I really liked the way that you described Hannah's kitchen and all the food that she baked, as it really engrossed you in the story and gives you a clear mental image of the type of house that she lived in. I also really liked the characterization of Hannah and Arielle because they felt like they could be friends to Rebecca and balance her out. I also really loved Dan's dream because we dive deeper into his psyche as well as learn more about his view on his wife and Rebecca. Even though, I am not the biggest fan of the romance now, I do like how even Dan is questioning if it is healthy at this point as it adds more character development. I look forward to reading more.

format of the juxtaposition between present action/phelan's backstory were hard but not impossible to follow. i liked that they were layered (vs showing his past in a headache info dump) but maybe could've been structured a little clearer.

there's an archaic quality to this - both in plotting & characterization, especially phelan - that makes it feel like historical fiction transplanted into a modern framework. her situation at this point isn't really believable at all, but it does create an interesting atmospheric effect.

I can tell you've redone this a lot because it reads very well! For enjoyment, I want to say that I really like how the chemistry between the two of them feels natural to me. A lot of this is because Dan does seem to have all the best traits of a teacher, as well as of a decent person. Rebecca's seems mature enough for her age. We didn't get an idea of her personality or interests, anything distinctive beyond school. But I'm not sure we should. I mean you can only nit-pick so much and I'm sure you've expanded her character in later chapters. On the characters Rebecca is a busy girl who seems a tad intrigued by her teacher, but if she has more feelings she's not aware of it yet. Whereas due to losing his wife it's more expected that Dan would crave love and human contact. So I like how you've set up these early seeds of their romance. The writing is fantastic, which makes it clear this has undergone editing and work. I like the descriptiveness and artsy flow, it's a breeze to read. "Wall clock" is better than "the clock on the wall" or "overhead clock", so that will help me with my writing. The setting for me is better established by Rebecca's use of institutional terms in her dialogue, maybe that's normal for you but I don't live in America. And for me, hearing terms like SATs and other stuff makes me feel and think of American college movies and ideas of philosophy and intellectualism and achievements to then live your best life. And I think this is relevant to point out cause I reckon that's the flavour of this that has attracted many of the readers. It does feel sophisticated and enjoyable. The sophistication is probably the strength. I think breaking up the parts you've written and the length of this chapter is perfect. Though I do wonder how that would go in a published novel, I don't think I've seen anything like this set up in a book. Anyway, good job!

It's been a long time since I made it past Chapter 1 of a story. Looking forward to a delightfully insightful read.

Your prose and characterization are excellent. That being said, I don't find the romantic relationship between Rebecca and Dan to be plausible. It seemed like it went from him caring about her well-being as an adult figure in her life to all of a sudden they want to bang. I didn't really feel any sexual tension between them and didn't think their student/teacher interactions were sufficient enough to lead to an affair. Dan is just too nice and mild-mannered for me to believe he'd carry on with a 17 year old student. He'd need a thread of underlying sleaze in him, however faint. Or at least a more warped relationship background that might draw him to her in the given context.

Nonetheless, this is a solidly written story and some of the better quality writing I've seen on this site.

Where did Phelan go?

Also we’re on the downward slope after the climax, but are Dan and Becca making that baby?

Rlly liked the moral ambiguity of this chapter and it’s swinging blur between past and present. Good confusion - he blames Elise for death of Brett and now he’s taking it out on Elise’s kids?

Your writing is rlly pretty

This was one of the best stories I had read so far, each and every chapter had something different to it. There
were two chapters that were a bit difficult to understand at beginning but we're understandsable when we reach the bottom (the chapter where Roger had Rebeca and gun point and other being where you mixed memories with reality).

I think you have a lot of really beautiful imagery here. A few of the examples that popped out to me:

"...the way a dandelion fragmented into the breeze,"

"...like tragedies were beautiful, like the fall,"

"Rebecca was a story..."

And while obviously this story is about six years old, there were a few things I felt could benefit from some updating. Not sure if Latin is taught in high school where you're from, but in my community it's not been taught in high school for about fifteen years. Here in the next year or so, I've heard mention that the school board is doing away with French classes entirely due to the prevalence of Spanish-speaking individuals in my community. I would say that the protagonist attending a Latin class ages the story quite a bit, though that could be dependent wholly on where a reader is from and what their high school classes had been like.

Also, if Rebecca is winded from going up a few flights of stairs, then is she a poor athlete? You may mention something along the lines of "despite the fact that she was an athlete, the stairs still winded her" or something along those lines just to brush off the inconsistency it otherwise holds.

Last thing I'm going to mention-if a single point is keeping Rebecca from the grade she wants (and this is stemming from personal experience alone) I would grovel for that point a little more. The ease with which she backs off makes it seem as though the grade doesn't matter to her as much as it is conveyed. And again, that is just from my personal grade-grubbing experience (which I am still well-known for as a senior in college, mind you), so that would be completely up to you.

ohsocyanide.

I would advise that this kind of subject matter is awkward to work with at the best of times, but then plenty on fictionpress do try to be edgy. I'm a little puzzled at this point as to what the genre of Rebecca's story really is.

Some comments - your antagonist describes Rebecca as fresh faced, but we need more description of her worked in throughout the first five chapters than we have got thus far. She is the protagonist, so I want to know.

The best part I think is Rebecca only reflecting too late about Phelan's strangeness - splashing out a quarter of a million, then suggesting she leave home... it's realistic, because the young don't normally reflect much.

wahhh. Okay. The last thing I expected was for Rebecca to walk right back into Phelan's grasp. In fact, I didn't even think that she was going to go do it. However, I admire her guts. That said, Phelan is always several steps ahead of her. Even though she had a plan, it wasn't good enough. If anything Phelan's ability to pull all these strings in order to exact his revenge on her mother. What kind of monster is he? Well, don't answer that. Somehow I'm not all that surprised that he would be using Arielle in his schemes in order to get Rebecca to stand down. Ugh. That man gives me the creeps.

Okay, so onto Jen. You know, I always liked her to a certain degree. But here, I think my approval of her just dropped a decent amount. Dan has a motive - he "cares" about her plus a little more. The thing is right now it's between right and wrong vs. jobs. And Jen is putting her job in front of it and I'm not sure if I want to wail why or sigh and admit that I should have seen that coming. A bit of both I think. I understand why she's skeptical of Dan's story though. It's his word against Phelans - and she's right. He has tenure, but Phelan has so much more pull. If Phelan goes down, then the rest of the school goes down with him. And maybe the school has something else to hide, and Jen just isn't willing to give that up. It's a whole mess of everything - kudos to you for being able to keep the elements of the plot straight, cause at this point, your delivery is fantastic without confusion. Nice.

Now to Dan. You poor, poor man. You want to do the right thing, but everyone seems to have hit the nail on the head when they say that you're interested in Rebecca. I feel bad for him. It's like of all the people in the cast (aside from Rebecca) he is the only one who has an idea that he needs to do the right thing. ANd I have to say, he isn't irritating. He's a character that I want to root for - he isn't flawless, but he recognizes his flaws. And not in a way that is mary-sue-ish (for a man?). He's easy to like and definitely someone I would want on my side IRL. For the most part, it seems like he has his brain screwed on straight.

Thanks for the read!

I think this is going to be a shorter review, sorry in advance. Anywho!

Oh Dan. Something interesting to note is that it seems like Dan doesn't have any outward dislike towards Phelan. Which, is a bit surprising? He knows about Rebecca's problems with Phelan and you can see him digging for answers, which is to be expected. But there's no disgust especially when Phelan hands him the "gift" of sorts. But the "gift" sent chills down my spine, not going to lie. It was this "innocent" if you can even all it that. but it kind of gives you the idea that Phelan knows everything - even the things that Dan may not have voiced aloud. alsghaljdgh Ew.

Something that I definitely enjoyed about the second section of the chapter was how normal the situation seemed. It isn't harrowing as it has been in the previous chapters, which is nice. The new arch has begun with a more steady pace, one that we aren't left at the edges of our seats. Sometimes slow starts are a bit better, which you did here. Rebecca's situation seems a bit more ordinary here, so we aren't always bombarded by the fact of her unfortunate. More than a little unfortunate - so this was a nice change.

Welp. Here I thought that she was going to be able to get away with a day not seeing him. The hairs on my neck stood up when he made his presence aware. It was good to see Dan address the elephant in the room, try to make sure that Rebecca is okay and isn't suffering from PTSD of sorts. And I think she is a bit, even if she doesn't admit it. That was a good line to have, "delusion and strength" cause at this point it's not even about strength or not. It's about whether or not she can stay away from that monster of a man.

Thanks for the read!

Hello!

Oh my, this story is really interesting so far. I am enjoying the introduction of the characters. I like being able to see each character's point of view; their feelings for each other are quite different. He lusts after her; she likes him as a person. It's quite eye catching actually. I'm curious about his wife. What happened to her? Is she deceased? I guess I'll find out soon! Nice first chapter! I wanna read more now. Teacher/student relationships are kind of my guilty pleasures. Heehee.

Off to the next chapter! :)

-BunnyChoi