Chapter 1 - Out-zoned

A friendship themed sci/fi novel in progress, aimed mainly at young adults. Review much appreciated.

Chapter One - Out-zoned

 

I’m Ryan, I’m a sophomore, and I don’t care what people, such as yourself, think of me.

OK, that was a lie. Let me try again.

          I’m Ryan, I’m fifteen, and I’m different.

That’s more like it.

Yup, I’m not a typical teen. In my case, being different is a good thing, even though there are times that it seems otherwise. I know that I - kind of -  stand out, but it’s not always in a good way.

          Right now, as I prepare my school bag, I guess is a moment when I feel like a normal teenager. The apprehension of meeting Rachel after the weekend was building up inside me. I hate feeling nervous.

          I needed something to calm me down… music. I took the box that was my portable generator from beside my bed, and I kept turning the key until it would turn no more. The generator started to buzz and vibrate softly as the motor’s spring slowly unwound. I connected my music player to the generator, placed the generator inside my backpack and zipped the bag up. The wind-up key stuck out the right side of the bag as it turned. I couldn’t get the whole thing in.

          This way my bag didn’t look very nice. It was bulky because the generator was huge, but at least I had some electric power. I didn’t have a lot of options if I wanted to listen to music because batteries were expensive.

I chose a song, and it started to play through my earphones as I brushed my hair in front of the mirror and left my room. The relief music gave me was minimal. Of course I was kidding myself; no music would solve this.

I descended the stairs and saw my father in his robes, pacing the living room while staring at the newspaper he was holding, as he did every day. Whenever he reached a window, he peaked outside for a few seconds, then went back to his newspaper, heading for another window.

‘Good morning.’ I said.

‘Mm hmm.’ was all he said, which was his default reply to almost anything.

Mom, Jermain and Andrew usually left home before I did, so no one else was home. I took the cheese and mint sandwich my mom left me on the dining table to eat on the way to school.

‘Switch off the radio.’ my father commanded before I got to the front door.

I headed back to the dining table and switched the radio off.

‘And throw out the milk.’ He said. ‘I told you not to leave it outside. Now it’s ruined.’

‘But I didn’t.’ I said. ‘Last night - ’

‘I don’t care.’ he interrupted. ‘Just throw it out.’

If it bothered you so much, why didn’t you do it earlier? I thought to myself bitterly as I left the house.

My dad really made my life easier - if you didn’t notice, I was being sarcastic. He refused to take jobs that he considered below his skill level and stayed home too much for my liking. I didn’t mind his company, when he minded his own business, or when he occasionally tried to socialize or be a father. But the truth was that he was very rough with everyone - even his family.

My dad was a private detective; obsessed with his work to a degree just short of insanity. When a case interested him, he’d do anything to get to the bottom of it. For example, he’d go through stinky trash piles, follow people without coming home for days, even get disguised as women. Sometimes, he was the talk of the neighborhood, and not in a good way.

I didn’t really care what the neighbors said about him. I got used to him being criticized. What got to me was him criticizing everyone and everything. It was worse when he focused on me: ‘Ryan, why didn’t you add cream to your mom’s coffee? Seriously Ryan, you call that rubbish “art”? Ryan, that’s not how it’s pronounced.’

There was nothing wrong with my pronunciation, by the way. But the - constant - nagging - drove - me - crazy, as it did to everyone in the house.

Before you get the wrong idea, I should add that I loved my father, and I knew he loved me too - no sarcasm there. My dad had trouble dealing with emotions… that’s all. As a result, being sympathetic and understanding wasn’t something that he knew how to do. Sometimes I could understand that. Most times though… it was too much.

          Thinking about my dad right now was too stressful, and I didn’t need that, so I pushed my train of thought aside and focused on getting to school.

I mounted my bike and started pedaling, and I tried to listen to the song coming through my earphones, but the butterflies in my stomach were a bit distracting.

The reason for the butterflies was this: I followed my friends’ stupid advice and gathered up some courage to tell Rachel Brady over the weekend how I’ve been feeling about her for the past few months - as if it didn’t show. And, despite my efforts to keep my feelings a secret during all that time, I always had a hunch that these feelings somehow managed to sneak to the surface in a way or another so that she could see them.

I was right to a certain extent. According to her, everyone knew about my “crush”, even the janitor. She was exaggerating, of course, but still people knew. How embarrassing!

A large truck that blocked my usual path to school brought me back to reality for a moment.  What’s a truck doing here? That’s strange! I haven’t seen one for these in a few years. I didn’t pay it any more attention as I took my bike down the road to get around it and then up the sidewalk again; then I went back to thinking about Rachel.

So my confession didn’t go the way I’d hoped. I wonder why she didn’t hate me for all the gossip I was indirectly responsible for, though. Even though girls liked to gossip, didn’t they hate to become the subject of it? But she wasn’t even angry when I told her; she only gave the slightest hint of annoyance - almost undetectable. And that reaction of hers right there was one of the reasons she was so special.

Honestly, I didn’t tell Rachel how I really felt. I told her I liked her, whereas in fact I was convinced that I was completely in love with her. And I guess a few months are long enough for me to be sure of that.

I approached the school thinking of a few things I could do to make myself standout in the way I thought I deserved and get her positive attention. I wasn’t stupid though. I knew that nothing I tried today would make a big difference - probably. It was more a long term thing, and I was taking the steps.

I went to Overland High School. We had about three schools in our district, and a few more in neighboring districts. People say it wasn’t like this a few decades ago. More schools had to be built at the end of Postmodernism because it was difficult for people to travel to far schools and workplaces. New schools were smaller and less appealing than the already-sickening old-style schools.

Of course, I didn’t like school! Who did? But I was excited every day to attend. It was the only place I could talk to the subject of my affection.

It didn’t help my case that I had other distractions roaming around the insides of my head: I was trying to act cooler and tougher among my friends than I actually felt. I was also trying to get good grades - top grades - without looking like a nerd. And I had a gigantic pimple right at the center of my nose screaming at people to get their attention. Life right now wasn’t easy for a teenager. Sigh

          I headed to my locker when I entered the school building and saw the guys - as expected - standing at our usual spot: behind the staircase near my locker. I put my bag in the locker and headed towards them.

          ‘Don’t be such a prick, Brat.’ said Click. ‘Do you want me to get a “D” again?’

          Click (Ethan was his real name) was the geeky one in the group; although there was nothing geeky about him but his looks: Thick glasses, skin-on-bones thin, and a tucked-in shirt. To balance things out - and by ‘things’ I mean his geeky looks - he always had an attitude that no nerd could have.

          Brett, whom Click just called ‘Brat’, pursed his lips in annoyance. ‘Will you do this every time? I - will never - share - my - homework - with - a lazy - person, such as yourself. And for the millionth time… stop - calling me - Brat.’

          Brett was the smart one. He’d be real geeky, except that he was kinda cool.

          Brett and Click… the contrast between them was as evident as day and night. It was strange though, because even though they were almost complete opposites of each other in terms of character - and looks - they’d hang out with each other quite often.

          ‘Hey guys.’ I said.

          Murmurs of ‘Hey.’ and ‘What’s up Ryan?’ greeted me back.

I pounded fists with Adrian.

‘I saw a truck just after your house.’ he said.

‘Yeah, strange huh?’ I said.

‘Isn’t that house where that college girl lives?’ said Adrian.

‘No.’ I replied. ‘I told you before. She doesn’t live on the same block. And if you don’t want to forget about her, that’s fine with me, but don’t come crying when she says ‘no’”.

Click turned to us. ‘Who’s crying?’ he said.

‘Aren’t you?’ Adrian snapped at him.

More people were arriving, passing us as they went. I saw Charlie looking at his phone as he headed our way.

‘Hey guys.’ he said. He clicked rapidly on his cell phone, stuffed it into his pockets and faced us, looking glum.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Brett.

‘I can’t talk.’ said Charlie. ‘Dad’s business. You’ll know soon though.’

Charlie Hatfield was the mayor’s son. He was the only one of us who had a cell phone.

‘Is it serious?’ I asked.

He nodded slowly, looking at me.

‘Will it affect us?’ I asked.

He nodded again.

I looked at Brett. He had his lips pursed again.

‘Well,’ Brett said. ‘I hope it’s not worse than last year when they stopped buses running after midnight.’

‘That didn’t affect us.’ I said. ‘No one took late night buses.’

‘OW! OW! OW!’ Click was shouting from the floor. Adrian held Click’s arm in a twist behind his back. Apparently, they weren’t paying attention to what Charlie said. Not unusual.

‘Apologize.’ ordered Adrian.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ Click said desperately.

Adrian let him go.

Click started to message his arm. ‘You’re a jerk.’ He said to Adrian.

‘Don’t look into my bag without permission next time.’ Adrian said with a smirk.

The bell rang, and we scattered. I walked alongside Adrian; we shared most our classes, and right now we had history.

Adrian Martinez was my best friend and one of the very few people I confided in. Sometimes I wish I didn’t because he teased me about Rachel a lot. And he’d often give me more advice than I’d care to hear, most of which was rubbish.

I walked into the classroom and forgot about all that as soon as I saw Rachel. But when I saw Adrian’s mischievous smirk, the little bubble inside me burst.

‘If you’re going to talk about her,’ I told him in a low voice, trying to sound serious, as we took our seats next to each other. ‘don’t bother.’

He raised both his hands as if in surrender and said ‘Your loss.’

I turned to him knowing I’d regret this. ‘OK, let’s hear it.’

‘I bet she’d enjoy watching you play soccer as much as I would. So join the team.’ said Adrian, his smirk still in place. ‘Girls love muscles.’

‘Yeah you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

He was making fun of me - again. I wasn’t good at playing any sport. I almost didn’t do any physical activity, and I was lucky I was slim. The only thing he’d enjoy about my playing would be watching me making a fool of myself.

‘I would join the team.’ I told him, matching his evil smile. ‘If you’d leave your place for me.’

I was getting back at his joke. I knew there was no way he’d leave the team. He loved soccer more than video games, cars - even girls. As far as obsession goes, he’s almost as mad as my dad.

He scowled and said ‘Don’t joke about that, Ryan.’

‘Lighten up,’ I said. ‘And don’t forget the speakers today.’

He nodded, still scowling at me.

Mr. Leonard, our plump History teacher, marched, almost jogging, into class at that moment with his trademark, booming ‘Gooooood morning to the young and bright. How fair ye today?’

He looked around as he took his notes out of his leather bag.

‘No blue lipstick today Miss Carnegie?’ said Mr. Leonard to Lindsay Carnegie. ‘That’s an improvement, don’t you think?’

She scowled at him. A few people laughed, however.

Mr. Leonard grabbed his chalks and said. ‘Alright, take out your papers and quills and copy this down, please.’

OK, so today we write first. Some days he gave the lecture before we wrote. And some other days there was no writing, at all.

Unlike other teachers who filled the blackboard exclusively using white chalk, Mr. Leonard liked to color-code the notes according to their significance. I looked at the board and started writing immediately.

 

The Astern Period

· Causes leading to the Astern Period: Political, Environmental, Scientific.

· The beginning of the Astern Period: Perception, Reaction, Adaptation.

· The Fireworks Wars: World state before the wars, Fireworks Domino, Julesburg Basin War, Statistics, Outcome.

· The Adronin Miller Movement: Background, Transition into Neo Renaissance Era.

 

I copied the contents as fast as I could, making sure to leave some space for a couple of paragraphs for each of the four main points, since I’d have to fill in the details at home. The only words written in red chalk today were ‘Julesburg Basin Wars’ and ‘Adronin Miller’.

When everyone’s quills were down, Mr. Leonard spoke slowly, with a deep voice, as if narrating a documentary. ‘The Astern Period. The most critical time since the beginning of Postmodernism. Who can tell me a little about it?’

I raised my hand, and so did most of the class. We had learned about the Astern Period in middle school. Now was the time he’d give us more detail, I guess.

‘Mr. Russell.’ said Mr. Leonard.

‘That was the time when oil prices went up like crazy.’ said Jonathan Russell. ‘The scientists before were apparently stupid. They miscalculated everything; oil needs and oil reserves, etcetera, etcetera. Then presidents everywhere went crazy and all hell broke loose.’

The whole class was laughing. What Jonathan Russell said was correct, technically, although it wouldn’t make sense to those who didn’t know what he was talking about.

‘An interesting point of view Mr. Russell.’ Mr. Leonard said with a smile. ‘Although I was hoping for something more informative. Miss Brrrrrrady.’

My heart jolted as Rachel spoke.

‘The Astern Period,’ she said. ‘began when geologists confirmed that the world’s usage of oil at that time would completely deplete global oil reserves in less than twenty years, and that there wasn’t a good-enough alternative to produce sufficient electrical power. Governments all around the world sanctioned laws to reduce oil consumption by more than seventy percent. The way people lived at that time changed radically in less than a year because of lack of electricity. The years that followed were a time when the amount of technology usage declined drastically. From a technological point of view, it was like we were going backwards in time; thus, the term, Astern Period.’

‘Excellent.’ said Mr. Leonard. ‘As Miss Brady said, oil consumption was forcefully reduced, in significant amounts. No oil means almost no electrical energy - electrical machines stop working. At that time, electricity was the world’s nervous system. No electricity, no movement. The whole world stopped. Well, almost stopped - Yes Miss Doctor.’

          Reese Doctor had her hand raised. ‘But we still have electricity.’ She said.

          ‘Yes, we do.’ Mr. Leonard told her. ‘And we’re lucky those laws were sanctioned. Otherwise we won’t even have the little electricity we do today. Let me ask you this: Who of you has a generator at home?’

          Nearly the whole class raised their hands.

          ‘And those of you who don’t. How many hours of electricity do you get per week? Mr. Sanders.’

          ‘About three hours a day.’ said Allan Sanders. ‘So that’s twenty-one per week.’

‘And that’s the reason many of your parents choose to buy fuel for home usage.’ said Mr. Leonard. ‘Because twenty-one hours of electricity is too little. And even with private generators, most of you can’t afford more than thirty hours a week. Twenty hours of electricity per week is nowhere near enough to enjoy the luxuries of past times. People were used to watching TV, using computers, having lights constantly on. They were used to having electricity twenty-four hours every day. When that was no longer possible, many difficulties arouse. Tragedies actually. Who can tell me some of the most difficult challenges of that time? Mr. Maccallum.’

‘Inflation.’ I said. ‘Low oil supply increased its price, and the prices of everything else.’

‘Corrrrect. Mr. Jackson.’

‘It was hard to travel.’ said Bill Jackson. ‘By land, air, and sea. People couldn’t get to work.’

‘That’s right. And those difficulties, among many more - how did they influence governmental structures and hierarchy?’

No one answered. And this was the point where the lecture began.

Mr. Leonard explained how the political, environmental and scientific incompetence of Postmodernism lead to the Astern Period. He talked a little about how it was like at first, and how things began to change. Then, he talked about Fireworks Wars. This was the most interesting part of the lesson; there were a lot of stories.

Mr. Leonard got carried away with telling us war stories that he forgot about the time. The bell rang before he spoke about Adronin Miller; someone we all knew was important, but we didn’t know a lot about him.

‘Alright,’ Mr. Leonard shouted over the noise as we gathered our things and prepared to head to the next class. ‘I want you to pair up and write a paper on the person you think had the most influence on the wars. Due next week. One paper for each pair.’

‘Hey’ said Adrian, shouldering his bag. ‘We can start working on the paper today. If we’re done by Friday, we can go to the lake.’

‘We’ll see’ I said, jumping out of my chair and dashing out the classroom.

I had biology next and Rachel had gym, so I almost ran, trying to catch her before she reached her destination.

‘Hey, are you free tonight?’ I asked her, panting a little as I walked by her side.

Shirley Goodwin, Rachel’s friend, stared at me as if I’ve kicked her cat; something I’d never do, by the way.

Rachel frowned ever so slightly. ‘Ryan,’ she said, trying to sound sympathetic. ‘You know I don’t date. I’ve told you this only two days ago.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ I said. I could feel my heart hammering hard as my nervousness increased. ‘I was thinking, if - if you like, we could work on the paper.’

‘Oh!’ she said in a surprised tone. ‘Ye - yeah. Why not? Would you like to come to my place?’

‘Sure. What time?’

‘What time suits you?’

‘Whenever you like!’ I said. ‘Five, six, seven. All good with me.’

‘Five sounds good.’

And just like that, the tension that I felt vanished. I felt very light. OK, now I can focus on the next lesson. Rachel wasn’t there to distract me, and I was in a good mood.

Another positive point for confiding in Adrian; he’s the one who suggested I stealthily ceased opportunities to spend time with her.  OK, asking her to do homework with me wasn’t exactly stealthy. I’d say it was a down-right-obvious, desperate act. But why should I complain? She said “yes”, didn’t she?

‘Smooooth.’ Adrian’s glum voice came from right behind me.

I was unable to hide my wide grin. ‘Can you please drop the speakers at my place before five?’ I asked Adrian. I didn’t know if Rachel had speakers at her place. But I wanted to share my music taste.

          He walked past me. ‘No.’ he said, almost defiant. And I knew he was angry at me for choosing to spend my day with Rachel instead of him.

‘Oh come on!’ I shouted after him as he mingled with the crowd.

Great timing! Why were people so self-centered?

I knew Adrian hated staying at his house, but I was too annoyed with him right now to care. How can he not understand? He encouraged me to try to get closer to her!

We had math next, and - again -  I sat next to Adrian. Yes, I was still annoyed with him, but, more importantly, he was still my friend. To my astonishment, he got up and changed his seat. And that hurt, and he knew it. I felt betrayed.

The strange thing is, it wasn’t the first he did such a thing, but it still hurt.

I was aware of my own over-sensitivity. Others were aware of this trait of mine too. I was more easily hurt than most people, but it didn’t bother me; on the contrary, I prided myself for being sensitive. It was a rare thing nowadays. I believed it brought out the humanity in me… although some would argue that it dragged some naivety and weakness along with it.

I strongly disagreed with what those people said. It might look like that to them, but to me, I knew I was in complete control of how easily I got hurt. And I refused to change a thing about it no matter how it made me look. I knew in my gut it was the right thing to do. Besides, it’s only naïve if you’re no aware of what you’re doing, or if what the consequences are, or how people might take advantage of you. And that was not the case with me.

I was so immersed in my thoughts that I didn’t hear Smith - the boy now sitting between me and Adrian - until he yelled.

‘Ryan!’

‘Huh!’ I said, looking at him.

He handed me a folded paper. I open it and recognized Adrian’s handwriting. “you’re pathetic” it said.

Anger replaced the disappointment I felt rapidly, but I wasn’t a violent person. I could never understand how easy it was for people to intentionally hurt others… physically or emotionally. I could understand even less why Adrian behaved this was right now.

Mr. Riley entered the class and said ‘please pass your homework forward.’

I took a single paper, which was my homework, from the middle of my math notes and handed it to Katrina Rosas, who sat in front of me, and then looked back at Adrian’s message.

I knew that it wasn’t Adrian talking to me in the message. It was his anger. But I was angry, too, for his childish behavior, so I scribbled “jerk” beneath his message and handed it back to Smith.

‘No cheating on the homework Mr. Maccallum.’ Mr. Riley said. ‘Show me the note.’

‘It - it’s not the homework sir.’ I said.

He walked to Smith. ‘Give it here.’ He said, extending his hand.

Smith gave him the paper. Mr. Riley stared at the note, blinked, and then looked back at me in disapproval.

‘Why is he calling you a “pathetic jerk”’? Mr. Riley asked Smith.

Those who heard Mr. Riley laughed.

Smith looked surprised. ‘He wasn’t, sir.’ He began. ‘He was - ’

‘Don’t lie to me Mr. Smith.’ Mr. Riley interrupted. ‘I have the note in my hand. To the office, both of you.’

‘But, sir - ’ I tried to explain.

‘If you try to waste more class time, it’s going to be detention.’ said Mr. Riley. ‘Out, both of you.’

I looked at Adrian before I left. His face was blank, which irritated me more.

‘Wait.’ said Mr. Riley. He gave Smith the note. ‘Show this to the principle.’

Smith took the note and we left.

‘Listen,’ Smith said as we walked down the hall. ‘I know Martinez started this. You shouldn’t be punished.’

I nodded, feeling grateful. But I was still going to get scolded at least.

‘If you want, I’ll destroy the note.’ He said. ‘We’ll tell Mr. Pittman we exchanged notes before the lesson started. He doesn’t have to know what it said.’

I looked at him. I didn’t expect this. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’

I managed to smile. ‘Thanks.’ I said.

Smith knocked on the principle’s door when we reached it, and we were called in.

Mr. Pittman didn’t like to get caught up with student problems. So we told him - in the shortest way possible - that we were discussing our history project, promised not to do it again, and he let us go.

We couldn’t go straight back to class, or Mr. Riley would know we lied. So we took a detour for ten minutes then we headed back.

I discovered that Smith was a pretty decent guy. He told me he hated lying, but he also thought it was unfair that I got punished; we shared the same music taste; and he hated beef jerky. He also said that he loved comics. OK, comics wasn’t my thing, but I liked to read, so I could relate. And he had roller skates! My dad never allowed us to have those.

The rest of math period went as normal as it usually did, except that Adrian was avoiding looking in my direction. Then came English, break, geography, gym, lunch break, physics, and philosophy.

As my philosophy class ended, I made my way along with Charlie and Click to where our bikes were chained to the bike rack.

Charlie could have his driver pick him up from school, but he preferred to ride the bike to and from school. He was gulping some chocolate milkshake while Click was having one of his uncommon, meaningful chats with me.

‘But you can’t become a nuclear scientist and stay near your family can you?’ he said, trying to point out that Brett’s dream job was a wrong choice. ‘I mean, there aren’t any active nuclear power plants on the entire west coast.’

 When we turned the corner, we saw people gathered just outside the emergency exit to the south side of the school building. I could see Gug standing tall in the center.

 Gug - that’s not his real name, just a nickname he hated - the school’s biggest degenerate was emptying the contents of a freshman’s school bag on the poor guy’s head. Some jerks laughed at this; others just watched, some of them too afraid to move.

‘No pink diary?’ said Gug with a smirk. ‘I’m impressed.’

I wasn’t going to let that freshmen endure more of this, even though I wasn’t especially brave nor was I physically strong, but I was stupid sometimes.

I unlocked my bike as fast as I could, then I grabbed Charlie’s chocolate milkshake, ignoring his passionate sipping and protest, and I shouted ‘HEY GUG!’

‘Who said that?’ Gug looked around angrily.

When he spotted me, I tossed the shake in his direction as hard as I could. It hit him square in the face and covered his entire front in the brown liquid. This was a sight almost everyone laughed at.

I, however, got on my bike and pedaled hard to get out of there before anyone could stop me. I knew I was going to get into trouble for that tomorrow, but at least I knew I made the right choice.

As I made my way back home, passing the truck that got in my way that morning, I noticed a few things. First, I remembered that this house was up for sale. Second, there were pieces of furniture scattered across the house’s front yard and some were still tied to the top of the truck, which was risky, but it reduced the number of trucks needed to transport all the furniture, and that saved fuel cost. Third, a car that wasn’t there in the morning was parked next to the truck. Okay, so we had new people in the neighborhood.

I saw a couple of men leave the house and head towards the truck. I didn’t stop to see what they were going to carry into the house.

Dad would probably stop by their house tomorrow. He’d pretend he’s there to welcome them, of course. But his real reason was nothing other than prying.

I put that thought on hold as I reached home, dismounted and walked inside, only to see my family sitting around the dining table, all looking glum. The radio was in the center of the table, and the news was on.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

My mom gave me a quick glance, but other than that, no one answered. They kept listening.

I waited for a few seconds, trying to make sense out of what came from the radio, but I couldn’t. ‘Can someone please tell me what’s wrong?’ I finally said.

My older bro, Jermaine, looked at me and sighed. ‘Temecula’s getting out-zoned.’ he said.

‘What! When?’ I said in horror.

‘At the end of the month.’ he replied.

Reviews

[SybilMelton]

I think it is a good start, good introduction to the character's every day life, and a good cliff hanger at the end of the chapter. I liked how real the situations were, I'm sure a lot of people have gone through similar situation in high school.

In the very beginning, Ryan states that he is different, but from his actions and thoughts, he seems pretty ordinary to me. What makes him different? For Adrian, why doesn't he like being home?

I found it hard to believe that people are reliant on generators. While it is a good possibility of an oil shortage, there are so many alternative energy initiatives, why don't any of them work? Maybe there needs to be some more explanation there.

There were a couple of spelling mistakes: message instead of massage, principle instead of principal.
There were a few places that the tense switched, for example "as I prepare my school bag" instead of "as I prepared my school bag" to match the rest of the past tense in the story.

I would suggest trying to "show" not "tell" so much of the story. Let us discover how the characters are by their actions. For example, instead of telling us about how the relationship is with Adrian, expand the interaction between the two so we can see for ourselves.

I think you have a good flow and great starting point for whatever "out-zoned" is. I liked that you didn't give too much description, so I could build the image of what was going in my mind.

[Tearflow]

Great start! patching up some pathos with the 'crush' moment, (Oh the memories from childhood are so real and so is the cringe) by placing the character in the zone of embarrassment first develops some attachment and apathy to the reader! Continuing on, the terminologies use are a lot and I mean a LOT!!
Oh boy we have a new dictionary in print! *jk jk* kidding aside please continue on going and keep the rhythm and consistency good luck!

[Lucas P.]

This was a very interesting read. It was well written with great grammar. I like the way you portray the dynamic between the boys at school. The chapter ended ominously and left me wanting to read more!

[Shad]

Thanks a lot! Your review meant so much to me. It gave me a huge morale boost, and now I'm encouraged to write more. Thanks again :)