[SimeSublime]

Such reading would be depressing, as it would bring back the memories of some of the crap that I went though.

Regardless of what you said, the chapter was good. Sure, there wasn't a large amount of actual romantic happenings, but it filled in the years and set the scene for whats coming up. It continues the flow of the story and fits in nicely.

[Madam Corvax]

Chyld, I understand that this is only a beginning. I am really looking forward to reading it all.

Perhaps it will help me in the end to understand, uhm, male soul. You see, when I was young, nobody really wanted to go out with me. Perhaps by reading your work I can now understand why? What qualities I was lacking that were attractive to boys around that age?

I would really like to see that answer to that question

[Chyld]

This is mostly introduction to the main bulk of the narrative, since I reckin 7/8ths of the story is going to be about Katy. So here we go again with more exposition...

"Psst, your brother's a nutter..."

As far as first words ever spoken to the future center of your universe go, even I'd have to agree that this sentence topped the charts. But back in Year 11, during another suicidally boring Humanities lesson with Mrs Jenkins, these were the words I decided to introduce myself to Katy with, failing to realise the mild hypocrisy behind them.

I didn't know an awful lot about her back then. She had her small trio of friends, who kept themselves to themselves. When Marissa and Sheryl had a fight back in Year Eleven, it was with this small group that Marissa found solitude, and to which I relayed spiteful notes from Sheryl, under the assumption that this act would eventually land me lots of sex. You believe just about anything when you're 14, but this is besides the point.

My amazing introductionary sentence was formulated when, walking with Marissa one day, a small child appeared out of nowhere and tried to assault her, in the same sort of way as puppies sometimes attack their mothers. This was introduced as Katy's little brother, and amused me sufficiently for me to comment. Come the Humanities lesson...

"What?"

"I said, you're brothers a bit mad."

"...Alright then."

First impressions were not my priority in those days, it seems. Greater importence was placed on keeping my hair spiked, writing the name of every band under the sun on my bag, and countering the new and ingenious ways of getting my phone confiscated.

In fact, the only other time we crossed paths at that time was on Work Experience. We both wanted to do some journalism work, she spent two weeks working for a local newspaper, and I was stuck with the British Dental Trade Association. Bitterness soon spilled over into irony, as on one day, I was tasked to help at a very importent presentation from an MP, which she was helping to report on. This incident taught me a very importent lesson in turning off my mobile phone. On the other hand, the company was much appreciated.

But that is not to say my life was totally devoid of trying to be nice to her. One day, she came in with her hair done up in some fashion. Her hair, one of the things I used to love about her, always looked good by degrees, but something had been done to it that I quite liked. So I told her so.

Evidently, nobody tells the quiet ones that their hair looks good very often, as it stuck. Either that, or I told her that her hair looked nice on several different occasions. It happens to be an area of my life that is somewhat sketchy. But the next thing I knew, I was reading a text message from Sheryl, saying "Do you fancy Katy, then?"

In my experience, this translated from girl-speak to boy-speak means "You do fancy Katy, and neither evidence nor threats shall prove otherwise." And she set out to prove it. Every time I saw her, the words "you", "fancy" and "Katy" crept into the conversation.

Nauturally, this was quite out of the blue for me - I'd just been nice, surely it didn't mean that much?

I lost sleep over that, many nights of soul-searching, and almost lost a friend when Sheryl's relentless pestering snapped me somewhat, resulting in one very regrettable e-mail.

But one evening, lying in bed, I came to a startling conclusion.

She was right.

[Just your average movie goer]

A very good introduction to Katy, mate. And very well-written. I particularly liked the descriptions of what was important to you at that age, showing how different you and your views on life were - that's really good stuff, and it's good that you can remember it honestly, without trying to match you as a fourteen year old with you as you are now. Lastly, this chapter had a very well written conclusion.

Good work, mate.

[Chyld]

Well, I was clearly an idiot at that age, but that's an irrelevance, really, as I'm an idiot now...

The next bits going to be quite interesting when I write it. It'll be all the better if I can get back to the style I started in, I personally fear I'm slipping...

[SimeSublime]

It seemed a bit, I don't know, looser this time around. I'd like to see you keeping it both detached and dramatic when we hit the main show.

[J m HofMarN]

Hmmm this is really not bad, though normally I shun the mushy love story type things this certainly isn't the typical love story. I'm really interested in where this will go. So far it seems that all of the best writers on this forum are either parodying other things in a humorous manner or writing largely autobiographical "fiction" a lot of people start out like this so I'm really eager to see where everyone here goes soon.

[Chyld]

Well, I've spent quite a long time making sure I wrote this chapter right, and I still think I've messed it up a bit. Still, quite a lot happens, so its not blighted in that respect...

The course of true love is littered with many false starts. While, on reflection, I can see I have suffered from nothing but false starts, the fifteen year old me felt that they all came in the later half of Year 11. Before Christmas that year, I was simply bouncing off the walls wondering how to go about articulating my feelings properly. A Christmas present was a good start, but when my bag of chocolate coins was reciprocated with a large Aero bar, I felt rather wrong-footed.

Over Christmas, I tried to take stock of the situation, but all I learned was how much fun being drunk is. I returned to school in 2002 with a taste for the bottle, and no more clue than I had before.

However, Valentines Day seemed to be a fine and cliched oppertunity to properly show my feelings. What better way to show my undying love for a girl than by the produce of a card-making company? So dutifully, I found a suitable looking card and bear. The problem was, for some reason, I never found the chance to give it to her on the day itself. However, love always has plans to mislead the optimistic.

At the time, I was preparing a piece of work for Drama with Mike, Sheryl, and another girl, and we had decided that we needed a full day of rehearsal to get it ready. By curious luck, Sheryl had mentioned that Katy didn't live too far away from her, therefore condemning me to an idea. Take a break somewhere in the preceedings, drop off the goods, be done with it.

Cometh the day, I met up with Mike earlier, to meet some friends of this. These happened to be his crush of the time, a girl called Phillipa, and her friend, Angela. Both struck me at the time as being fine, beautiful examples of womanhood, or as I told Mike at the time, Angela had a bloody fine pair of tits. Nothing else registered from that encounter, which was quite fine in my mind, as I had a mission, and a drama rehearsal to get to.

As far as I remember, most of that rehearsal amounted to dressing me and Mike up in Sheryl's spare clothing, and taking pictures of it. How much actual rehearsing we managed remains unknown, but eventually, the time came when everyone got sufficiently wound up with my pesterings, that we left for Katy's.

At the time, it seemed like a long walk, but I was optimistic that the ends would certainly justify the means. And eventually, we got there. Nobody home, it seemed. I decided to just leave it all on the doorstep, and get back to rehearsing.

Halfway down the drive, I raised my eyes, and saw her brother in the window. Well, there went the stealthy approach, I thought, as she answered the door. Still not a problem, mind, its so much more polite to deliver it in person.

And then her parents pulled into the drive.

Now, to take a short look at this scene as a snapshot in time: One brother still sat in the window, observing the goings-on, me and Katy stuck in the doorway, me not quite wanting to meet the parents yet, she quite concerned that her parents are going to me this idiot who's stalking her. The other brother getting out of the car, and trading words with Mike - they knew each other from playing rugby together. And then her dad asked me what amounts to "Do you play rubgy, boy?"

Taking into consideration that I was even more of a scrawny wreck than I am now, this didn't go down well in the "Well, this is difficult" stakes. And all this time, Sheryl and the other girl are still standing at the mouth of the drive with Mike, stuck spectating this romatic gesture gone quite, quite wrong.

Fortunatly however, Mike later gave me Angela's MSN address, so the day wasn't completly screwed up.

[SimeSublime]

I hate it when things go terribly wrong like that. I've had a simliar experience or two myself. The chapter was interesting, the only problem that I could see was "...going down well in the 'Well, this is difficult' stakes." Just doesn't seem to flow.

[Chyld]

Groovy. That's the sort of thing I need to know 'bout, and it will be gone by the time it hits the website proper.

[Chyld]

Sorry I haven't written anything lately, I sorta lost interest. But as we speak, creative juices are firing, and I'll edit this post to add the next chapter as soon as I've finished putting fingers to keys. Thank you for waiting, if anyone did.

EDIT: Here you are. Its a bit rushed, but there's very little to say, and I want to get to the meat of the meal...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Despite my extreme embaressment, and the inadvertent "meet the parents" session, I felt that the present delivery trip had gone quite well. She sent me a thank-you card, and had named the bear "". All seemed quite good on that front, in my opinion.

What also seemed to be going quite well was things with Angela. We had been talking on MSN for a fair bit, swapped phone numbers, and texted each other a bit. All of this attention was quite overwhelming to me. Never before had a girl actually expressed an interest in me as a romantic item, and when she said she thought I was a sexy lump of manflesh, I had to wipe away an actual tear.

It therefore seemed quite a sensible idea, when a gaggle of her friends phoned me at 4pm one Thursday afternoon, probably playing a prank, suggesting I ask her out. So I immediatly dropped sticks, phoned her, and asked her out. It made perfect sense at the time, and still makes some sense now.

For the first time in five years, I actually had a girlfriend.

Naturally, this had me in quite a good mood. More so, when I found out that Mike had asked out Phillipa on the same day. This suggested to me what I later came to know with a touch of irony - this was a season for love.

Word travelled quite fast - he has a girlfriend. He has a girlfriend? He has a girlfriend! We all arranged to do stuff - go to the cinema, hang around at Mikes house, the usual stuff. It seemed, as all relationships do, like it was a match made in heaven. On reflection, Lord alone knows what Katy was now feeling, but she seemed amiable to it.

Obviously, all good things come to an end, and since I hadn't been training very hard, it only took a week for the inevitable to occur. Her group and mine were finally going to properly meet on the next Thursday evening, at a Venture Scout meeting. Had I been paying attention, nothing good can come of a union located where there's a uniform. She seemed distant, but I put it down to circumstances. And afterwards, I recieved a phone call, with those infamous words:

"Its not working out, lets just be friends."

Mike therefore thought he was in some form of superiority after this - his relationship had alreadty lasted longer, it was therefore truer love. Ironically enough, he got dumped the very next day. Little did I know how hard this had hit, as I had a chase I had to maintain myself...

This post has been edited by Chyld: 09 March 2005 - 10:14 AM

[Mad Rabbit]

Chyld, The writing is amazing. I think the the majority of us have all had similar experiences as you at one point or another. I admire your courage for putting up your experiences for all to read, I doubt I would be willing to do the same.

[SimeSublime]

We're still reading, even if it isn't up all that often.

[Slade]

I'm reading, I find it quite entertaining and well done. Although I can't say I've had much of a similar experience in the romance department. The only person who ever expressed interest in me is my now ex- but still best friend, and that was limited due to circumstances I don't wish to discuss here. Though I did get stuffed with the being "just friends" line. I'm just too unassuming for people to notice me and say something, or not attractive enough, I suppose.

Oh well. I'm used to being single, no since crying about it. Keep up the good work, Chyld!

[Chyld]

Well, what I think is the best material is about to start emerging soon. What you have read is a prologue really. Next chapter onwards, it does go mentalish...