'Weekly' musings & whatnot~

G'day everyone and welcome to my not-so-weekly 'I have some thoughts and nowhere else to share them' post. How have you all been?

One thing I've realized while writing the novel is that... there's no romance. Which is honestly kind of unprecedented for me. If you've read any of my prior works, you'll have picked up on the fact that love's always in the air~ somewhere in there, but thus far, there's been none. Not to say there won't be any in the future, but for the first time in my writing career I don't feel absolutely pressed to have a love interest or two floating around.

Huh. Must be what they call maturity and such.

Regardless, I had to get my fix someplace; as a huge rom-com nerd (no, seriously, I've watched way too many of them), I'm no stranger to writing rom-coms, either. Again, if you dig a bit deeper into my library of novels, I've even published one. It's a bit juvenile & was written in the period of my life where I was very into anime (and all that entails), but I honestly don't think it's bad.

Since then, I've written a few more, though never published any as I just mostly never finish them. Toward the end, I kind of run out of juice & just... stop writing.

Anyway, not that anyone asked, but below is the first draft that I've written out a couple of weeks back and haven't touched since which I'm considering picking up as I always kind of wanted to write Love Rosie-esque or A Lot Like Love-esque story that tracks a pair through their life (forget that I technically did write two of these kinds of stories but never finished them).

Anyway, thank you guys so much for supporting me and I hope you'll continue to enjoy my works ^^

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Prologue (2008)

It was as ordinary a tale as it could have been--a boy sat behind a girl in the class, they started talking, feelings began to bud, and before long they were living their happily ever after... until about six months later, when the excitement had run dry, leaving behind only recognition that they had little than nothing in common.

She was studious.

He was lost.

She enjoyed long, tender walks and chats.

He liked silence and solace.

She listened to pop.

He listened to metal.

She was insecure.

He even more.

She was friendly to everyone.

He was jealous.

The differences, they learned, could write a book--and the commonalities not even a pamphlet. And thus, though it started with fanfare and fireworks, as grand love stories often do, it ended with a whimper, as most love stories do.

It wasn't long before they were closer to strangers than friends, as paths of their lives began to slowly diverge from one, common origin.

She penned her university before she'd finished her junior year.

He barely finished his junior year.

She tossed herself into all extracurriculars she could.

His only extracurricular was skipping classes.

She chose to go to cram school... willingly.

He barely went to the normal school... unwillingly.

Though it may seem, on the surface, that she was as put together as he was torn, the truth always rested somewhere in the middle. She was waking from nightmares of failing short, drenched in sweat and shaking; and he slept like a baby, even the night before an exam. She had no more than nine minutes of free time to herself on a weekday; he barely put in nine minutes of proper work a day.

Though, even in those muddy, middle truths, there were layers that still dug deeper.

Her parents loved her, and supported her wholeheartedly.

He was one of the six siblings, and was lucky if his parents knew where he was.

Her friends always had her back, no matter what.

He wasn't even certain he had friends, merely people he spent time with.

Her whole life was on rails, but they were rails of her own make.

He never felt he had a choice.

By the time they'd both turned eighteen and were set to graduate, they were both more alike and different than ever before, in ways that eluded them entirely. For the last two years, after all, they had barely exchanged seven whole sentences between themselves, distant and cold, as though the troves of the first heartache between them were all imagined.

He sat on the bench in the school's yard, skipping a speech by someone or another, dragging smoke until he would cough. It was the only way he could enjoy a cigarette anymore--inhale until it hurt.

There was nobody there to accompany him but birds and the wind, and he very much enjoyed their company. At least, he enjoyed it more so than people's. And so, as though to twist a knife already deeply lodged in his spleen, a silhouette emerged between the two school buildings, seeming hurried and gassed.

She had always been taller than him.

Initially, he'd hoped that the mythological 'late onset puberty' would allow him to catch up to her, but she, well, she never quite stopped growing. Despite the fact that he'd broken the vaunted six feet this year, she'd done so last year. Even now, as he stood at six foot one, she still loomed over him slightly.

As she caught sight of him, she stopped and invisibly rolled her eyes; she'd done so often, not exclusively toward him (though often enough), thinking no one noticed.

"Liam."

"Giantess."

"Ugh, grow up."

"I've been trying. But you--"

"--I'm really not in the mood for your lame jokes, so just save them, okay?" she interrupted rather harshly, fixing her backpack. That thing looked to be quite heavy, he noted.

"Why aren't you in there, listening to the speech?"

"Better question is--why aren't you?"

"It sounded boring." he replied rather honestly. That really was the reason why he was out here instead of in the gymnasium. "But no, seriously, don't you live for this stuff?"

"Yeah, like you have any idea what I live for." she did it again, with the rolling of the eyes. He smiled, taking a rip.

"Rocking out to the latest Katy Perry hit, last I remember." he said.

"Oh, wow. Almost four years out of date. I guess you're also still only listening to that noise you call music?"

"It's not noise," he sat up straight, old feelings surfacing. This was what they did for the last two months of their 'relationship'--fight, all the time. "It's a respected form of music that--"

"--bla bla bla. I didn't care then, what makes you think I'll care now?"

"Almost four years of growing up; I figured your tastes would have developed a little, at least. Clearly," he emphasized. "I was wrong."

"Yeah, my tastes are an issue," her eyes drifted down to his T-shirt. "Where did you get that T-shirt? No, scratch that, I don't want to know. I feel knowing alone would be a curse."

"Wow. Still a bitch, huh?"

"Yeah. And you're still a loser. Some things never change, do they?"

"I guess not."

"I guess not." she repeated, fixing her backpack again; sighing, he tossed down the cigarette and beat it out as he stood up, walking over to her. "What?" she frowned, though didn't back away.

"Just gimme it," he grabbed for the backpack. "It's like watching a baby try and hold a grip on something. Where to?"

"... the classroom," she didn't outright reject him and told him to go screw himself. The backpack, in fairness, was heavy.

"What the hell have you put in this thing? Rocks?"

"Ugh. Either help in silence, or don't help at all!"

"Alright. Here," he stopped and turned to hand her back the backpack, causing her expression to distorted.

"... shithead. It's all the books I need to return to the library," she said as they resumed walking.

"Jesus, Sarah, did you rent out the entire library?"

"If you'd ever stepped foot into one, you'd know that's barely quarter of a shelf." she said.

"Right. The mystical library, where only the brilliant Giantess ever goes."

"No, no, there are other people there," she said. "No losers, though. Sorry."

"Alright, o' the wise one. Did you get into Princeton?" he asked. It was one of the first things she ever told him about herself, actually, even before they'd started dating.

"Of course I did," she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, with a tinge of pride. "What about you? What unfortunate institution is gonna be cursed by your presence next year?"

"Aah," he sighed, smiling. "You must have some secret faith in me if you still think my grades are good enough for anything more than a gas station job."

"You're right," she said. "I don't know what I was thinking." they'd finally came to the courtyard's end and entered the school. The warm air of the summer cooled to a rather pleasant one as their shoes began to creak against the floor.

"I heard you broke up with Robbie," he said.

"Ugh. Does the entire freakin' school know?!"

"I mean, he's been bitching about it for a week straight to anyone who wanted to listen. So, yeah."

"He's such an asshole."

"Finally something we can agree on. Though probably for wildly different reasons."

"Since when do you care about my love life? Jealous much?"

"Oh, you got me. All this while I've been looking at Robbie and thinking, 'Geez, I wish I could be that guy she's screaming at! It looks like so much fun!'"

"What about you?" she quizzed as they started climbing up a rather lengthy set of stairs as the elevator hasn't been working for nearly four months now. "I don't think I've ever seen you date anyone."

"And the idea of not dating anyone from school once again echoes golden."

"Yeah. Sure. Got a lot of girlfriends up there in Canada, huh?" he glanced over and saw her grinning rather widely.

"A whole boat of them," he played along, feeling his shoulder turn a bit sore. But there was no way in hell he was fixing the strap; he'd sooner die. "Each prettier than the last. Oh, and with bigger titties. Way bigger than yours."

"Not much of an achievement, bud," she rolled her eyes, this time rather openly. "There are like seven guys in our class alone with tits bigger than mine."

"Come on, now. Those guys work very hard for that look."

"Pfft."

"Oh my. Did I almost hear a laugh there?"

"Never. You're hearing things," it was a short slip-up, and she recovered quickly. "I'd sooner die."

"Nah, I don't believe you. For as much as we hated each other, you always used to laugh at my stupid jokes."

"Exactly. Used to," she emphasized. "Just as you never complained about the size of my tits, and were simply happy to see them."

"True," he nodded, almost thoughtfully. "I guess our standards grew up. Both like and unlike you."

"..."

"It's okay to laugh, you know?"

"I'd sooner die," she repeated yet again as they finally came to their classroom's floor. He knew he'd feel the soreness in his shoulder for a few days after, yet his expression never changed. "Do you even remember why we started dating in the first place?"

"You don't?"

"Nah. I mean, I guess I thought you were kind of cute?" she said. "But it's probably just that I didn't know any better."

"And I was a beast who took advantage of that?"

"Exactly."

"Wow. Apologies, my lady. I have done a mishap against your grace--"

"--oh, shut up," she interrupted with a grunt. "Thank God we're here. Gimme it."

"Here," he handed it unceremoniously as she struggled not to drop it, and he silently laughed. "You alright?"

"I will be when you go away."

"Haah. Fine. Sorry I helped, I guess," he shrugged, turning around. "Have a good life, Sarah."

"... thank you." it was a whisper, and by the time he'd turned back around, she'd bolted into the classroom, slamming the doors behind her.

His lips curled up into a smile as he shook his head, whipping out the pack of cigarettes and lighting one up. Oddly, this was not the first time he'd done it in this very hall. Principal was mad, that was for sure.

Ordinarily, this would have been the end of the love story--young, budding love that never could quite blossom into anything greater, forever ended by the distance between the two. But oddly enough, these two would meet each other precisely seven more times in the next eleven years, before... well, we'll get there.

For now, let us see where their lives took them.