You have two people expressed in the same paragraph. This is something I've seen a few times in your writing. It's generally accepted that only one character is expressed in a paragraph.
I would put it this way:
"I don't want to talk about it." She mutters. Her tone states: end of conversation.
I won't let her get off that easily, but for now I'll leave her be.
This is just polishing technique. It's confusing for one person to say something and then someone else think something about it in the same paragraph. I have the opposite problem, I tend to go paragraph-happy when I write, inserting new paragraphs with reckless abandon.
There's a happy medium in there somewhere, and it's hard to find.
Intriguing. Can't wait for chapter 9.
Stay sharp.