He Didn't Like Me

He Didn't Like Me
We were never meant to have a happy ending. Not me and him. Humans, maybe. I mean, all fairytales come from truth, deep down underneath. But not this one. This one just had a sore edge to it, like the day after you've gotten a really bad bruise, and now it's turning bluish at the edges. It throbs. It kind of left me with a bad left-over taste, like acid, burning my mouth. I don't know how to begin telling you this; it still hurts; this cut is fresh. But I would have many wounds in my life - like it or not - so I think coping with it would be better. For the future, I mean. Right now I hate it.
Truth is, he took my breath away. What can I tell you, I guess I'm weak like that. Not the first time I saw him, no, back then he was just a friend. Everything was ever so simple. But I've grown to like him. That stupid sincerity of his - like a kid.
See, when we grow older, we learn how to phrase our words, we learn what to say and what to avoid saying, we learn how to behave. Children are a different case. I used to see him struggling with words for a long time until he found the ones who meant what he felt, and even then, not really. But I still kind of got it. But his uncorrupted sincerity was always there.
He doesn't have it anymore, but I was supposed to know. He was bound to grow up, after all. I didn't really want him to. I wanted him to stay my age - a selfish thought. He had to grow up. We all did. What was wrong with me, I didn't know. Everyone seemed to forget what it was like to be young and believe everything. I didn't. But then, that's just how I got hurt, so that's not that highly recommended.
He had a pair of dreamy eyes. They're not that dreamy anymore - they're realistic, earth-bound. And they're cold. At least to me. I bet they aren't cold to other people - just special little me. I don't think he liked his eyes - he'd once muttered something about their ordinarity. I really wanted to make him understand that they were special, and dreamy, and, in their way, really, really pretty. It would have been a wasted effort anyways - he wouldn't have believed me - but it would have still been nice to try to explain.
He had that smile. No one who's seen it can forget it, and no one who hasn't can imagine it. It was almost half a smile, with just a slight puckering of the lips. It sounds silly, but I liked it a lot. He had it when he was playing piano. He was good at playing piano. I'd learned a little too, but quit because it was too frustrating. He didn't like saying he was good. You practically had to force it out of him. 'It's just a lot of practice', he'd say then. Boils my blood really - you'd think he'd take some sort of responsibility for this talent. But nothing. He was just modest like that.
He was a very good friend, too. Always answers the phone, even if he can't talk. That is, until very recently when he just doesn't pick up anymore. At least not when I call. If you needed help, he'd have been right there. Confused, tired, weary, scared, sheepish and totally not in control, but there. I just couldn't trust him enough to reach out and ask for help. Standards, I called it. Because I could get along, really, I could, so why act all helpless just for attention? That kind of behavior made me sick. I didn't want to. Do you think I did the right thing? Honestly, I don't know anymore. Let's say I would've acted that way - maybe things wouldn't be like this right now? Maybe. But looking back, I was right. I held my own, even if for just a little bit. Standards.
Dedication was one of his finer characteristics. Very dedicated. Wouldn't quit something until he saw it through. He had immense dedication to his morals too. He just wouldn't budge. One of them was being kind, I think. Because he was always kind, no matter what. Even when he was angry he was kind. But he was never angry at me. Just at other people, and I stuck around to see.
And I liked him a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. And he was nice, and cute, and just right the way he was.
And he didn't like me.

Ofir, congradulations! This was amazing; full of emotion, power, and a harsh sense of reality. It really shows how people change as they get older. Your character was very developed, I actually felt sympathy for her. I recieved a good sense of the guy she spoke of also. This was very well written, I found no mistakes throughout the whole piece. Right from the beginingyou grasped the readers attention-my attention anyway. The ending was fantastic, I love the last line. It really tied everything together and it is then that we really get a better idea of the main characters' remorse.
You're words flowed together wonderfully, and I love the way your directly addressed the reader during your piece. This was a nice and refreshing read, thank you and goodbye.

Big kiss, class dismissed!
Muffins 'n' Machine Guns

This is a great piece of writing. It's very possible and close to home. I like how you developed your characters. Lots of great details. This is a thumbs up.

Wow, this is very awesome. No, I really did love it. It was full of emotion and a harsh sense of reality- like loveless had said. If this is a true story, that must suck to have him not like you! I liked it a lot. You should definitely keep on writing more of these because it sounds very good,

~ Pacific

As a skeleton, a simple plot line, it was nice. However, I think you had a little trouble putting your thoughts down on the page--there were oodles and oodles of 'like's and 'just's, which made the speech clunky, and though I'm very grateful for your good spelling, I really can't overlook things such as:

I don't know how to begin telling you this; it still hurts; this cut is fresh.

Two semicolons in a row? Baaaad form, ma'am. Honestly, I liked the basic idea, but it took away from the overall effect with the 'like's, 'just's, and 'kind of's. Try going over it and getting more inside your character's head. Maybe add a flash-back, or a flash-forward. Whatever you do, please, please go over this and make it less like a teenager telling her friend about this, like, totally mean boy who like, used to be like, just so sweet and then like, suddenly, like, he just hated her, y'know?

PM me when/if you revise it. Thanks for the read!

-SELA

Hey there!

I just popped on YWS for a few minutes, telling myself that all I could do right now was get a few reviews done. Then I found some amazing stuff, and I knew I had to review it. Your story was one of them.

I loved the way you wrote this. Your main character never tells us her favorite color, her favorite food, or even what she looks like, but I feel like I know her. The pain she's talking about it is familiar to me. I've gone through something just like this, and you captured the naive feeling perfectly. Congratulations.

You had a few grammatical errors, but your story was so good that I could overlook them.

Overall, I absolutely loved it. PM me if you have any questions.

-youreit

Hi ofir,

The fact that this haphazardly strewn caricature made it onto featured pages is another sign of how most cannot be trusted to identify good literature.

This is not. It is only, and will always be, a long whine and rant about something about which the reader couldn't care less. The more I read into this, the more I was struck by how childish and utterly vapid of any deep thought the piece was. You say things like "he has dreamy eyes" and "he's really cute". Please think for a minute about why anybody would ever want to read this for pleasure, save yourself. If it's written for yourself, then fine. Keep it in your notebook. Don't display it on a public forum for all to see and waste their time.

You might as well replace this entire bulky paragraph of ranting with something like "He was really hot and he made me laff!!! But now he's gone..." Because that's all it is right now.

If you wish to improve it, discard it. There is barely anything redeeming about this story, and that happens to be the candid, plain voice that stands out as distinctive. Retain that by all means, but level the rest and start of anew. Use a theme that everybody can relate to; even if it is a motif like "love", don't simply go on and on and on and on about how much you loved this guy. It's boring. Compare him with some vivid imagery that you must have envisioned when standing by his side during your romance. Imagery is almost always the key to helping the reader gain a foothold onto your mind.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

Wow, I just read Galerius's post... Whatta meanie!

Anyway, this wasn't like amazing, but it was pretty good. Galerius was right when he said that your basic message was something on the lines of "He was really hott and he made me laff! But now he's gone..."

However, you make this much more than just that. You beautifully elaborate on that idea and build it into several solid paragraphs.

This is not "great literature" by any means. But it is good.

Cheers,
Lena

Thank you everyone for your reviews! It means a lot to me. I apologize for not sending pms, but rather doing this together. To those of you who misunderstood, this was a short piece and was not supposed to have a structure or anything of the like. There is a scenario, and my Character's voice within it, so sorry if it wasn't "good literature" in your mind [Also, the story is fiction]. To those of you who supported me and or gave me building critisism, thank you so so much! You've brightened my day a lot. I generally don't like it when authors post comments in their own threads, but please excuse me this one time because I really wanted to thank you.
Ofir

all i can say is that it's awesome!
is that true?

I barely ever write reviews. No offense to any of the writers here, but it's hard to grasp my attention in the first paragraph. Normally I lose interest. This had me hooked. I wanted to hear more about the character's situation and quite soon, I also cared about how she felt. Both characters feel believable, too. I may be inexperienced in the field of relationships, but I think this captured the feeling of loss near perfectly, but skewed it enough to see loss from the main character's point of view.
My only suggestion would be perhaps developing the story a touch more. It's fine as it is, but might be more involving if we knew more.
Keep up the good work!

I've never really been interested in romantic fiction, chick/flick stuff, but decided to give this romantic fiction section a shot. Most of the things I've seen here have been the same--teenage angst writing with little or no relevence and a lot of whining. I liked this though. It grabbed my attention and I wasn't bored reading it. You were somehow able to tell a lot about the narrator without her ever talking about herself; wow! There were a couple of previous critiques already pointed out, so I don't think I need to reiterate. Overall, good job. It kept my interest and I felt like there was a lot of meaning and emotion behind it, which is seems like most romantic fiction lacks. Keep writing!