Just Like Last Time

Just Like Last Time



"He promised he wouldn't do it again, and he did. and yet you forgive him?" My friend asks me. The heat from the school bus is messing with my brain, and I couldn't think straight. It takes me a minute to form a coherent answer. Thank god school was almost over, and that this day had gone quickly.

"There were more things to it. I mean, people lied to him, and then switched phones and then..." I blabber on, making excuses for my friend. I didn't know why I did. Why I was so set on making what he did seem justifiable. I had a crush on him, but that was months ago. I didn't like him anymore, but I knew I still couldn't stand people saying mean things about him.

"Chrissy, listen to yourself." Eliza says with a sigh.

"Do you think I'm being a dumb ass?" I ask after a moments pause, thinking my logic through. Eliza merely nods. Why, why was I? What exactly had he done wrong. I mean, most of it was a misunderstanding. I mean, he had called me a few bad things. But it meant nothing, really. People said things they didn't mean when they were angry.

"You definitely are." Catherine adds from the seat behind me. I wave my hand over the space between our two seats.

"Invisible wall." I gesture to the open air, "I don't need your comments." I was more than a little mad she had chosen just then to add some lovely advice for me. I was so sick of her and help supposed help.

I get off the bus, and walk home, trying not to cry. Yesterday I swore I wouldn't forgive him, not even if he came begging on his knees. Now, we were friends again. I had messed up big time; I was in a hole I would never be able to pull myself out of. I couldn't even remember the conversation that lead to us being friends. I only remembered the concluding words.

I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him from going into his classroom.

"So we're friends again, right?" I say slowly, raising and eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. Let's just put this behind us." He says with a smile, then walks into social studies. I turn around to go to English with a smile on my face.

But that's what he said last time. And he promised he wouldn't do it again. and yet here I stood, having the same argument with my friends I had the last time he had broken our friendship. All over a dumb rumor.

"He did it twice, he'll only do it again." my friend had insisted earlier on in the day.

"But he promised." I say. I know what my friend is going to say before she even opens her mouth. The same argument we had over and over. All were based on what-ifs and events that had already happened. What if he broke our friendship again? what if he went back on his word...again? What if he listened to Bria.....again?

"Just like last time." she says, and shakes her head. She turns to give Adam a look as he walks up to me in the hallway.

"What was that for?" He asks me.

"She thinks I'm being dumb. She says you'll do it again."

"I promise," He says, "I won't."

Just like last time.

Hey, Kay.
This wasn't bad! You've got a very good idea here. And you wrote it well, except...
...This piece feels empty! Emotionless. Take advantage of the first person POV. Let us into her head. By the way you write this, it seems as if the MC is blank, an inhuman girl without feelings. It seems as if she's not actually affected by the situation. It seems like she's not hurt, bruised, damaged, or whatever. Which, as I said, makes her seem inhuman. It seems like she doesn't actually really care about anything.
Also, I feel like you're dumping a load of people on me. Okay, who's in this teensy piece? The MC, Kayla, Eliza, Catherine, Bria, and Adam. Whoa. Other short stories, that are still longer than this one, have way less characters. Can you somehow cut the characters down, and simplify? Maybe just introduce some of them just as 'friends', and not give their names? Doing so would help a lot! I feel a bit confused when reading all these names, and lost. It's really not necessary.

Hope I helped! Good luck. Keep up the good work-

KD

P.S. If the MC is you, I'm sorry! I hope everything will work out well.

Hello Kay.

Unlike the other reviewer, I think the emotion is the strong point here. I believe you've implied it quite well by showing your confused emotions, the repetition of him "doing it again" and the constant going on of the friend. However, although the dialogue is definitely a plus point as it portrays the tale very well, I think you need to cut down on it. Give us a bit to firm the idea of what the relationship with the friend was like, but don't make it the whole tale.

You've done very well because this is a hard thing to do, take your own experience and make sure the line crosses over to Non-Fiction rather than appearing as a piece of prose. I assume this is a personal account, in which case, you should perhaps include something that this experience relates to. Perhaps someone's treated you like this before? Or you could compare it with something general in order to give your readers more of that link between how you felt and how they're empaphising for you.

Anyway, I think you've wrote this very well, the structure is thought out and the narrative is controlled and maintains clarity. However, there are the odd grammar mistakes, such as forgetting to put a capital letter after a period and mastering the correct grammatical endings to dialogue, where a comma should be used instead of a period.

Hope this helps!
PM me if you want any more Non-Fiction assistance
Ben

Hey, Kaywiia I'm going to hit on something besides the emotion of this piece.

My friend asks me. The heat from the school bus is messing with my brain, and I couldn't think straight. It takes me a minute to form a coherent answer.

Okay, in the first sentence you set up a present tense story. I know it's present because of the word "asks". But then half way through the second sentence you change it back to past tense with "couldn't". To make that present change it to can't or you could change it all to past with asked and in the second sentence was instead of is. I think you did that again (switched tenses) in other parts of the piece too, just read back through it and you'll be able to catch when it changes.

This was a good story. If it was true and it happened to you or someone you know I'm sorry. But I liked it because there was a certain voice to it, I could hear a voice in it that was almost personal. I thought the emotion was ok, but like Ben said I could feel it because of how your character reacted to things and her confusion. It wouldn't hurt to add some more emotion to it, maybe have her act differently at the end around the boy. Or add in some background information to make the reader more aware of what has happened to the MC.

I hope that helped. PM me if you have any questions or want me to look at anything else.
~peanut~

Just a note:

This actually did happen to me. Even the dialogue, from what I can remember, is word-for-word.The main character is me, just for your information. Just, as a little resolution, I gave up on the boy and haven't talked to him since.