The Book

-Chapter 7-

-Elliot's Point of View-

Raelynn and I sat indian style on the floor of her room, facing each other. She handed me a journal with a black leather cover. I looked at her.

"It's what I write in." she explains, glancing down at it.

I nod and flip to the first page. On it was a small poem titled "Black and White."

It was very interesting. Let's just say that the poem confirmed my theory of her being angsty.

"How old are you?" I asked her, putting my head on my hand.

"17," Raelynn answers, "why?"

A smile stretched across my face as I attempted not to laugh. It's official, Raelynn is an angsty teen. "Oh, nothing."

"You're strange." Raelynn pointed out.

"I think I'd say the same about you." I responded.

She rolled her eyes, "Whatever... So, what did you think about the poem."

I thought for a moment as Raelynn watched me eagerly.

"I like it a lot," I answered honestly, "there was a lot of thought put into it. It's very dark, which is really powerful in the word of poetry. Honestly, I haven't written poetry in awhile so I don't have much input."

"R-really, you think so?" Raelynn stuttered, her cheeks turned pink.

Another thing you should learn from me... When writers get told their work is good, they will very much appreciate it. In whatever shape or form they are told that that someone likes it, they will most likely remember it for a long time. A very long time. Putting all that emotion and effort into writing is a tiring experience. We want recognition. As you can see, I gave Raelynn recognition and she seemed happy about it. After all, she deserved it.

"Of course I do," I smiled at her, "give me another page number to read."

"Page 11... It's a short story that I wrote a couple days ago." Raelynn says.

I flipped to that page and started to read. It was a short story about a zombie apocalypse. In the end, the zombies won and killed all the remaining people. Even though it was only a short story, it was really good. The plot was really thought out, along with the characters. You can obviously tell that she writes a lot.

"Wow." was all I said. Raelynn shot me a nervous glance.

I handed her back her journal, "You write a lot?" I asked.

"Yeah." she nodded.

"I can tell," I stated, "you're really good at what you do."

Her face got pink again, "Thanks. I try." She paused for a moment and then asked, "May I see your writing?"

I sighed, "I don't have anything on me. Sorry."

Raelynn gave me her notebook, a quill, and some ink.

"Write something right now then."

"I have nothing to write about at the moment." I groaned.

"Doesn't matter. Just write down a few words and see where it takes you." Raelynn said, visually eager to see what I had to write.

I laughed at how determined she was to see my writing and turned the journal to an empty page.

A sigh escaped my mouth as I started to gain a strong headache. Writing had always done this to me. Even though I had a searing pain, I still continued to write down whatever came to mind.