673Chapter 50: Coming to a Close
A/N: Well everyone, this is it. After a year and a half, I'm finally finished "I'm in Love With a Professional Heartbreaker: How Adam Met Eve". Just like for my last novel, I created this chapter to thank all of you for taking the time to read my story. So, thank you so much for all your great feedback and for sitting through 49 chapters filled with hormonal girls, crazy twins and even crazier Hot Topic stoners! xD
For my other story, "Forgive Me Before You Go", I had 70-something reviews for it when I finished it. I got more since I wrote the last chapter, but having less than 100 reviews when I actually finished it allowed me to thank every reviewer individually. I originally planned to do that for this story, too, but, uh…yeah. With over 600 reviews, that would take forever and your eyes would fall out if I tried to name all of you! But I do appreciate every single one of you, and I want you all to know that. So, thanks again for being awesome! If it wasn't for you guys, I wouldn't have my stories posted on this site!
Remember those votes you made earlier in the story? Do you want to know what each vote result would've changed in the story? Well, here they are!
Courtney vs. DawnMarie
Courtney – Steve shot and killed Courtney when she guarded Adam.
DawnMarie – Steve shot and killed DawnMarie when she guarded Sean and Eve.
Courtney won, resulting in Steve shooting and killing her.
Handcuffs vs. Duct tape
Handcuffs - Adam and Sean's wrists were bound together with handcuffs in Steve's car after Garrett died.
Duct tape – Adam and Sean's wrists were bound together with duct tape in Steve's car after Garrett died.
The votes were tied, so I improvised and used handcuffs to bound Adam's wrists and duct tape to tie Sean's wrists together. Heh…tied. No pun intended here.
Steve vs. Garrett
Steve – Steve shoots Garrett, but decides not to kill him and leaves him in their house before he kidnaps the twins.
Garrett – Steve shoots Garrett and decides to kill him before he leaves with the twins.
Well, you can guess who had more votes on this one. :[ Sorry Garrett!
Slushie vs. Gasoline
Slushie – Joey throws a slushie in Mark's face when Mark opens the window to talk to him.
Gasoline – Joey gets Mark's attention and convinces him to drive up to his car before using the gas pump his car was parked at to spray gasoline all over Mark's lap. It takes him by surprise and distracts him, giving Joey the chance to jump him.
I'm glad slushie won on this one simply because it was more fun (and more realistic) to write. And judging by all your reactions, you all loved it, too!
Ke$ha vs. Lady Gaga
Ke$ha – When the radio goes off in the Mayfield's car during Mark's fight with Joey and Adam, Ke$ha's song "Tik Tok" starts blasting from the speakers and scares the crap out of all three of them.
Lady Gaga – During the fight with Mark, Joey and Adam, when the radio starts, Lady Gaga's song "Bad Romance" blasts from the speakers and scares the crap out of them.
Lady Gaga won this by one vote. It was a close one! I didn't care which result won because I thought both would have a funny outcome.
Cole vs. Sean
Cole – Adam saves Sean from drowning after he gets shot and Cole saves him with CPR.
Sean – Adam saves Sean from drowning after he gets shot, but Cole's attempt to save him with CPR fails and Sean dies.
Fun fact with this one: The result I mentioned with the vote outcome for "Sean" was my original ending for this story. The reason I created this voting system in the first place was because so many of my reviewers threatened me with life and limb (and just plain begged me) to keep Sean alive. Well guys, congratulations! Not only did you keep Sean alive, but you reunited him with Mallory and helped him bond with Cole! :] Aww!
Did You Know…?
So, I did something in this story that I didn't do with "Forgive Me Before You Go". I purposefully put little unexplained slip-ups throughout the story to see if anyone would catch them. Very few of you caught them (or at least very few of you mentioned them in reviews, so I assume very few of you caught them.) Don't know what I'm talking about? Well…
~ In chapter 5, Sean mentions how both he and Adam used to be on their old school's basketball team. Oh really, Sean? I can't imagine how you made it onto your school's basketball team when you have such terrible aim! You can't even hit Steve with a Twinkie box! xD
~ In chapter 10, Adam takes a break from his shift at Hot Topic and sits outside of the smoothie shop where Eve works. He thinks about his love for Orange Shooter smoothies, but due to being in a bad mood, he decides not to buy one. But in chapter 13, Adam visits Eve while she's working and he claims that he never tried a smoothie before. Aww! I never would've thought of using that as a flirting mechanism. And isn't it ironic that Eve ends up making Adam his favorite type of smoothie when he mentions that he loves oranges? They had a connection before they even started dating!
There were a few more, but I'm lazy and don't feel like trying to remember them all. So, here are the other fun facts!
Fun Facts!
~ This story has a grand total of 828 pages with 49 chapters. I started it in November 30th, 2009 and finished it on May 31st, 2011.
~ I posted the final chapters for this story on June 1st, 2011. Just as a tiny fun fact, one of my best friends who happens to be my ex-roomie from college is celebrating her 19th birthday today. :)
~ This story is exactly 10 chapters shorter than "Forgive Me Before You Go", and it's EXACTLY 200 pages longer. How scary is that?
~ I started Heartbreaker nine days after I finished FMBYG, which is funny considering I hate the number nine.
~ The original title for this story was simply "Heartbreaker", but I felt that it was too plain and its simplicity would make it unnoticeable to people who were just skimming through the stories list.
~ Cole's last name comes from the play "Guys and Dolls", which was my high school's play when I was a junior. I was a stripper in the dance for the song "Take Back Your Mink".
~ When I created the twins, I originally spelled Sean's name "Shawn". I changed the spelling at the last minute because I thought it would be cute to have Sean's name have four letters because Adam's name had four letters. It would be cool because it would match the identical twin dynamic thing I had going.
~ Joey wasn't an important character at all when I first created this story. In fact, he only had about two or three scenes in the entire story. After all the "I love Joey!" centered reviews I got, I ended up giving him a bigger role.
~ Cole was my favorite character when I started writing the story; Joey is my favorite character now.
~ Cole is a combination of both my high school best friends; he's gay, like my best guy friend, and he's extremely smart, like my best female friend.
~ Tom being Joey's long-lost little brother was a twist I created after Joey told Adam the story about his tragic past. I realized that the age gap between him and his brother worked perfectly between him and Tom and everything just fell into place.
~ Cole, Chelsea and Eve sitting at a booth in the cafeteria every morning before school started was something I did every morning when I was in high school with my friends. It was at one of the cafeteria booths where I first created the character bio for Eve Mayfield.
~ The whole "slut muffin", "whore bagel", "bastard sugar wafer!" fight Cole and Eve have at the beginning of the story is based on an actual fight my friends Sarah and Tyler had while on the school bus together. They ended up dating two years later. xD
~ For anyone who read my profile, you'll know why I named Sean's puppy Biggie Smalls. I have a Betta fish named Biggie Smalls. I bought him in October and he somehow managed to live through my entire freshman year of college.
~ Most of the sarcastic comments Sean says throughout the story are comments I actually made to people throughout my lifetime. A few of these comments include "Sorry, I'll go steal some off Mother Teresa" (when talking about being more patient), "I'm too sexy to die!" (on numerous occasions), "Open! Open! Please? Please open? Open sesame! Yabba dabba do!" (when I was trapped in the walk-in freezer in the smoothie shop I worked in, and I couldn't open the door), "I shall name you Biggie Smalls!" (while naming my Betta fish in the pet store) and "Even the best acid trip on Earth wouldn't make you look good enough to hug!" (you don't want to know why I said this; trust me! xD)
~ I got the inspiration for Chelsea from one of my friends from high school. She was pretty sweet, but she had a tendency to be gossipy and annoying sometimes. I think everyone has a friend like this at some point throughout their lifetime.
~ As a request from my reviewer Nicole, I'll tell you about the obituary Sean reads for the guy named Fred Felchy. Well…felching is something that people with fetishes for small furry animals (such as hamsters and gerbils) do. Scary Movie 4 references it when it's making fun of Brokeback Mountain and two guys start serenading each other while in a tent together. That should give you an idea as to what kind of act it is and why Sean freaked out when he read the obituary. If you get creeped or grossed out easily, don't google it like I was stupid enough to do. Trust me. That's all I'm going to say on this subject.
~ The whole Scrabble idea where Monica spelled out the inappropriate message for Eve came from a Scrabble tournament my English class had when I was in 8th grade. My class split into 6 teams, and whoever won the games would go against the winner of one of the other games and so on until there was one winner. I was one of the two remaining people, and the guy I was going against spelled out inappropriate words throughout the entire game. He ended up winning by only a few points, but I still can't figure out how my drill-sergeant teacher didn't notice the things he was spelling…
~ When I created Courtney, her name was originally Rebecca. I decided to change it, and instead, the "bitch" in my next story, "How to Catch a Killer", is named Rebecca.
Speaking of "How to Catch a Killer"…
The summary is on my profile, so I won't go into much detail there, but I always give a little bit of a sneak preview into one of my future stories at the end of the story I just finished. So, here's a little bit of info about the characters.
Aubrey Colorado: She's the main character of the story. She's a complete ditz, and it doesn't help that her best friend is an even bigger one. Her father is the chief of police, but when she witnesses her father's best friend murder someone in cold blood, things get completely out of hand.
Brett Zarzetta: He's Aubrey's best friend and the other main character of the story. He was Aubrey's worst enemy for the majority of their lifetime, but after an accident that resulted in him losing his memory, Aubrey decided to start their relationship over. After all, her family and his family were pretty much best friends, so she couldn't get away from him. Now they're best friends, but they tend to argue a lot more than normal friends do. But what do you expect with their past that Aubrey remembers, but he doesn't?
Dave Argenhaly: He's Aubrey's father's best friend and the man Aubrey accidentally discovers is a murderer.
Rebecca Ross: She's Aubrey and Brett's worst enemy. Before Brett's accident, she and Brett were friends, but after the accident when Aubrey and Brett started to bond, she started to resent both of them.
Helena Greene: She's Rebecca's cousin. She's so shy that it could actually cause a problem, and what could've been a friendship between her, Aubrey and Brett is ruined when they discover her connection to Rebecca. But after she overhears a conversation between Aubrey and Dave, she finds out about the murder, and now she's involved.
Art Painter: He's a 21-year-old piercing/tattoo artist with an almost non-existent sense of humor; that might have something to do with his extremely embarrassing name. Using common sense that both Aubrey and Brett lack, he senses Dave's hostility towards Aubrey and eventually finds out about the murder. To make things more complicated, Helena forms a very obvious crush on him that both Aubrey and Brett try to turn into something more, but Helena's fear of talking to new people makes their side-mission a little harder than they expected.
Brad Colorado: He's Aubrey's father and the chief of police. He's completely oblivious to Dave's crime.
Shana Colorado: She's Aubrey's mother.
Olivia Colorado: She's Aubrey's little sister.
Margot Zarzetta: She's Brett's mother. She had Brett when she was 16 years old, but she eventually ended up marrying Brett's father, Bryce, and had their daughter, Natalie. Margot's mother, Marilynn, helped raise both Brett and Natalie due to Margot's young age when Brett was born.
Bryce Zarzetta: He's Brett's father. He was 18 years old when Brett was born, but married Margot when Brett was 3 years old.
Marilynn Ashton: She's Brett's grandmother. She helped her daughter and son-in-law raise Brett due to their young ages when he was born.
Natalie Zarzetta: She's Brett's little sister. She's Olivia's age and has a little-girl crush on Art when she meets him that Brett immediately tries to destroy.
Xavier: He's one of Dave's cronies. The gang doesn't spend enough time around him to learn his last name.
Miranda: She's also one of Dave's cronies. They don't know her last name either, but they get a sneaking suspicion that she's dating Xavier by the way she interacts with him.
Ronny: He's another one of Dave's cronies. They don't know his last name, either.
Dana: She's another one of Dave's cronies. They don't know her last name, but they think that she's either dating or married to Ronny.
Frank Ivy: He's the mysterious leader of the group Dave and his cronies work for. He's the gang's biggest fear in the story because they can't find where he is and they worry that they'll never meet him face-to-face.
Gary: He's Frank Ivy's right-hand man. The gang figures that, if they follow Dave, they'll find Gary and eventually find Frank. But then again…do they want to find Frank Ivy? As for his last name, they don't know it, but they could eventually find out what it is if they look hard enough.
I've been so excited to start this story. It's going to be a dramatic comedy, which may seem a little strange for the plotline, but for those of you who plan on reading it, you'll see what I mean soon. My writing forte is comedy, so I know I won't have any trouble writing this one. The ending might be the only hard part for me. This will also be my first novel with a female character used as comic relief. Everyone is so used to my comic relief being all male characters (like Joey, Sean and Blake), but this time I'll have both a guy and a girl used as the jokers.
As for the twist ending, you guys should know by now that I can't write a story without a twist ending. This twist ending has a weirdness to it, though. Unlike Heartbreaker and FMBYG, this twist is more of context than content. I have no doubt in my mind that Live4Lolz *glares* is going to catch it, but I honestly think that, if you have an eye for small details and pay attention to the dialogue of pretty much every important character, you will be able to catch this twist. If you do, though, I ask that you please don't guess what it is in a review simply because, if you're right, I don't want you to spoil it for anyone else who reads my reviews to see if my story's good enough to read. You're welcome to PM me to guess what it is and, if you want to know if you're right or not, I'll tell you. :]
Okay, so there's one more person I'd like to thank before closing this story for good. It may seem a little cheesy and I know he'll never read this, but I have to thank Rob Thomas for creating the song that gave me the inspiration for this story. If it wasn't for his song "This is How a Heart Breaks" playing in Wal-Mart on one boring day in November of 2009, I never would've thought up the idea for this twisted crazy roller coaster ride of a novel. Yeah, the actual song doesn't have much to do with the story, but the main verse is what really got the gears in my mind turning.
If it means anything, Wal-Mart is also the place where I got my first idea for "Forgive Me Before You Go". I got my initial inspiration for "How to Catch a Killer" in Lowes Home Improvement Store, but Wal-Mart played a huge role in helping me develop parts of that story as well. Honestly, if it wasn't for Wal-Mart, I probably wouldn't be a writer today. xD Wal-Mart is even a location I use in HtCaK because I always wanted to use it in one of my stories, but never got the chance to. So those of you who have never gone to a Wal-Mart, if you decide to read HtCaK, you're in for one heck of a ride!
So once again, thank you everyone for being awesome and sticking with me through this story. It really means a lot to me! I hope you had as much fun reading Heartbreaker as I had writing it!
With love,
AG91 :D