Before Changes: BIG NOVEL PROJECT

Ok, so here is an excerpt from the original version to my "BIG NOVEL PROJECT" (I'm going to call it that because I've been working really hard on this project, I've gotten so much done, and yet still so much to do). The plot and most of the characters are new and different, but I was looking this over and it made me realize how much your writing can change over time. This really won't give you much about the story, but I hope you like it =D

I really was dreaming. Flying out of my bed, I stood in front of my full length mirror and stared at myself. My auburn brown hair was tousled chaotically about me; my fair skin was flushed; my autumn, honey dark eyes were slightly red from the lack of sleep and I had dark shadows beneath them. My breasts pressed against my t-shirt and I was sure other things were still in place.
Satisfied that everything was were it should be and that my dream really was a dream, I shock my head at my silly checkup. Doves cooed outside my window and peeking out, I saw that the sun was just rising. Perfect, the first day of summer and I get up at the crack of dawn.
I decided to take a shower and head down to breakfast. The sun had risen just enough to cast a deep red glaze over the ocean and it was all mine, for the time being. The best part about living on the beach in Florida, was that I could look at the sun rise and set everyday. It was all mine: the piles of sand, the buried shells, the fading messages in the sand; all mine. All mine until beachgoers arrived and I had to share the serene seascape.
Higher the sun rose and life began to move once again. The red changed into orange, then gold. The sun cast a runway across the ocean, a haloed doorway to heaven. Birds soared along the rich background, peppering the sky in triangular formations. The sun shimmered along the water, baking it rich as butterscotch. The sand lay flat and untouched; a golden tan of wet grains. The wind blew the water softly, spraying the air with a salty mist.
The sun seekers began to swarm the beach and my family also found the ability to hurl themselves out of bed to feed their rumbling stomachs. One by one, they walked sleepily into the sun drenched kitchen. I had just finished my breakfast on the back porch that over looked the beach, when I walked into the kitchen to find bowls of cereal being eaten.
“What are you doing up so early,” Elizabeth, my eldest sister, sneered the words at me. She wasn’t much of a morning person.
“Bad dream,” I said simply, walking over to sit in the stool next to hers. It was the same stool that I had silently claimed as my own since we moved into this house with Peter, our new step dad.
Peter and my mother, Molly, recently got married and were off on their week long honeymoon, which was now three days in. Lizzie, now eighteen, was to take care of my two younger sisters and myself. I was second in line at sixteen, Roxana and Violet were fraternal twins at thirteen.
We all sat on the high stools, descending in age, staring out the glass door to the beach when the strangest feeling rippled through me. It fizzled in my fingertips and tugged at my stomach. A pounding sound hammered in my ear, blotches of black impaired my vision, and it felt like the sun was inside my house. My hands clutched the counter, my body swaying back and forth. A feeling like metal sending vibrations rippling through water, pulsed through my body. Then it stopped; just like that.
The blotches cleared and the pounding stopped. My hands still gripped thecounter, my breathing rushing in and out, making me lightheaded. No one seemed to
notice my minor episode. They each sat there, shoving spoonfuls of cereal into their
mouths, no one even slightly aware that I was hyperventilating.I jumped when my cell phone began to buzz in my pocket. Roxana looked at me like I was crazy. To play off my anxious reaction, I stuck my tongue out at her and reached into my pocket. The screen flashed that I had a text message.
Hey, meet me at the pier? - Nate
Yeah, I’ll be there in a sec. - Addie

“I’m going to the pier.” I said, grabbing my side bag off the couch and slinging it over my shoulder. I checked myself in the hall mirror before I walked back into the kitchen.
“Why?” Lizzie asked, “Meeting someone?” She wiggled her neatly plucked eyebrows, moving it like a wave across her forehead.
“ Yeah,” I said, grabbing a few granola bars and shoved it into my bag, “ Nate.”
“Are you guys dating,” Violet asked, swirling around in her stool.
“No, we’re just friends,” I said
“You’re totally dating,” Roxana said, mimicking Vi by swirling in the same direction until their legs collided and they started to laugh.
“Addie and Nathan sitting in a tree, k-I-s-s-I-n-g . First comes love, then come marriage, then comes a baby in a baby’s carriage,” They sang and danced around, Lizzie laughing at their childish rhymes.
“You know, I’d really like to sit around and have you sing about my nonexistence love life with my best friend, but I gotta go,” I pointed to the glass door and headed in that direction. I could still hear them singing and laughing as I walked down the beach.
My bare feet sunk into the sand and it took some effort to maneuver around all the tanning bodies. The sun was beating down, bathing me in a sheet of perspiration. Hands over my eyes, looking down, I didn’t notice the heavyset woman walking toward me. I had bent down to pick up a shell and when I straightened, her large bust was directly in my face.
“Well, hello, Miss Lysette,” Mrs. Roswell, my old art teacher, was a tall, large, busty old woman with a blond wig that sat on her head in an odd position. She’d fallen in love with my art work in the our resent class and had been trying to get me to join her “Future Artiest of America” club, which I chose to respectfully decline because all the other kids she pulled in were majority talented and looked at me like I drew stick figures instead of the work I really created.
“ Good morning, Mrs. Roswell,” I said looking at her fleshy face.
“Kevin,” she said, looking down at a scrawny boy with bad acne and large glasses who stood beside her, “ This is Anrisella Adeline Lysette, an old student of mine. Talented, this one.” I hated when she pronounced my full name. She looked down at me, then to the boy. I assume an indication to say “hi”.
“ Hello, Kevin,” I said, putting out my hand to him.
“Hello,” Kevin said. He had a nasally voice, something like the dorks sound in cartoons. He took my hand but didn’t know what to do with it. He just held it and I had to bite my lip before I stared to laugh.
“ I have to go,” I took back my hand and stepped back, “ It was nice to meet you Kevin. Mrs. Roswell,” I said, nodding like in an old western movie, and walked off.
The pier was just ahead. People were set all around it, sunbathing, and some were on top, fishing, as far as the pier went. No one was underneath and I knew that was where I’d find Nate. Being best friends since I came to Florida when I was five, now eleven years later, we had a bond that usually forms with close friends. Habitually we could sense when something was wrong and lately I felt like something was wrong. He had left with his parents for a cruise after my parents’ wedding. He wasn’t thrilled by the idea of spending time with them and neither was I.
I found him hiding behind a pillar, covered in darkness. He heard me coming, I made no secret of my approach, and turned around. The bruise around his eye was the visible indication of why both he and I didn’t want him to be around his parents. I’d met them and they seemed perfectly fine to me, but when I leave, they’re not the same. Nathan’s step mom didn’t want him around, so she’d complain and Nate’s dad would hit him.
“ Hey,” he said. He walked toward me hanging his head and tilting it away so I didn’t see the blue and black monstrosity that painted his face.
“ When did you get back,” I asked simply. I didn’t know how I could form the words to ask what his dad did.
“ Last night,” he said, walking next to me and reaching into my bag. I lifted off my shoulder so he could look better. “What did you bring?”
“Granola bars. Peter’s sister, Mary, is coming over later and she says she’ll bring food,” I said. He took out the bar, ripped the green package like a hungry bear, and began to scarf it down. “ Why didn’t you call me? You could have stayed at my house.”
He looked at me while opening another granola bar. “ You would have been asleep,” he said
“So?” I questioned.
“So, I didn’t want to wake you,” he looked down at the sand, decided he’d sit, and plopped on the damp grains. He pat the space next to him without looking at me, consuming another granola bar. “The beach was nice though,” he mused, leaning back on the palms of his hands, “Now I know why you like the beach all to yourself. I used to think you were selfish for saying that it was yours, but now I know why you felt like that. The crashing waves, the serene seascape. It was like heaven. I felt like it was all mine. It was just that beautiful for me. Only me. Then people came.” He looked out onto the sun drenched beach and I looked at him.
I’d never say it to him, but I thought he looked handsome. Except for the bruise he’d filled out and he no longer looked like the dorky kid he once was. At seventeen, he was 5’7”, had a medium build, black eyes, black hair, that was short and tousled, and a light tan that glistened, even in the poor lighting.
He looked strong. His muscled arms and stomach flexed slightly as he breathed, the air expanding his chest. Yet, he wasn’t strong enough; he still had the bruises. He noticed me looking at him and tilted his head to the side. I saw the ugly discoloration and I felt a pang of hurt in my stomach.
“Does it hurt,” I blurted out.
“Not anymore,” he said, looking away again. There was complete silence between us. I looked out through the pillars at the crashing waters. Even though we were silent, the masses sure wasn’t. Kids laughed and threw sand at each other, girls flaunted around in skimpy bikinis with their boyfriends trailing behind. The sun blazed down on the exposed flesh of sun tanners and fisherman on the pier tried to avoid capturing silly beachgoers who wandered to close. It was, all in all, a perfect day to start off the summer.
I looked in the direction of my house and saw my sisters walking around, trying to find a place to settle down to sunbathe. I wanted to go and join them, to take in the summer sun into my skin, but I wasn’t going to leave Nate.
“Let’s go into the sun,” he said, standing up and putting out his hand to help me up.
“But your…” , I trailed off, pointing my finger to my eye and made an invisible circle around it to show that I meant his eye.

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” he waved his hand as if to push away the thought, “It’s summer, let’s go and enjoy it.”