Tell Me A Story

Chapter 8

"So, Adam, are you going to college?"

That was a sudden question. Here we are just lying down and having a nap on the school rooftop and she suddenly asks this.

"I dunno. I already got accepted into the local university and I have nothing better to do. Might as well."

Suddenly, she jerked up.

"Wait, you're going there too?"

I looked at her, surprised at her sudden burst of energy.

"You too?"

"Yeah!!"

"Awesome. Guess we'll hang together even there."

"Alright!"

She started making gestures of victory and success. This girl is weird in so many levels, but guess that's one of the many thing I love about her.

"So, what are you studying?"

"I am going to the Music Department, since its one of the few universities with a perfectly developed one. Gonna focus on prepping my voice for the future."

"Guess we will be able to hang often. The English Department is on the same building. We'll be neighbors."

"Epicness."

We smile at each other. Suddenly, someone came in. Long black hair and dark eyes. Pale white skin. This girl, her name is Michelle, if I recall correctly. She's Ashley' best friend.

"Oh, hi, Michelle."

"Hey, Ash. The teacher was looking for you. Something about last minute paperwork."

"Oh, ok. Be right back, Adam."

"Okay, I'll be here."

She ran off to the Teacher's Lounge, leaving Michelle and I alone on the rooftop.

"Hi, my name's Adam."

"Yeah, I know. Ashley talks a lot about you. My name's Michelle. Michelle Summers."

"Yeah, I know. Ashleyalways talks about you."

"Does she now?"

We just looked at each other and laughed. Guess having a friend in common speed things up quite a bit.

"So, are you going to the local university too?"

"No, I'm staying with my dad in the next town over. I'll go to college there."

"Ah, right. Ashley did say your parents were divorced. What are you studying?"

"English Literature. I love books, so I wanna work with something where I'm surrounded by them."

"Haha, guess I'm not the only one."

"Wait, you're gonna study English Lit too?"

"Yeah. I've always loved books, so I wanna write them. I wanna give readers them same experience I felt. I wanna be able to say that every word, every sentence reached someone and it threw them into another world. Let them experience something amazing."

She suddenly sat in front of me and just stared in pure amazement.

"You have my full support."

Whoa. This girl barely knows me but she already supports my dream. She's up so close, so I got a little embarrassed. She's cute and her eyes were like wells of a wide space of darkness. A black canvas, ready to be painted in all the colors.

"T-thanks. Do you wanna read some of my short stories?"

"Sure."

I handed her my notepad and she began to read. She had a much more focused look on her face thanAshley did. She knew her books, of course. Now I'm nervous my stuff won't be good enough. She kept reading, turning each page slowly. The minutes seemed like hours, and I was wondering where Ashley was.

"Huh."

That's not good. She got close again and started pointing out specific parts of each story.

"See? The word selection is lacking here. You could've used "Sam and I" instead of "we", and here, here and here. The wider the vocabulary is, the better the experience."

She's right. I noticed that stuff ages ago but got too lazy to re-write everything.

"Then there's the grammar errors here, here, here, here, here, and here. The word repetition here, and here. Yeah... you need to proofread these things more often."

Man, I knew she would be a better judge for my stories than Ashley,   but I feel like most of my work got crucified for no reason.

As I was sulking, Ashley came back with her bag.

"Hey, Michelle. Let's go, the music store will close soon."

"Ah, right. We're going to cut it close. Here you go, Adam."

She returned my notepad and got up. Just before she left, she turned around and said something.

"Although there were some mistakes here and there, you're stories were all interesting and fun to read. I'm sure you made the right call to enter the world of writing."

"Haha, thanks. See ya, Michelle."

"Good bye, Mister Novelist. Looking forward to reading your next work."

And she was gone. Man, that was a weird but enjoyable turn of events.