National Novel Writing Month

For those of you interested in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short.) I want to give you a small excerpt from my first NaNo (Yes, the title gets abbreviated even more.) that I wrote for the November 2006 challenge.
I reached the 50,000 word goal in the 30 allotted days and exceeded it by a few dozen words. The working title of my novel is "She Learned To Smile".
Keep in mind that this is a pure, unadulterated first draft version of a crazy month long journey of beating a 50k novel of my brain:

For those of you interested in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short.) I want to give you a small excerpt from my first NaNo (Yes, the title gets abbreviated even more.) that I wrote for the November 2006 challenge.
I reached the 50,000 word goal in the 30 allotted days and exceeded it by a few dozen words. The working title of my novel is "She Learned To Smile".
Keep in mind that this is a pure, unadulterated first draft version of a crazy month long journey of beating a 50k novel of my brain:

Zoey finished out her freshman year in high school that week. A week later, on June 7th, she was turning fifteen years old. Her parents told her she could have friends over. She didn't. Zoey spent they day at home, catching up on some chores at home. When her parents asked her where she wanted to go for supper, since it was a family tradition to all go out for birthday supper, she told then that she just wanted to order in. That was the year Zoey broke the family tradition. Her brother had always followed the tradition. Even when he did not want to spend the evening out with his parents, he did it anyway. Her parents were disappointed but ordered her fried rice and egg rolls from the Chinese restaurant anyway.

Zoey got the most interesting email on the day of her birthday though. The subject line was what caught her eye. It said: Happy Birthday Sis!, and it wasn't from her brother, Derrick, her only sibling.

She read the email in a shocked silence. The shocked silence did not last for long though, "Mom!" Zoey finally screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Zoey! What's wrong?" Edward asked as he and his wife scrambled into Zoey's room where she sat at her desk, printing something off in fury.

"What's wrong? What's wrong? Why didn't you tell me I was adopted?" she screamed.

The color drained from Melinda's face as she sat down on her daughter's bed, "Oh, honey. I know this must come as a shock to you, but-"

"A shock? Are you crazy? I just got an email from my twin brother. A twin brother that up until five minutes ago I didn't know I had!" Zoey screeched, shaking with rage, crumpling the page she just printed from her computer.

"Just hear us out, Zoey," her father said, trying his best to stay calm.

"No, hear me out! Listen to this email: Dear Zoey, I know this must come as a bit of a surprise to you, but I'm just so glad I found you, I had to wish you a happy birthday. I'm Chad Bergstrom, but I'm sure you already knew that. I hope you are well. Maybe we can meet sometime. I always knew your name, my adoptive parents were always very open about it, so I decided to try to find you on the Internet, and there you were! I live in Boulder, so maybe we can try to meet up somewhere in between. I would really like to meet you. They say that even twins that are raised apart are remarkably similar. Email me back and happy birthday sis. Love, Chad," Zoey's voice was even once more, though tears were streaming down her cheeks without her permission.

"Zoey..." her mother started, though stopped, at a loss of what to say.

Her father tried to explain, "I know we probably should have told you sooner. We just didn't think it was necessary. It was never the right time."

"I have a twin brother! How the hell was it never the right time?" Zoey had reverted to screaming again.

"Okay Zoey, calm down," Melinda said in a soft-spoken voice.

"Is Derrick adopted too? Am I even related to him?" Zoey demanded in an instant, desperate to know if the brother she had always looked up to was even her brother.

"Yes, Zoey, Derrick is your brother, your half brother actually. Chad and Derrick are the only siblings we are aware that you have," Edward answered.

"Well why didn't you adopt Chad?" Zoey became aware that she was still crying.

"He was sick as an infant, they didn't even know if he would make it. You were the only one up for adoption. By the time he was healthy enough, someone else had already adopted him," Melinda answered.

"Does Derrick know he's adopted?" she demanded of her mother.

"Yes. He asked when he was about twelve. We don't know where he came up with that question really, but we couldn't lie to him, and before you say anything, we haven't been lying to you. We were just waiting for the right time," her mother said, remaining calm.

Zoey all but screamed, "Mom! I'm fifteen years old!"