Writing Wednesday: Lockdown

Since my friend Caron Guillo edited this novel for me (and she's really good, mine you), I've been excited about doing revisions on it (no time yet, but it will come).  Here's an excerpt:

     We got off the bus, and Brady and I headed to our lockers, which were right next to each other.  That’s how we met.  I remember the first time I laid eyes on him I nearly melted.  He has these sexy blonde curls that shine like the rays of the sun, a nice smile with perfectly straight white teeth, the cutest dimples you’ll ever see, and eyes so blue they’ll break your heart. 

      I’d try to talk to him all the time, small talk, about the weather or school, or movies.  He wouldn’t say much.   I thought he wasn’t interested.   Then one day he walked right up to me and said, “Kat, I think you’re the cutest most interesting girl at this school.” My heart pounded loudly in my ears, and I could feel all the blood inside me rush up to my cheeks.  We’ve been pretty much inseparable since then.

     The day in question, I remember, I was leaning up against my locker and he whispered in my ear.  I can’t remember now what he said, but I remember his words tickled, sent shivers down my spine and caused a break out of goose bumps down my arms and legs.

     Matt’s locker was on the other side of mine.  Whenever I saw him, I made it a point to say hello, to connect with him.  We were friends once, best friends, really, all the way from kindergarten until about sixth or seventh grade.  He lived across the street from me.    We were the kind of friends that had our very own secret hideout, unknown and hidden from the rest of the world.  The kind of friends that made pacts in blood, and the friends that promised each other if we were still single by thirty, we’d marry.  But things change.  People change.  We began liking different things, hanging out in different groups, drifting apart.  It happens.

     I tried to reach out to him because I worried about the path he was heading down.  His parents?  They fought all the time, always have.  I don’t know the why’s or how’s about it, but sometimes they were so loud I could hear them through my bedroom window.  Matt turned to pot and video games to drown out their voices, to escape it.  I don’t think they knew or cared very much, so who could blame him?  I can’t imagine what it would be like to live with two people that hated each other, that seemed to hate their own child.