Excerpt: This Is A Novel

So, senior year started, and everything was, as I said, perfect. And then I met Noah. Noah. NoahfuckingTaylor. On the second day of school, he came into my English class, looking like a lost puppy or something. He was the new kid. Cliché, I know, but fucking deal with it. Anyway, he came in, and looked around, and Mrs. Mullens smiles her sweet little smile and introduces herself, and then introduces him to the class. “This,” she says, “is Noah Taylor. He just moved into town.” She turns to him. “Why don’t you say something about yourself?” He looks her in the eye and says “No.” It’s not a mean spirited way, or even an anti-social way. It was a simple denial of her request. She blinks, surprised. “Oh, alright then. Well…” There is an awkward pause. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

Noah looks around the classroom, and then takes the seat next to me. Why that seat, I wonder in retrospect. Of all of the seats that he could have sat in, he sits in the one next to me. This is the start of it all, in my opinion. That simple choice he made, that one, small action that should hardly warrant a line in a book, is one that changed everything.

Now, Noah didn’t belong in our school. It was clear from his appearance. We were A and F, he was eff’n a. He looked like he had rolled out of bed ten minutes before class, thrown on some random clothing, and then left. His hair was jet black, short, and messy, though not in a ‘it-took-me-half-an-hour-to-do-my-hair’ kind of way, but in an ‘I-don’t-own-a-comb’ kind of way. His features were soft, ears pierced in a few odd places. His shirt proclaimed the name of some random band that was either indie or metal. His pants clung to his slender hips, held up by a belt adorned with old bottle caps. His Chuck Taylors were a bright purple, splattered with different coloured paints. I looked at the guy sitting in front of him for comparison. Hair (bleach blonde) neatly gelled into place, a long sleeve shirt (forest green and navy blue) with the Abercrombie logo on the pocket, jeans that he paid too much money for (especially because they were already partially ripped), chiseled features with just the right amount of stubble. It was like day and night.