《Always There || Greta Van Fleet》Chapter 14: First Love
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I balanced my hand on his leg to try and keep the room from spinning. He reached up, gently caressing my face again, flashing me that same adorable smile that I had fallen for so many years ago.
I remember the first time I laid eyes on him. He ran over as soon as our moving truck pulled up to the house, greeting us with a beaming smile and eager eyes. His mom met us in our driveway, apologizing for his enthusiasm while Jake nervously hid behind her leg. Even that young, there was just something about him. He wasn't like the other boys. He never pulled my hair or pushed me down or chased me around the yard. He sat with me and talked with me and played with me like friends do.
I think I had fallen for him before I even knew what that meant.
And soon enough, I was laying up at night, dreaming about the day he'd confess those same feelings for me, and now.. the day was finally here. I had to take a second to just relish in the moment, for younger me, who deep down didn't know if this day would even come. I wish I could go back and tell her that all those nights of dreaming weren't wasted.
"Jaime, I just.. I need you to know that this isn't the alcohol talking. I have wanted this.. for as long as I could remember. You have no idea.."
"I really don't." I laughed, leaning in closer. "This whole time, all I've ever wanted was for you to give me.. something, I just needed to know.. either way.. what we were."
"Well.. now you know." He sighed, giggling to himself. "Only took me twenty one years."
"Better late than never." I laughed, gently running my fingers up his arm. He bit down on his lip, his cheeks burning red.
"Please stay again tonight." He whispered. "I.. I don't want you to go. Not after.. this. I just-"
"I'll stay." I said, reaching over for the clothes he had given me last night.
"You can keep those. You.. you look good in them." My heart jumped, now unable to contain my smile. He sighed, running his fingers through my hair.
"You are so beautiful, Jaime." He whispered, his eyes moving down to my lips.
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"You can't look at me like that if you're not gonna kiss me." I said, hating the fact that after all this, he was actually going to make me wait. But I guess after how many years, what was a few more days.
"I'm sorry." He smirked, his eyes meeting mine again. I held my stare on him for a moment before finally getting up, heading over to the door.
"W-where are you going?"
"I'm gonna go get changed." He shook his head, pushing himself up from the bed.
"No, you.. you stay here. I'll leave. It's okay." I nodded, watching him as he went out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.
Though I wouldn't have minded if he stayed.
I quickly got changed, crawling back onto his bed and under the covers. Looking over at his end table, I could see a few scattered pieces of paper, all filled with writing, some crumpled up and tossed to the side, but one was kept neater than the rest, tucked beneath his lamp. I peeked over at the door before sliding it out from under, reading through.
Stay a while in your slumber
tumble under
and never wake.
Dream forever in your wonder
she'll never sunder
into the day.
I couldn't help but smile, reading it over and over. Long before the band was even an idea, he had always been an amazing writer. I was glad that other people were finally able to experience his words in the way that I had for so many years.
For the longes time, I was the only one who was allowed to read what Josh wrote, and I always held that near and dear to my heart. Having an artist trust you with their work is one of the most beautiful feelings; being welcomed into their world, even just for a moment, little by little, word by word..
I never felt closer to him than when he trusted me with his work.
He then knocked on the door, waiting for me to call him back in.
"It's okay." I laughed. "I'm done." He peeked his head in, his eyes instantly shooting down to the piece of paper in my hands as he crawled across the bed, cuddling under the covers next to me.
"What'd you find?" He asked, scooting closer to me to get a better look.
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"Is this gonna be a song?" I asked, handing it over to him. He read it over, his smile growing.
"Maybe." He said softly. "This one.. I've been working on this for a bit. I don't know where it fits yet, but.. it feels special." I turned to face him, positioning myself under his arm.
"What inspires you? When you're writing, what.. how do you think of these things?" I asked, peeking up at him. He bit down on his lip, his cheeks burning.
"All kinds of things." He muttered, playfully shrugging. I reached over for his hand, gently intertwining our fingers. His smile grew as he finally looked down at me.
"Have you ever.." I started, wondering if I even wanted to know the answer. But decided to ride out the courage this wine gave me for as long as I could, because who knew what tomorrow was going to bring for us. "Have you ever written anything.. about me?"
He looked down at our hands, lightly tracing his thumb around my palm as that same timid smile stayed spread across his lips.
"Maybe.." He finally said, avoiding my eyes.
"Have I.. ever read anything about me?" He nodded.
"Have I ever.. heard anything about me?" I asked, feeling my heart beat faster. He finally looked over at me, giving me a subtle nod.
I'm sure by tomorrow my face was going to hurt from smiling so much. It was amazing how someone could make me smile so much. I still couldn't comprehend the fact that I wasn't dreaming.
"Can you.. tell me which ones?" He shook his head, looking back down at our hands.
"Okay." I sighed, not wanting to push him. Just knowing something existed was good enough for me, and now I'd spend every day listening to him sing, wondering which ones they were.
I then felt his fingers slowly glide up my arm, gently making their way up my neck, tangling themselves in my hair. My heart was pounding with every delicate touch, only wanting more.
I moved in closer as I felt his other arm wrap around me, holding me from the small of my back, pulling me up against him. So many nights I spent wondering what it would feel like to finally be held like this, and never could I have imagined how perfectly his strong hands would conform to my every curve, holding me so tenderly, never feeling safer than I did right now.
As I looked back up at him, he was already staring back at me with love sick eyes; how beautiful it felt to finally be gazed upon by whose attention you've always craved. And despite getting lost in these same eyes more than I could count, tonight was different.
This was not how someone looked at their friend.
As I finally began leaning in, I heard him sigh as he leaned his forehead against mine.
"Jaime.." He whispered. I moved away, sitting back up to face him. He pushed himself up, leaning back against his pillows as he reached out for me.
"How about this.." I finally said. "I will.. let you take me out.. on a real date.. if I can just kiss you.. now. Because.. you saying all of this to me, and us.. finally being like this. This is how I always imagined it." I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as he held his stare on me, his lips finally curling into a smile as he reached over for me, holding my face in his hand.
"Jaime, if I kiss you.. I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop." And I believed him, but I wanted nothing more than to find out for sure.
"Well, I don't think I'd be able to stop you."
He stared back at me, eagerness dripping from his fingertips as they tangled their way into my hair, and together we lived within these last few moments of friendship before finally taking the leap and diving headfirst into so much more.
Then he kissed me.
And just like that.. fireworks.
It was in that moment I ached for every lover who wasn't us; we were the night sky, instantly ignited by the first touch, illuminated with such beautifully blinding reds and blues. All it took was once, just one taste and I knew that I was hooked for life. His lips, so soft and sugar-coated in desire; nothing would ever taste sweeter than your first love.
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Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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Mana exists and, somehow, seems to have a purpose, beginning with its arrival triggering a cosmic event that burst through numerous realities, bringing upheaval and turmoil to all within its path… Transported from Earth under mysterious circumstances, Sloane and her daughter Gwyn arrived in the world of Eona only to discover they had been separated from each other. Forced to venture on a desperate quest to find one another, mother and daughter each embark on magical adventures, filled with untold wonders and fantastical beings. They undertake their journeys across a continent rife with power struggles, where ancient kingdoms and guilds are in disarray, scrambling to adapt to the arrival of magic in their world. A hardware engineer by trade, Sloane must use skills learned over a long career to craft any edge she can against beings who have thrived using weapons long since obsolete on Earth. Perhaps mana will provide the answers she needs. Schedule:Daily for first two weeks!M - W - F starting 18 JulyArt by: Vicki
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