Team CupidsLC #10 - HERE COMES THE SUN

Title: HERE COMES THE SUN

Genre: YA Contemporary

Word Count: 66,000

Query:

Being seventeen is entirely too complicated. School sucks. Parents suck. Enemies suck even worse.

Love sucks.

But it also means that you can sign up for a once in a lifetime senior class trip to England during spring break, happily leaving behind your single mother who still dabs at your dirty cheek with a spit covered thumb. Unfortunately, in Natalie Webber's case, she brings everything else that sucks along with her.

Natalie has one main plan for England, aside from win the heart of the queen so that she can marry Prince Harry - make life suck less. And by that, she wants to co-exist with the very group of girls that christened her with her god awful nickname of Tooty Fruity during Sophomore year. She's done being that girl that walks with her head down to avoid stares and conversations. She wants a new start. She wants to get out and explore, maybe overdraw on her bank card for a few articles of clothing from Harrods so that she doesn't look so much like a tourist. She wants to throw away her shy act and for once just open up to the world.

What Natalie doesn't expect is to meet Brant, a Beatles fanatic who has far too much charm and even more demons in his own closet. But it's Brant who forces her to step out of the shadows of herself, and realize that as long as “you” don't suck, your life, your school, your friends, and yes, even a new love, could possibly be the greatest gifts of all.

First Page:

I should have known from the amount of Diet Coke I drank that my bladder would hold up the white flag of surrender as soon as I stepped on board the plane. And even though I'd look completely asinine to the other fifty or so kids jetting with me to England for our senior class trip, I'd happily relieve myself in exchange for their jeers. I can just imagine the whispers that would follow me down the aisle of shame. “Oh look, there goes Tooty Fruity. She has to pee already. Didn't she know about the bathrooms in the airport?” And I did. I used them. But my bladder is the size of a walnut, unable to bear the strain of sixty-four ounces of sweetened, zero calorie pop consumed in approximately fifteen minutes.

What was I thinking? Stupid, stupid Natalie.

So here I am, flying so damn high in the sky that Chicago looks like Lego City, crossing my legs so tight that they are literally tingling from the pressure. I stare obsessively at the giant red X above the bathroom door, willing it to turn green. Unfortunately, I lack any form of telepathic powers.

Fighting back my tears, I shoot my head into the aisle every three seconds to check on the status of the bathroom. I don't see my classmates. Don't notice if they're staring and leering or ignoring me as usual. I just see the small aisle connecting two bathrooms, and giant X's above them both.