Iso: Beta - Ya - Novel - Brit Picker Wanted!

[Thorn Wilde]

I'm reworking a story I started years ago, and find myself in need of assistance. Specifically, I'm looking for someone English/British who can help me out with authenticity, but I can always do with yet another pair of eyes, so if you're interested and not British, I welcome your help regardless.

 

Length: Will probably end up around 50k words

Genre: YA, drama, romance

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Bullying, eating disorders, mentions of rape (statutory and otherwise), sexual assault, sexual coercion and child abuse

Summary: Daniel's new school has not been kind to him. He has no friends and is constantly bullied, and this is made worse when his PE teacher, Mr. Griffiths, takes an unhealthy interest in him. Michael is the school heart throb (as well as the object of Daniel's desires), and is slowly coming to terms with his sexuality. He also has a bit of a hero complex, and feels a strong need to rescue Daniel, but he never expected to genuinely fall in love.

 

Excerpt:

I don’t know what it’s about me that makes other boys hate me so much. It’s like they can see that I’m different. I don’t really dress differently or have a striking appearance. I’m kind of nondescript. Normal looking, you know? Ordinary. You’d think a scrawny black kid would have an easy time blending in at a school like this. You’d be wrong.

 

I’m slight for my age, but not tiny. I’m reasonably clever, but not clever enough to stand out. I used to be a bit chubby, but the past few months had lost me all that weight. I ought to have been able to blend into the crowd, but somehow whenever bullies are present I stand out like a sore thumb.

 

Maybe they can just smell the gay on me. Some kind of uncanny straight boy bully gaydar.

 

Back in my old school I had some friends. Mostly girls, but a couple of guys as well. I never told any of them that I liked boys. None of them had contacted me since I moved away. I guess they were all busy.

 

It was early October now, and I’d been in my new school for about a month. I kept trying to keep my head down, and for the most part people ignored me, but sometimes the bullies would take notice of me and follow me somewhere they could press me for money (of which I have none) or just kick me for laughs. I’m proud to say I took my beatings like a champ. 

 

A gust of wind chased through the school yard as I entered, and I hugged myself against the chill. I stared straight ahead, walking purposefully towards the front door. I had almost reached the relative safety of the school building when someone bumped into my shoulder, hard.

 

I gasped and grabbed my shoulder, and against my own better judgment I looked up.

 

The older boy looking down at me had steely grey eyed and short cropped sandy hair. He sneered. ‘Watch where you’re going, faggot!’

 

I felt my cheeks burn. I looked down, muttered, ’S–sorry . . .’ and began to walk forwards again, but the boy grabbed my shoulder.

 

‘What sort of apology do you call that, fuckface?’

 

‘Patrick!’ The voice that had spoken was friendly and cheerful, but I thought I detected an edge of disapproval. No doubt it was my imagination. This was a voice I knew very well.

 

My bully turned his head, hand still grasping my shoulder. ‘Hey, Mike,’ he said.

 

The other boy came to a halt before him. He stood tall and broad shouldered, with brown hair to just below his ears and sparkling green-blue eyes. ‘Listen, I forgot my notes for our lab project at home today. Could I look over yours before class?’

 

Patrick looked like he wanted to tell him to piss off, that he was busy, but people did not simply say no to Michael Storm. ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said, and reluctantly let go of my shoulder, turning away.

 

Before walking off, Michael flashed me a broad, good natured smile, and for a moment I felt like I was going to melt. Then he turned away and was gone, and I got my wits about me enough to start moving again.

 

Michael was the exception. The one person in the entire school who neither bullied nor ignored me. It seemed that Michael had managed the impossible: to be a decent person and still be popular.

 

I had no idea what he was even doing in this school. I’d overheard people saying that he lived in a large, fancy house with his parents and older sister, right on the edge of where the area turns from working class housing estates to middle class suburbia. His parents were wealthy, and Michael was a good student, so he could have had his pick of any independent school he liked. Yet he picked his local comprehensive—a cesspool of drugs, violence and teenaged pregnancies—and nobody seemed to know why.

 

This was not the first time Michael had magically appeared when I was being bullied. Complete coincidence, no doubt, but the fact remained that when Michael was nearby, nobody bothered me, as though his mere presence made people want to be nicer. Michael was the only person who ever smiled at me, and it was as if that smile was telling me, ‘Cheer up! Stay strong! It will get better.’

 

We had never actually had a conversation, of course, and odds were that Michael didn’t even know I existed. He probably smiled at everybody. But his smiles were a comfort nonetheless.

 

I had only been at school for a couple of weeks when I started having dreams about him, and by the time October rolled around I was forced to admit that I had fallen utterly and hopelessly in love. Which is just like me, really, falling in love with someone who doesn’t even know I’m there. Safer in the long run, though.