Ch 1- opening Supernatural romance novel

Looking for feedback on its readability/how it catches attention as a first chapter

I don’t judge a walk of shame. Though I’d consider myself more of a hopeless romantic, I think there’s something to be said for someone going for it, even if “it” involves a hangover from hell the next day.

Honestly, it’s more of a shame that I’ve never had one.

Halloween walks of shame are especially enchanting to me. Playboy bunnies soften to Velveteen rabbits, and cops and robbers lean heavily on one another in a truce that lasts as long as their walks back to the dorms. It doesn’t matter what people wore on October 31: on November 1, everyone’s dressed as a zombie.

I pass Dorothy from Oz, ruby slippers in hand, back in Kansas - all smudged-mascara and bee-lining toward a McDonald’s for cheap coffee. The remnants of countless Halloween frat parties are evident around campus, and in between the skull-shaped confetti and smashed Jack-o-lanterns with their gaping, silent screams for help make me ask myself if I’m missing some kind of essential college experience.

My Halloween celebrations this year amounted to a horror movie marathon at home and my eccentric professor of Performance, Dr. Gosling, giving extra credit if we came to class in some kind of piano-pun costume on Halloween.

I think he was sorely disappointed in us:

“Matthews! I thought I vetoed your lewd ‘Debussy’ costume!”

“Mr. Johnson, ‘note’ is hardly piano-specific, and even if it was, a sticky note does not a costume make!”

“I don’t see what the Terminator has to do with piano, I might lower your grade for that one, honestly. OH! ‘I’ll be back.’ Bach. Clever. Bonus points. Take notes, everyone.”

He circled his students like a shark, pushing his thick glasses up repeatedly when they slipped down his oily nose again and again. He got to me and just shook his head.

“Miss Moore. Another apathetic showing?”

“I -” I coughed, not wanting to admit that I fretted thinking of an idea, then worried about whether my ideas were good enough, then decided to go with nothing on the off chance that no one else was participating. “I decided to dress as your star pupil?”

He harrumphed with an eye roll.

“I know, I’m a bit of an outfit repeater.”

“Miss Moore. Talent will get you onstage somewhere. But boldness makes everywhere your stage.”

My cheeks burned, but, thankfully, Miles Matthew, notorious class-clown of the music department, cut in:

“Deep, Dr G! Didn’t know I signed up for Philosophy 101 this semester!”

“With your performances thus far, you might as well have,” Dr. Gosling retorted without pause, still spearing me with his gaze, ignoring the jeers that he incited across the room.

He gave me another pointed look. “Do you have your winter composition submitted?”

“Working on it.” I mumbled. I found myself twisting my hands together - a habit I hate - and forced myself to stop.

His penetrating eyes honed in, probably ascertaining my every weakness in under a second. He sighed, but had mercy on me and moved to torture another hapless student.

It’s been days now, but the memory of his disdainful stare has me kicking an innocent, defenseless rock across the campus sidewalk. Poor little guy. What did he do to deserve such an unsolicited act of violence? I huff a loud breath.

“I know, right? Men.”

My eyes jolt upward from their search for another gravel victim. A girl looks at me, a knowing camaraderie in feminine suffering, and falls into step with my walk. Beach-waved blonde hair spills haphazardly around her silky, sheer ivory dress. Her entire face is covered in opalescent glitter, but it’s concentrated around her eyes - it was most likely just eyeshadow at one point in time.

From a quick study of her residual costume, I realize that she was probably some kind of fairy or angel last night, because she’s now shed her wings, throwing them over her shoulder like a hobo might carry his bindle. The image makes me smile: a fantastical hitchhike.

She returns my smile. “Whoever he is, forget him.”

I don’t bother telling her that my “him” is a hairy, greasy, sixty year old man nagging me about the integrity of my performance and stage presence. She’d probably be appalled.

“You first,” I reply, and she winks, pulling a tiny glass flask from her exposed bra.

“Already on it.” She offers me a shot after taking hers, and when I cringe, she just shrugs, grins, and chugs another long pull from the bottle.

When we come to a crosswalk, I awkwardly point toward where I’m headed: the practice hall. She waves goodbye, and I watch her leave in the other direction, her wings glinting in the late-late-late morning sunlight.

Okay, afternoon.

She has all the trappings of a splendid muse: meeting angels when they let their hair down, seeing the Loch Ness monster in between shipwrecks, sunning on the beach, Frankenstein removing his ears for some peace and quiet. Supernatural PTO.

But I’m not in the mood for metaphors right now, for writing music with a meaning in mind. Instead, I have an overwhelming need to flip a table. My fairy encounter reminds me that not everyone is trapped. And I envy that feeling: the same energy that brought Fairy to a stranger’s bed last night with enough chaos to toast to forgetting him with another unknown the next morning.

The energy that begs me to show up in stripper heels and little else and give Dr. Gosling the show of his life just to prove that I’m not scared of him. Of anything.

And my fear smirks, knowing I’m still its captive.

I need to play.

Pebbles, beware.

I feel my scowl deepening. Focus. Music.

As if on cue, I pass the Happiest Couple on Earth. They smother their giggles and goo-goo eyes long enough to give me a wide berth on the sidewalk. They must mistakenly believe that I’m doing the walk of shame after dressing up for Halloween as the hag that tricked Hansel and Gretel, complete with low grumbling and dagger eyes.

My best friend Anna’s voice joins Dr. Gosling’s in a symphony designed to erode my self esteem: Be bold! Get laid! Lighten up! Fight the apathy!

My shoulders hunch forward as I pick up my pace, feet propelling me toward the practice hall: the perfect cave for my gremlin self.

Maybe I’ll write about love today. Maybe I’ll write about a fairy, now green-faced from vodka shots, vomiting on some lovers’ shoes mid-make out session.

I could slam my fists down on the keys over and over until it stops sounding like music and starts sounding like the “fuck you” my soul has been screaming for the past decade.

I’d title it “Boldness,” and shove the composition sheets down Dr. Gosling’s throat.

My fingers itch for the instrument: the brave extremities shackled to a meek master.

A cold shiver climbs my neck - the eerie feeling of being watched - and I curl inward, arms crossed. I don’t slow the cadence of my steps, but my head jerks right and left, scanning my surroundings. Nothing. I toss a look over my shoulder, and my paranoia is rewarded when I immediately trip over a crack in the sidewalk.

I catch myself before I eat shit on the concrete.

I quicken my pace, still unable to shake the unease. I pretend it’s nothing. Dr. Gosling said I should make everywhere a stage, right? So what’s one more audience member?

The wind rustles leaves overhead - it almost sounds like applause.