What Do You Think of My Novel Thus Far?

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This is the first part of chapter one. Tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome.

CHAPTER ONE: NEVER MIND THE PLEASANTRIES


It feels like so long ago that I found them. Quite paradoxically, it seems even longer that I made the voyage, which spanned cities, states, countries, and, finally, continents. I seemed to be such a simple girl before then--how old was I? Eighteen? I've learned oceans of information about myself and where I come from, about love and hatred, about beauty and wanton destruction. If I could travel back in time, I'd repeat the steps I took to find my salvation. I'd do it with gusto. Even the wounds that haunt me to this day are a part of me, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm functional now. My life is spotless. My mind is cured. My father's death is no longer a mystery, and his love for me has become a vivid reality. I remember the day I found them, not so clearly now; but with the help of a few journals' worth of entries, I can relate the story piecemeal, to you, my reader, who has taken such a charitable interest in a story no one will ever believe. And it all starts with a hospital, and an eighteen-year-old girl named Ember.

December 28, 2015

"Name?"
"Ember Dubicki. D-U-B-I-C-K-I."
"Amber?"
"Ember."
The woman behind the counter gives me a look halfway between surprise and what-the-hell-kind-of-name-is-that.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"Yes. With Dr. Chowdhury. At ten-thirty."
"I'll let him know you're here," she says, picking up the phone and dialing.
I nod my head in gratitude and turn back to the waiting room. Three people occupy chairs: an obese woman in a blue dress knitting something and humming; a
middle-aged man dressed like a teenaged punk who keeps scratching his head; and an elderly man who keeps nodding off. I sit a good two seats apart from the latter,
glad that I can maintain my space. A few minutes pass. My psychiatrist must be on a tight schedule. I should've known. I shouldn't have come so early. The interval
of time between when I left and the present expands before my senses. I hear the pen of a man across the hallway clicking away mercilessly. I bounce my legs, like I've always done in situations like this—you know, where I have to wait for a few minutes that seem like forever. I get up to pace, but the door to the hallway of
offices opens and out steps the doctor.
"Ember?" he asks, though he's looking right at me. He is a squat, weary-looking brown man with glasses and a thick Indian accent, but otherwise speaks perfect English. I walk through the doorway, then wait for him so he can lead the way. He gestures for me to sit down to the right of the computer, like always. He sits down in front of the computer, smoothing his tie and adjusting his glasses. Then he clicks the mouse and brings up a screen that I can't see without craning my head. I don't regret not being able to see all the medical gobbledygook, anyway. It'd be like high school algebra all over again. I'm not saying the neo-Latin names for medicines and doses have much to do with algebra; I'm just saying that both would be like trying to decipher another language. Well, I guess I'm good with actual languages, like French, but...
"How are you?" Dr. Chowdhury asks me while typing, his lips barely moving under his thick mustache.
"Not so good, doc."
"What was that?"
"Bad."
"Hm."
I wish I had this kind of honesty with other people, like my parents and my friends. Whenever they ask me how I'm doing, it's usually on a very bad day, but
I'll always reply, "Not bad." I say it in a light voice, but I can never bring myself to smile. I doubt they believe me, but they keep asking me anyway, as if they
could change my mood just by asking me a simple question. Sometimes I hate them for asking it. Sometimes I want to tell them, "Bite me," as if they're making me worse
on purpose. But more than anything, I just want to know why I'm so depressed. The problem is, I'm too emotionally closed-up to want to see a counselor who could possibly give me the reason straight or help me find it through hypnosis or something. So instead of finding out why I'm depressed, I'm told what it actually is: a chemical imbalance in the brain. Then they do me one better and give me a drug for it. Well, not yet. I still have to convince them first. It shouldn't be too hard. Everybody always tells me that I look sad.
"You are not feeling so good," he says, finally turning to face me, "What is going on?"
I frown in imitation of thoughtfulness and say, "I don't know. I can't explain it. I've just been really depressed for a while."
"Are you having thoughts of suicide?"
"No."
"Are you hearing any voices?"
"No."
"How long have you been feeling depressed?"
"About five years." It's the truth. It all happened one night when I was at my house. I was watching my kid brother being tickled by my mom (my dad died when I was five; I don't really remember him). We were all laughing and having a good time, and then it hit me. It came out of nowhere. I can't explain it. I just had this real heavy feeling all of a sudden. I started thinking about happiness and how it never seems to last long. Then I thought about death and how I wouldn't last long, at least, theoretically, not long enough. From there it was a downward spiral. I started getting sad because I was sad. I lost some friends. I lost my favorite uncle. Maybe that was the reason? No, that was five years ago. I should be over it by now. Right?
"Why didn't you seek help earlier?"
"I thought I could get through it on my own."
"Have you had crying spells?"
"No," I tell him, and that's the truth. I almost never cry. Even at my uncle's funeral I didn't cry. I felt kind of embarrassed; everyone else was dabbing at their eyes with Kleenexes and I was just standing there, staring at the ground. Did that make me heartless? I still missed him.
"Feelings of low self-esteem?"
"Yes."
"Feelings of helplessness?"
"Check."
"What was that?"
"I mean, yes."
"Tell me about yourself, Ember." Here we go. There's no right answer to this question. It just gauges your opinion of yourself, really.
"I'm 18, I live with my mom, I work at Piggly Wiggly as a cashier, I go to school...I don't—know what else to say."
"OK." He types some more. Maybe he's not even typing anything about me. Maybe he's googling pictures of cute dogs. I don't know. He turns to me again.
"I'm going to prescribe you some sertraline." He tells me the doses, but I'm not really paying attention. In fact, as a kid, I was diagnosed with ADHD, the
Primarily Inattentive subtype. Once in a while, it'll flare up and I won't be able to notice a wall standing right in front of me before knocking into it. Other times, someone will be telling me a story about something life-changing and at the end I'll just say, What? It's got its perks, though. I've always been an out-of-the -box thinker. I'm good at understanding things intuitively. Just not math. Ugh, I hate math.
Anyway, I'm walking to my car when I start to think that maybe this dark cloud that's surrounding me has a silver lining after all. I pick up my MP3 player and switch on some Styx—which was apparently my dad's favorite band—and start smoking a cigarette. I'm in my happy place. It sounds easy, but it's the only thing that works. That's how it's always been.
Some homeless guy walks up to me as I turn the corner.
"Hey," he says in a soft, withered voice, "You got a car?" I look at what he's holding—a squeegee and a bottle of windshield cleaner. He has a grey beard, beetling black eyebrows, and—I shudder—one walleye. He sees I'm smoking a cigarette and perks up.
"Hey, you don't think I could bum one of them, do you?" he asks. I shrug and flip him one.
"And yes," I say, "I do have a car. I'll give you five bucks if you clean the windows." He smiles and obeys after I point my car out to him. It's a red 80s Grand Am. Nothing special. He cleans it and I give him the fin. He walks off, beaming at what for him is no small fortune. I get in my car and put in a Styx tape. I can't get enough of them. Then I cruise away. I'm a pretty good driver. I don't pay much attention to what's in front of me, but that's because I know where I'm going via a well-developed sense of intuition. Every now and then, I need to watch for speed limit signs. Not because I speed, but because I drive like an eighty-year-old. I learned to drive slowly from my pot-smoking days, when I pretended everyone was a cop so I wouldn't get pulled over. Sometimes I play Grand Theft Auto 3 on my PlayStation 2 and just drive recklessly to remove stress. Then, when I drive in real life, I fantasize about making it a reality. But I never would. No, I care about other people too much. I don't, arguably, care much about what happens to me, at least not now. I try to push away the negativity.
I'm home. We live in a sky blue ranch on Chestnut Drive in Kaukauna. It has two stories (or, if you're European, one story) and a big cozy basement. We're pretty well-off. I knock on the door with the golden knocker. I've been doing this ever since I walked in on them making love in the living room.
"Who is it?"
"Me, Mom."
A pause.
"Come in."
I walk in and see my mother and Levi, my mom's hippy new husband. I don't call him my dad. Not even my stepdad. I never liked him. He's just so-squeamish. I can never make the jokes I like to make around him, and he's always been far from supportive. They're looking at me as if they hadn't completely planned on me coming back. Indeed, they hadn't.
"I thought you were going to go see Stephanie?" Mom asks. Stephanie Vandervoort is one of my best and only friends. There's also Miranda, but she moved to California, and we can only really talk online.
"I decided she could use some alone-time with her boyfriend. What's going on?"
Levi flips his hair to the side like he always does when stressed or angry. It seems to have been carried over from the days when he had longer, blonder hair. I know something's up.
"What is it?" I repeat, somewhat annoyed now. My mom takes a deep breath. She's going to announce some big news.
"Levi-we-thought it would be nice if you started looking for a new place to stay." My jaw drops. My mother has always been nothing but sweet to me, especially since I told her I was depressed, and she certainly never dropped an inkling of a hint that she no longer wanted me home. This is all Levi's idea. I've usually thought that hippies were supposed to be submissive, but he's really become the dominant force in the relationship. My mom loves him more than me, and he uses that against her.
"What happened?" I ask, baffled still, "What did I do?"
"You're not doing your chores," Levi says before Mom can get a word in, "In fact, you haven't done them in weeks. You're not a team player. All you do is smoke those terrible cancer sticks and play video games. And your attitude needs work. Perfect example," he adds as I roll my eyes.
"Fine," I find myself saying, almost against my will, "I'll move. Just give me a couple weeks--"
"Actually," Mom says, "We've already found an apartment for you. It's at Better Apartments, on the corner of Floyd and Tull. We've paid for three months'
rent. We'll also cover the utility bill, but only for three months. By that time, I'm sure you can find a better-paying job. We've arranged it so that you can move in tomorrow." This hits me like a thunderclap. I don't know what makes me angrier--the fact that they've been planning this for so long or the fact that I wasn't able to take hints. Mom had actually been joking about me moving out for some time, but that's all it seemed to be was joking. I don't get it.
"So," I say after I've regained my bearings, "I take it you've already packed up everything in my room?"
"No," says Levi, and I want to kill him, "We thought it would be best to leave that to you. Boxes are in the attic." I shiver. I've lived here for ten years. For a better part of the time I stayed here, my mom told me time and again that the attic was haunted. She'd tell me stories (made-up stories, I'm old enough to realize now) about the ghosts of reprobates who made noise up there. Now I realize it was just my mom having sex. But the stories stuck, and I still have some left-over apprehension whenever someone mentions the attic.
I'm not ready to move. I still love my mom, even though I'm steadily losing respect for her. I'll be farther away from Stephanie. I'll miss my cats and dog. I'll miss my room, my perfect room with the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and Led Zeppelin and Ramones posters. I'm only eighteen. My brother moved out when he was twenty-five. What's the hurry? My mom must be losing respect for me, too, and this comes as no surprise; no one could respect the monster Levi makes me out to be.
It's one of those attics with the latch on the bottom. I open it and pull out the ladder. Then I climb up, into the attic proper whose only light consists of the small circular window in the wall facing forward. There are boxes, alright--and also scurrying spiders and dead flies and dust everywhere. I start going back and forth between the attic and my room, packing up my clothes and belongings. I throw away the posters and my A+ report cards on the wall, somehow believing it's a means of revenge.
Before long, I'm down to the boxes with things already in them. Sure, I can make some more room to pack my underwear in the clothing boxes, but I have to see what's in these boxes first. I look at the labels--Ember's, Levi's, Mom's...Dad's? Dad's! I never knew my dad had actually left anything behind! I approach it, feeling as though my life has been leading up to this moment, the logical conclusion being my discovery of the box's contents. I rip off the tape with some difficulty (it's surprisingly tough) and pull it open. I look inside.
It's a chest--a little treasure chest that you might see on Spongebob Squarepants. It's a velvety blue with gold trimming. I try to open it--locked. Where's the damn key? I investigate further, and find a crumpled-up piece of paper at the bottom of the cardboard box. I unfurl it and smooth it out. It says, in green pen:

TO EMMANUELLE: YOU'LL FIND THE KEY UNDER THE RUGG, I'M SURE. NEXT CLUE: 12016 WESTMINSTER STREET, C SHARP. LOVE ALWAYS, YOUR RECENTLY DEPARTED FATHER.

I puzzle over this for quite some time. Mom never mentioned any Emmanuelle. Did he keep a mistress or something? How could he have misspelled "rug"? Did he have that poor of an education, or was he just dull? No, that couldn't be. He spelled everything else fine. I know where Westminster Street is. His "clue" makes me scratch my head (literally, and possibly one of the only times I ever scratched my head). And perhaps most importantly, how did he know that he was going to die?
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. My mother had always told me, whenever I asked about the disappearance of my father, who died just a few days after I was born, she would always tell me that he died in a car accident. She told me that he'd hit a patch of black ice while speeding and that he'd went over the edge of the road. He'd been drinking, was a bit of an alcoholic. She also said that he was a little crazy, perhaps even schizophrenic.
Maybe this note was just some gibberish that came to him in some feverish hallucination? I hoped he wasn't the violent kind of crazy, the kind that would hide a human skull in a chest. Had this been some kind of suicide note? Had he meant to get into an accident? I put the chest and the note back in the box, deciding to take it with me. Even if he was a violently insane alcoholic, he was still my father.
I stack the boxes up in my room and then come down the stairs. Levi steps in my way.
"Is everything packed?" he asks, adjusting his glasses. I ignore and sidestep him and saunter up to my mother, who is washing the dishes.
"Did you pack everything, hon?" she asks, not looking at me. Sometimes she calls me hon or smiles to soften a verbal blow, but it never works.
"Yeah," I say, "Are you guys going to help me move?"
"Of course. We've booked a moving truck to come at ten o' clock tomorrow morning. When we're all done we can order a pizza or something. But Ember--" she pauses, drying off her hands with a towel, then puts her hands on my shoulders and looks at me; "Remember that you can always call me. We're just going to give it at least a month, okay? If something happens, you can't find a good job, you get fired, you just can't pay the rent...you can come back here. But you're going to stay there for at least a month. Capisce?" My mom knows that I adore Mafia films and literature, but she pronounces it kuh-PEE-chay.
"It's pronounced kuh-PEESH," I tell her, "And yes, I understand. Just don't expect me to be doing any backflips." Mom starts drying the dishes now. I'm not sure if she's actually listening to me. She might be in The Zone. But she does say something.
"I don't understand why you're so upset. I mean, I know it's sudden, but you've always valued your alone time very highly. You almost never come out of your room, at least not unless you're going to smoke. Don't you think that maybe it's for the best?" I shake my head. Giving me a bigger room that locks from the inside would be for the best. Kicking me out isn't.
"I guess I'll have to give it some time," I say, and sigh. Then I tell her that I'm going to see Stephanie. Getting in my Grand Am, I head for the next town over, which is Little Chute. I play "Renegade" fairly loud so that old people taking strolls on the sidewalk can hear it. I feel like a renegade. I feel like rebelling. I feel inadequate, too. But I try to keep my emotions as light and effervescent as possible. I'm going to see Stephanie, and I should be happy. Not that she would mind if I wasn't happy.
Stephanie is a goth. She wears black leather, black lipstick, skull earrings, and has fake black hair that used to be a flaming red. Her musical taste ranges
from The Cure to Marilyn Manson. There's only one rule: They must wear black. She detests the bands that I consider my favorites. She also detests her mom, who is possibly the nicest woman in the world, and I don't understand that. That's the one thing I don't like about her. Otherwise, I can't knock her; she's always been there for me, through thick and thin. We've been friends ever since the first grade.
I knock on the door to the tune of "Shave and a haircut--two bits!" Her mom answers.
"Oh, hello, Ember!" she says, beaming at me. She's always so happy to see me. In her mind, I'm probably her only true friend, someone who keeps her from turning into a completely antisocial criminal. She couldn't look any more different from her daughter; she's always wearing bright colors that make her look like an oversized fruit.
"Hi, Mrs. Vandervoort. Is Stephanie home?"
"Yes she is! She's reading in her room. Do you want me to call her?"
"Actually, I was wondering if I could come in."
"Of course!" I walk in, and she adds humorously, "I hope you're not a vampire," and giggles. I giggle, too.
I knock on my friend's bedroom door.
"Who is it?" she asks curtly.
"Your wife for life," I say. I said that one day and it just kind of stuck.
"Come in, dear," she says, but doesn't laugh or anything. It's hard to get her excited.
I step into the goth's room, which is filled with candles everywhere. She never turns on the lights. She's reading a book on Italian witchcraft. She sticks a bookmark between the pages, sets it down, then approaches me.
"Sit down," she says, "I can tell something's wrong."
"How?" I ask curiously, sitting down "Indian style."
"You never laugh at my mom's jokes. Usually, you just smile." She sits down too and closes her eyes and spreads her palm towards my head. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that she thinks she's psychic. Whenever she's right about something, it's usually because her experience tells her so. I try to tell her this, but she's adamant about her "powers." It's also one of the only ways she can get excited, so I acquiesce.
"I see a figure," she says. I stifle a chuckle. I can't help it. She opens one accusatory eye at me, so I put on my serious face and she shuts it again.
"It's a man," she continues, "You're trying to go somewhere, and he's standing in your way..."
"I'm being kicked out of the house," I blurt. She opens both eyes.
"For real?"
"Yup. They tell me I'm moving tomorrow to Better Apartments. They paid a few months' worth of rent. I have to stay there for at least one month."
"That's not cool."
"And on top of that, I'm depressed again."
"I would be, too."
"Not just because of that. I was depressed before that. It's a chemical imbalance, remember?"
"Yes."

That's a nice read, it makes me want to read further!

That's a very good read.