Authentic Characters, No Instant Connection—A Realistic Young Adult Romance

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In my young adult romance “What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?”, you won’t find romance blooming quickly or connection forming instantly. Instead, you’ll get a realistic story with relatable characters and slow-forming romance.

In this tale, Chloe is a studious high school sophomore who’s deeply in love with a boy named Mordecai, a junior at her school. At the beginning, Mordecai already knows Chloe likes him. But he hasn’t told her how he feels about her. This means they share a complicated friendship.

And it doesn’t help that Chloe isn’t allowed to date and won’t be allowed to until senior year. Since Mordecai is allowed to date, he does. And that means Chloe gets to watch him go from girl to girl, all the while pining for him and wondering how he really feels about her.

But then we have Chloe’s good friend Simon. He’s a new sophomore at Chloe and Mordecai’s high school, and his love for Chloe is obvious from the start—to the reader, anyway. Even though Simon ends up becoming one of Chloe’s best friends, he has trouble confessing his feelings to her. That makes it easier for her to stay in denial about them and focused on her intense crush on Mordecai.

Because crushing on Mordecai means that sometimes she’s not able to give other people—like Simon—the attention they deserve. In fact, sometimes Chloe ends up hurting Simon because of the attention she gives to Mordecai.

But Chloe is a teenager who’s trying to figure things out. And she still has a lot to learn about relationships, especially what a healthy relationship looks like. Since this is a coming-of-age story, it’s understandable that she still has things to learn.

Let’s take a closer look at what makes this a realistic YA romance.

Authentic Characters in This Teen Romance

All the main characters in this story are complex in their way, though I would definitely say Mordecai is the most complex. Even so, the main characters all have their lovely qualities and their flaws.

Take Chloe, for instance. Even though she has a wonderful friend in Simon, she finds herself loving Mordecai—a guy who hurts her often and can be insensitive or indifferent to her emotions. Plus, her interactions with him can be complicated.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 10. In this sample, we can see that Chloe is overthinking when it comes to whether or not to send Mordecai a message. Before this indecision, she had resolved not to be the first one to reach out to him when she was on the receiving end of some of his moody behavior. But it seems her resolve is weakening. (Chloe’s IM name is Simplesnowflake.)

The following Saturday, I start doing homework without going on IM. If he’s on, I don’t want to see that he’s ignoring me. But I can’t resist after a certain point—specifically once I hit NSL. I sign on, and I see that he’s on. But I focus on my homework.

For a while.

But then it becomes too much, wondering what he’s doing or thinking and why he’s still ignoring me. I open a new message window and begin typing, “hey.” But then I think, what if he’s just about to message me? Or what if he’s going to message me in a minute or two? I don’t want to send him a message and look weak or desperate. So, I close the window.

But two minutes pass, and still he hasn’t reached out. I open a new window and prepare another “hey” to send him. But again I freeze, wondering what will happen if I just wait one more minute. I close the window.

One minute passes. Two minutes. Five minutes. He hasn’t messaged me yet, and who knows how close he is to signing off. I have to message him and end the silence—and the insanity.

Simplesnowflake: long time no talk

I send the message, but it’s too late. He signs off the second after it goes through. I don’t even know if he had time to see it before he left. I feel so stupid. I should have just messaged him when I first wanted to.

In real life, people can overthink even the simplest of matters—like whether or not to send an IM message to your crush. It’s things like this that help make Chloe more relatable.

Also in real life, people can struggle to confess their feelings to someone they love. This is something Simon is dealing with throughout the story. It might have taken a very different turn earlier on if he could have found the courage to confess. But as you read, you might start to wonder, will he ever confess?

And then there’s Mordecai. While he does sometimes display erratic behavior, there’s an explanation for some of it—his secrets. They’re secrets he carries with him from his troubled past. I talk about that more in this post. Chloe is the only one he’ll share them with, though. But she loves him before she learns any of them. And that means she loves him while he’s being moody and unpredictable.

And this combination of characters with their struggles and flaws adds authenticity to this love story.

Romance Takes Time to Bloom

Another thing about this story is that you won’t find any instant connection between lovers. This will be a friends to lovers story, but it’s also a high school love triangle. And at the beginning, you don’t know who the lovers will be. Will Mordecai get his act together and ask Chloe out when she’s finally allowed to date? Or will Simon find a way out of the friend zone and into her heart?

You won’t know until you read the story.

And because Chloe is a sophomore at the start and won’t be allowed to date until she becomes a senior, that means you’ll get to go on a two-year roller coaster ride of emotions as she juggles school and her friendships with Mordecai and Simon.

Additionally, because romance takes time to form, both Chloe and Simon are dealing with unrequited love for a friend for a good part of the story. Unrequited love is a far from uncommon experience, and it’s something that makes this tale more authentic. Rather than watching characters interact with people they have an immediate romantic connection to, you won’t learn the answer to this question until later—which friendship will become something more?

Final Thoughts

The YA romance “What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?” is a realistic portrayal of a high school friends to lovers story. No instant connection happens. And the main characters are all dealing with their own struggles as they navigate high school, friendship, and romance.

If you’re ready to dive into this story, you can click here to learn more about it or here to start reading Chapter 1 on Medium. (The first three chapters are free and you don’t need an account to read them. But you’ll need a Medium account to read the rest. And you may also need to become a Medium member.)

~ Ashley C.

P.S. If you would like to sample more of my story-writing style, feel free to click here to read some stories that are currently available.