The Good Girl, the Good Friend, and the Guy With Secrets: Relatable Characters in a New Teen Romance
Nataliia K/Shutterstock.com
In my new teen romance “What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?”, the love story centers around a high school love triangle involving the main character, her crush, and her good friend.
The main character is Chloe, a high school sophomore who has a big crush on a junior at her school named Mordecai. Meanwhile, her good friend Simon has a crush on her.
One of the things that makes these characters relatable is that, while they all try to be good people, they do have their flaws and they make mistakes from time to time. Let’s take a look at some of the qualities that help make these characters more authentic.
Chloe: The Good Girl
Chloe really does her best to be good. She’s studious and works hard to earn good grades. She tries her best to follow the rules at school. And she tries to follow her parents’ “no dating until senior year” rule. But since she is a teenager, you can understand when she slips sometimes.
And not only that, but Chloe has a really intense crush on Mordecai, a guy who doesn’t always treat her well. Although he can be funny and has a way of making Chloe feel special, he can also be moody and unpredictable. Plus, he’s almost always dating someone. But Chloe loves him anyway, even though she has to do so from a distance most of the time—at least at the start of the story when most of their friendship is sustained by phone calls and IM (instant messaging) chats.
Sometimes Chloe’s feelings for Mordecai cloud her judgment, making her do things—or consider doing things—she might never otherwise consider doing. And because of her intense feelings for him, she sometimes ends up hurting Simon. It can be hard for her to give them equal attention when chatting with them on IM, for instance. In this post, you can read an excerpt to see what I’m talking about.
Simon: The Good Friend
Simon is a new sophomore at Chloe and Mordecai’s high school. But Simon and Chloe become friends soon after he starts going there. And unlike the friendship that she and Mordecai share, Chloe and Simon’s friendship is public. But it doesn’t take long for him to learn about Chloe’s crush, with all its intensity and complexity. Rather than share how he feels about her, though, Simon chooses to stay in the friend zone.
The result? Simon has a front row seat to all the pain Mordecai causes Chloe. And whenever Mordecai does or says something to leave her in tears, Simon is often the one to comfort her. He’s always there for Chloe when she needs him. He’s constant and reliable, the definition of a good friend. And even though Simon might not want to hear this, some may call him “nice.”
But because Simon cares so much about Chloe, he gets frustrated when he sees her continue to love Mordecai and pine for him even when he doesn’t treat her well. This leads Simon to do things that some may consider beyond reasonable for what a good friend should do. But it’s all in the name of protecting Chloe. She doesn’t always see it that way, though.
You can check out this post to read a sample from the story that shows how Simon tries to comfort Chloe after Mordecai drama and how he can find it challenging to say anything about his feelings for her.
Mordecai: The Guy With Secrets
Of all the characters in this story, I would say Mordecai is the most complex. This is especially because he’s dealing with secrets. He only feels comfortable sharing these secrets with Chloe, though. And when she learns about them, they help her understand him better.
But Chloe loves Mordecai even before she learns about any of his secrets. And that means she loves him even when he’s displaying moody behavior, when he disappears and reappears in her life, and when he hurts her with his seeming indifference to her feelings.
Something else that makes Chloe and Mordecai’s friendship complicated is that, at the start of the story, Mordecai already knows how Chloe feels about him. But he hasn’t shared how he feels about her. And although he claims they’re just friends, he displays hints of jealousy when he finds out about Chloe’s new male friend.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 3 to give you a taste of the mixed signals Mordecai gives Chloe. This sample shows part of an IM conversation between them. (Chloe’s IM name is Simplesnowflake, while Mordecai’s is More2come81.)
Simplesnowflake: i saw u at school today
More2come81: o?
More2come81: where?
Simplesnowflake: the library
Simplesnowflake: after school
More2come81: o yeah
More2come81: i was checking out a book for a history paper
More2come81: y were u there?
Simplesnowflake: i was helping a friend with math hw
More2come81: krista?
Simplesnowflake: no, a different friend
Simplesnowflake: a new friend
More2come81: boy or girl?
Simplesnowflake: what does that matter?
More2come81: it matters
Simplesnowflake: y?
More2come81: just cuz
Simplesnowflake: i’m going to need more of a reason
More2come81: fine
More2come81: don’t tell me
Simplesnowflake: i’ll tell u if u tell me y it matters
More2come81: i’m just wondering if this was really all about hw
More2come81: or if maybe there’s a new guy in ur life
Simplesnowflake: well technically there is a new guy in my life
Simplesnowflake: but he’s just a friend
Simplesnowflake: and we were really in the library just to study math
More2come81: uh huh
More2come81: if u say so
A Nontraditional High School Romance
This story isn’t a traditional high school romance. Instead of me telling you who the main character picks, I leave that decision to you. When you reach a certain chapter, you get to decide whether you want Chloe to choose Simon or Mordecai. Since both guys have their lovely qualities and flaws, they would both make suitable partners for Chloe. But you get to decide which love story you want to experience.
With the story like this, you might actually get to experience a full love triangle. In the case of a love triangle where the main character has to pick one love interest, it isn’t so balanced. But in this story, although Chloe’s crush may play a more dominant role for a while, you get to see what happens when she picks both of her love interests if you choose to read both endings.
Since this is a nontraditional way to read YA romance, I’ve made it so that you’ll need to join the What Happens After You Confess membership to read it. If this sounds exciting to you—the idea of being in the driver’s seat of this love story—go ahead and click here to learn more about the membership.
Final Thoughts
In this young adult romance, you’ll find lots of real emotion and all the messiness that comes with flawed characters who struggle to know what to do with their feelings. But, at the end of the day, these characters really just want to be happy. But they have different ideas about what that looks like and different ways of getting there.
All of this helps to make “What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?” an authentic and relatable story. So, if you’re looking for a new high school romance that you can dive into, I hope to see you in the What Happens After You Confess membership!
~ Ashley C.
P.S. If you would like to sample more of my story-writing style, feel free to click here to read some short stories that are currently available.