Detachable vs. Fixed Cables: Pros and Cons in Mobile Audio

[AbuHossam]

First time posting here. I’ve been working on my first novel, and would love some feedback. I have a background in journalism and more technical writing, but I have always wanted to spread my creative wings. This is supposed to be a YA rom-com.

She was dying. Grace Connell had been on foreign soil for a total of 78 minutes and she was dying. When she left the US for Ireland she was thrilled about leaving behind the scorching summer temps for a blissful 68 degrees. But that dream had long gone down the drain. A quarter of a mile. That’s all it was from the train station to the front door of her new campus apartment. She’d walked three times that distance around Target in her shopping prep for her move. She was barely sweating when she stopped to look down at her smartwatch- but she was pretty sure death was knocking at her door as she couldn’t catch her breath. That couldn’t be right - 43 flights of steps! What was wrong with these people? Who lived like this? Apparently, she did now. She was seriously second-guessing the 6 pairs of boots she packed in her second suitcase. She didn’t know what to expect for weather and fashion in Ireland, so she came prepared. She was also suddenly regretting turning down the offer from her parents on helping her settle in. They’d been breathing down the back of her neck worried about her well-being for the last 18 months, and she decided this was something she had to do on our own - and for her own sanity. She’d been healing through a dark time, and Ireland was the first step towards a fresh start.

Grace had snickered at the women she saw walking around Lirinford in long, flowy dresses and running shoes, but their lack of fashionable appeal suddenly made more sense. She had never lived in a place where you had to walk more than 20 steps from car to door to get to where you needed. Growing up in a small town outside of Charleston, South Carolina, didn’t exactly provide a vast amount of public transportation options. The closest thing to that she experienced was boys offering her and her friends rides in their big pickup trucks on Friday nights after football games. Summer nights with loud trucks and fast cars cruising down the strip, hanging out in the local Walmart parking lot. That was when she thought the world was for her taking.**

But those days were gone. That part of her life had come to an abrupt close, and now she was standing in beautiful Ireland with hopes that the Emerald Isle would bestow some luck on what had become her pathetic life. She looked down at the four-leaf clover pendant necklace her grandmother had given her before she left. She smiled when she thought about what she had told her when she opened the box. “Sweetheart, take this necklace with you to Ireland. Luck follows those with an adventurous spirit, and you’ve got it in abundance. Little do you know, this clover holds a touch of foretelling magic. It might just lead you to the man of your dreams.” A man was the last thing she was looking for, but there was no point in sharing that with her grandma.

Lirinford had been an unexpected surprise when Grace applied to study abroad. She had hoped to study in Rome, but her advisor, Dr. Thompson, informed her of a new partnership with Ardmore University if she was interested. With some familial ties in Ireland, it was a no-brainer for her to jump at the opportunity. She’d never visited before, but she figured a 5 hour time zone jump was just as good as any place to start.

She made it to the base of her building and looked up. Three more flights. That’s it, and she was home free. Home- was she even sure what that was anymore? The future she had thought was so set in stone was suddenly turned upside down in the blink of an eye. Now she was about to meet two strangers who she would be cohabitating with for the foreseeable future. Her parents thought she was nuts. Grace loved that they cared, but she was suffocating under their weight of showing it.

A raindrop hit her forehead. Damn it, Grace! Where did you pack that rain jacket? She had heard it rained a lot in Ireland, but it only showed a 7% chance of rain in the forecast that morning. In South Carolina that was a 99% chance that it would be dry, sunny, and with enough humidity to melt even the most professionally applied makeup within 2 minutes flat. How was she supposed to know that rain showers in Ireland would be more unpredictable than her younger sister’s monthly PMS mood swings?*

Praise almighty! She could see the apartment door! Number 328, only five more steps and she could die in peace! As she breached the top step, her stupid boot-hogging suitcase caught on the lip of the concrete and sent her and a multitude of bags flying face-first into the door and then on the ground. She let out a muffled cry and the front door flew open!

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