The Lake House, Chapter One | Teen Ink

The Lake House, Chapter One

July 28, 2010
By taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.


This was the new tradition, I assumed, ever since my mother moved us here to Seabrook. We had landed in a small, little hick town in South Carolina. It was our first Memorial Day here. We’d arrived just after the year before and I soon got a job. My Mom had to have something to do every holiday. So that was why I was here at The Lake. I had no clue the official name of the water because everyone just called it ‘The Lake’. Seabrook was right on the coast, but, for some reason, they had built a lake, too. Smart ones.
The water was a blue-ish shade of green and not very pretty. I’d spent enough time here to realize that you didn’t really want to take a swim in the nasty, murky water. People dumped very rank things in here. It was more of a hangout place than a cool off place. Everyone had swimming pools if they wanted to swim, or just get wet and cool off.
“Melissa, honey?”
I looked down at my mother. She was sitting next to a guy I had never met. He had blonde hair that was in a crew cut. The guy looked to be about twenty-five to her forty-three. He was sort of cute, but I could tell he wouldn’t be around long. She was plain, before. When she and my father--I couldn’t call him that. When she and Craig were together, it was a medium length, mousy brown bob. A size ten and a few smudges of eyeliner. After they’re outrageous divorce, very disagreeable, she went cougar. It was hair extensions and platinum blond. My mother went after the young guys and stayed out later than me; sometimes all night. It was like I didn’t even know her anymore.
The way she looked up at me, the desperate, needy flirting clear in her eyes. I didn’t know this woman. “Can you go get me another drink?”
“Yeah.” Better to agree and just leave, she wouldn’t notice--it was her fifth drink. Heck, she was probably trying to get me to go away.
I walked away from her with my flip-flops in hand. they were an aqua blue, the same color as the birds on my bikini. The same color as my eyes. The same color of Craig’s eyes. I should really get some contacts. I used to think my eyes were beautiful, but now it just hurt to look into them.
‘What can I get you Ma’am?” The sleazy bartender asked me in his deep, raspy voice.
“Just a refill.”
“Whatever you want, babe.” This was disgusting. Hew as at least forty-five. The bartender handed my back my drink, not even checking for ID. He was one of the easy ones. All I had to do was stand there. He wasn’t content with just being a verbal pervert, as I reached for my drink, he made sure to brush his fingers on mine and add a wink. Full on deviant.
I turned around and looked back down the beach, my mom was gone. She and Mr. Crew cut were MIA. I’d find some way home. Hopefully.
I took a drink and felt the burn as it trailed down my throat. I barely even noticed the burn anymore, and my mom never noticed her diminishing supply. She just didn’t understand. I didn’t want a hip best friend as she put it. I wanted a mom. It was cool the first few months, but when I finished practice after school or was scheduled for her to pick me up from work and she didn’t show up, it was embarrassing. I soon learned not to depend on her for anything from keeping tabs on me to keeping money in the checking account. I got my own account, so she was on her own when she over drafted and was on the cold-check list at all the shops in town. She was still halfway a mom before we moved here.
“Moving to Seabrook will be great!” My mother told me about a year ago. She spoke and unfamiliar. The blond hair looked strange and out of place around the naturally pretty face. “It’s just what we need.”
Back then I still trusted her, believed her. I soon realized that she meant ‘It’s just what I need.’ She couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Craig, after what he did. I didn’t want to be near him either. We moved here because if she couldn’t stand him, I couldn’t be around him either, even if it was court ordered.
“Mom, I’m going to have to leave all my friends.”
“I know honey, but you’ll make all kinds of new, great ones. Don’t worry.”
“You really think so?”
“Honey, Melissa, you are a bright and smart individual. You will do fine. No problems.”
Ha! And I believed her. What a lie! All the people here were stuck-up snobs, I didn’t really have that many friends. One or two, but I didn’t really even like them. None of the other girls really liked me either. That wasn’t to say the guys didn’t--they did. Especially the ones with girlfriends. My reputation wasn’t the best.
My stupid mom. I hope she’s freaking happy with herself. Dating all the guys ranging from 25-33. It was disgusting. I’ll go get with the bartender and send her pictures just to see how that makes her feel. I doubt she’d even care. She’d either ignore me or find a positive, ‘He’s got a job!’
I had reflexively drank nearly all of my drink--her drink. The sand beneath my feet was rough and grainy, rubbing them raw. I’d walked a lot farther down the beach that I’d intended to, I could barely see the lights.
She didn’t even go by Alex or Alexandria any more. My mom went my ‘Lexie’. Some one who is forty-three years old, as much as she likes to think she’s not, isn’t supposed to have a name like that. It’s for young people like me. Call me Lexie and her Melissa, at least then it’d sound normal. No wait, that would involve my mom caring about something other than every impulse she wants to act on.
I tipped the cup up for another drink and realized it was empty when all the ice came clattering down on my nose. I threw the cup down. Who cared about littering.
I felt the moisture form my eyes before I knew I was crying. No. I didn’t want to cry over them--I’d done enough of that already. This was why I didn’t drink alone, exactly why. When you’re with a bunch of people, it just helps you forget where you are and who you’re with. If I drank enough, I could be back in Chicago again, with my friends. But if I was alone, it just threw down the wall I’d built inside and let the thoughts overpower me, like tonight. Some nights I let it come, I pondered all the details and really thought about it. But those nights were pre-planned. It had started one Friday night a month and two Saturdays. Now it was down to just one Friday night a month because there is really only so many times you can go over the same information. Same details, same questions. Why did he do that? Why did Mom do this? I wasn’t even sure if she was going to ‘Mom’ much longer. It may just come to be Lexie. But her picture popped into my head instantly when I thought of the word mom. It was always hard to change habits, but I could do it. Just takes some practice. Like she’ll even notice.
The party lights were just a dim glimmer behind me now. I didn’t care. There was a house up here, it looked empty enough. I walked up the porch steps, rang the doorbell and jumped into the bushed and waited two minutes, then repeated. No one home. I wasn’t going to break in, I wasn’t even going to steal anything. If there was a key somewhere near by, then so be it. If not, I’d find a way home. Looks like Friday night might come again this month. Under the chair cushion, nope. Above the door, nope. The most obvious place, you bet. Under the welcome mat. It went smoothly into the lock and I hear the click as the door opened. It’s not forced entry if you use a key. Is it?
I hope not.
As much as I make it seem like I don’t care if I get in trouble, I do. Well, I don’t care if I get in trouble by my mother, I actually like to. It makes her remember she has a daughter. But the police are a different story. I didn’t work so hard the past few years not to get into an Ivy league school. A mess-up with the police would probably make the chances slim to none if not completely cut them out.
School didn’t have any moral grounds. Well, other than cheating, but there was no way to do something completely unexpected. Yes, you could cuss your teacher out on last night’s homework, but that’d be stupid. She knew the questions and answers. The learning was set and you knew what you were supposed to be talking about. Math was the easiest. They were numbers, the same in every county. There was a set in stone answer, unlike the leniency in English. One set formula and everything came out perfect. Math had such an easy life.
I closed the door behind me. This house was nice, I guess. I didn’t see any neighbors around so I turned on a light. Thank goodness they didn’t have an alarm system. The house was large, but the décor a little tacky and outdated. From the outside it looked nice, but now that I could see inside, I knew the truth. But you can’t always see inside. The outside lies.


This house looked as if the owners had spent all their money buying the house ad didn’t have any money left to bring it from 1995 to now. The living room was nice. Personally, I would’ve done my bedroom, the kitchen, the living room, then the guest room, but it wasn’t my house. I found the main remote and sat down on the L-shaped couch. A wall of pictures was to my left.
There was an older couple in one or two of the pictures, I assumed this was their house. There was a family portrait with a middle aged mad, a middle aged woman and a boy about my age. That was probably their grandson because I saw about four other pictures of him on the wall. He was pretty hot.
After couple of hours of television, I decided to check out the food situation. They had gone by my fix-up agenda. This kitchen was very nice. It was better than nice. All the appliances were stainless steel and the countertops were made out of the really nice rock that you can even cut on with no cutting board. They even had a coffee maker that would make just about any coffee related drink that you wanted. But no food in the fridge. Three sodas and a bottle of mustard were all that were there. I looked in the pantry, the only thing there were some cans of soup and Vienna sausages. These people were gone for the summer.
I wasn’t going to tell anyone about this, but it just might be my new home away from home. I had my own vacation house. And it was going to come in very handy.


The author's comments:
I read another story on teen ink that inspired me to write this. I think it was called 'House in the Lake.' So, check it out. And this is the first chapter.

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This article has 34 comments.


on May. 25 2011 at 3:32 pm
AddictedToWriting BRONZE, La Grande, Oregon
3 articles 5 photos 124 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Writer's Block is when your characters get fed up with all you put them through and go on strike." -- Anonomous
"A Writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."--Thomas Mann

Haha, no I do not think it sucks.  :D  I very rarely put so much effort into any review unless I see potential in either the idea or the writer.  Or both (and believe me, I've read stories with absolutely no potential whatsoever.  It was terrible.  :()

 

No problem, and I'm glad you found something helpful in my less-than-cherry comment, and I'm glad to see that you're good at accepting critisizm.  That's something not a lot of writers can do, and it's probably one of the most--if not the most--important trait anyone in the creative field can possess.

 

:D


on May. 24 2011 at 9:08 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

Yeah I get it. And things like you say are helpful. Because if this did get published I want to know what someone who picks it up will think. And as the story goes it gets better. My writing has gotten better over the last year and the new chapters are better. I think the first chapter is my worst. I kinda know what I want it to have in it but don't do a good job of going through with it. I for sure need to rewrite the first chapter and I promise they are better as you go (to me at least. lol). And I wanted her to be really bitter at the beginning so you can see her kind of change through the story because her family issues really play into it. And this is definitely jumpy. That's a really good word for it. I hope you don't decide it sucks but the others are better. Like I already said.

And thanks for the comment!!! :)


on May. 24 2011 at 3:57 pm
AddictedToWriting BRONZE, La Grande, Oregon
3 articles 5 photos 124 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Writer's Block is when your characters get fed up with all you put them through and go on strike." -- Anonomous
"A Writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."--Thomas Mann

Okay, so this is a pretty long review.  I also noticed after I wrote it that a lot of my critiques about your writing style are probably due mostly to personal taste.  I'll leave them in here anyway, in case you find something helpful, but I thought you should know.  You're definately a talented writer, and most of these are more my personal views of this kind of style.  :D

 

Hmmm...I don't know, I can see potential for a good story here, but if I were to pick this up at a bookstore, I wouldn't have gone much further than a page or two.  All I'm getting is angst and family issues, which leads me to believe that this is going to be a very overly angsty book.

Now, there's nothing wrong with angst.  Heck, I absolutely love writing angsty passages.  But that's all this had.  After being used so much, angst tends to lose its intensity.  There's absolutely no contrast here.

 

Also, the main character's actions and thoughts tended to be a bit jumpy.  She'd be thinking about one thing, then she'd jump to another that was similar, but didn't really flow smoothly--a good example of this is your jump from the Ivy League school paragraph to the "schools don't have moral grounds" sentence.  It didn't flow right, and that sentence doesn't make a lot of sense.

I also didn't get the jump from the--where were they?  A beach party?--to the empty beach, to randomly breaking into someone's house when she didn't want to get in trouble.

So, yeah.  Hope that wasn't too harsh, because I didn't mean it to be.  You're a good writer, and like I said, I can definately see potential!


on May. 21 2011 at 10:35 am
Garnet77 PLATINUM, Sinagpore, Other
31 articles 6 photos 577 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Everything's a triangle." ~ My mother

"Write what you love, write what you care about, because sometimes, it's the easiest way to be heard."

I love the voice of the character. It was the first thing that interested me when I started reading this. Also, the story is intriguing. I find it makes me want to read on. As others have said, you should work on the tense, but that's really the only flaw I noticed, and easily fixed. Great job!!!

on Sep. 4 2010 at 11:16 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

LOL I've seen that quote on a few facebook profiles--including yours. lol But,,, send it to me... I'll read it. I'll try to anyway. I've read one or two of ur pieces... they're awesome. Like, a LOT better than mine. lol. Maybe when i'm a senior mine will be that great too. lol :)

on Sep. 4 2010 at 6:13 pm
basically my novel can be explained by my fav quote: "One day dude, im gonna run into the woods and never come back. Then, when i come back, i'll be the knife master!!"

on Sep. 3 2010 at 5:14 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

I still have to finish typing the last page, hopefully i'll do that tonight. I have to write thank you notes, so when I finish them i'll finish it and send it to you.

Yeah, what's yours about? I'll try my best to offer suggestions... I might not be the greatest help tho. haha lol :P


on Sep. 1 2010 at 7:03 pm
yeah yeah send it!! xD and if you're interested ill start throwing chapters of my novel at you :P

on Sep. 1 2010 at 6:52 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

Haha lol! Yeah, I'm always like 'WTH?' when some random person adds me as a friend. The last one I got was a person with 0 mutual friends and she had 7 friends. I was like, ignore! Yeah, my profile is pretty normal... I'm pretty normal... I guess. haha lol :)

p.s. I'm almost finished typing chapter 2 of this story... Do you want me to send chapter one along with it? Cuz I will. If you haven't read it on here. I'll send it anyway. You can proofread it too :)


on Aug. 31 2010 at 7:29 pm
lmao i was wondering who was requesting me with 0 mutual friends and looked like they had a perfectly normal profile

on Aug. 30 2010 at 9:56 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

p.s. I added you on fb... so if you see someone named taylor come up as a friend request... it's me,,, lol,,, not some weird stalker. haha lol :)

on Aug. 30 2010 at 9:47 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

Sensorship (I think the problem is that it's spelled with a S) is v evil. Just like Dictatorship. And a lot of other 'ship's. But not friendship or companionship. Those were the first good 'ship's I thought of off the top of my head. lol xP

We should make a list of good and bad 'ship's. lol... I make lists for everything... I think I might be slightly OCD... Maybe. :) 


on Aug. 30 2010 at 7:32 pm
yeah it really is censorous or however u spell it lol it bothers me a lot cuz censorship is evil.

on Aug. 30 2010 at 7:22 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

haha lol... You don't seem like a creeper or anything... But... you never know! haha jk lol :) teen ink is very censor-ous. I soo just spelled that wrong. lol xD

on Aug. 30 2010 at 5:53 pm
they probably do... but idc lol i'm not trying to be creeper nd meet/date anybody over the net im just trying to make friends and get my name out there

on Aug. 30 2010 at 5:36 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

It deleted one of your comments that i'd already replied to. the one before the one before the one I posted yesterday. And it said you posted something else... did teen ink delete it too? Do they have something against people talking about fb? haha lol :P

on Aug. 29 2010 at 7:56 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

hmm... i'm confused... I meant if i type in ur ema.il address on fb would ur profile come up? And, I'm trying to finish typing one of the chapters of my story... I'll send it to u when I finish. I write everything on paper, then type it... So,,, It really helps with editting though. You can see the spelling errors and grammer mistakes as you go to type it up the second time and you're able to change it. :)

on Aug. 28 2010 at 8:41 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

lol I'm about to go get on right after this. I haven't been on in like, two days! haha lol! But, if I type in ur email address will ur profile come up? Just wondering. lol :P

on Aug. 25 2010 at 9:54 pm
yes I am on FB all the time lol im on right now xP

on Aug. 25 2010 at 8:41 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

Aw, now I feel bad for you. haha jk lol.  My parents aren't very strict. Every once in a while they'll get  mad and make some threat like, you're lucky we let you have facebook or something. lol R u on fb? Just wondering. lol :)