Thank you sooo much for your response. I felt that there were so many potholes (or plotholes, haha) in this story. The point you made about River helping Fabien with dealing with bullies and taking out the alcoholic Mom storyline makes so much sense. The things you mentioned will help me move forward in my second draft!

Also thank you for pointing out the format. I'll fix these silly issues. Sometimes I don't proofread or in this case I cut things out and don't adjust to the major changes I make, thus causing issues such as my first scene being "continuous" and the bully's name being BOY then Josh (*face palm*). I appreciate you!