Cross Your Heart (One-shot)

Yes. A One-shot. I'm not continuing this. This is just mostly based on my life right now. Enjoy ~WickedWonder




“Cross your heart and hope to die?” It was what she’d always ask him before telling him a secret. It was a habit, since they were five. She was now sixteen-almost seventeen; he was seventeen.
She sat on the bench, letting the wind blow leaves past her. She smiled softly, thinking about how wonderful it would be to be so carefree, so light, so ignorant. Her grip tightened on the paper bag in her hand. She used to be carefree. Now this.
“Stephanie? Steph?” it was William, her ex-boyfriend and her best friend. She could hear the urgency in his voice as she stood, “you said there was something wrong?” She nodded, pushing her brown hair from her face.
“I have a secret,” she said quietly. William sat her down on the bench again, sitting beside her. She looked into his deep brown eyes, and hoped she was making the right choice.
“What is it?” William asked. Steph smiled ironically.
“You can’t tell anyone,” she said, “cross your heart and hope to die.” William groaned. There wasn’t any way he was going to do it, until Stephanie looked at him with a desperate, anxious look.
“Alright.” William sighed and reluctantly used his left hand to make an ‘x’ over his heart.
“William,” Stephanie said, “Will, I’m pregnant. I’m going to have a baby.”

Hiya,

This is okay. There a lot of really strong points to this story. However, it doesn't feel as if it's as good as it could be. Although I do admit I like how simple this story is, it just seems a bit too simple for my tastes. I can tell this is supposed to me more character-driven, but I don't even get a sense of that. I really like the situation you create with this story, but what I'm craving is deeper characterization. How does Stephanie look as she's mustering up the courage to tell William--I'm assuming he's the father, right? The fact that they're broken up wouldn't help her courage either.

Does Stephanie think about how her parents will react? Has she already told them? Does she want to get an abortion because she thinks she's not ready? Consider these and other thoughts. I do like how ambiguous you leave the ending, though. It leaves a lot of to the imagination and makes you wonder what will happen next. I've always liked stories like that. Overall, I can see the shining potential in this piece.

Shoot me a PM if you have any questions!

-Elinor x

I liked this
Post more soon, please! And PM when you do.
Born.

I really like this and it's well written. Kudos. Haha

Hey! This is really short but straight to the point. I like it You might want to consider continuing this into something else? Sometimes writting about something you lived or seen will give a really nice edge to the work. You're a good writer and yes, there are unanswered questions (that, quite frankly let the reader just want to know even more) but, with something this short, especially if you are not expressing any desires to continue this, there's not very much point. It's almost like a sceen in a movie in our head, we fill in the blanks that are left.
Keep up the writting!

-Truth-

“Stephanie? Steph?” it was William, her ex-boyfriend and her best friend.

I liked the dialogue throughout this piece. Shortening Stephanie to Steph helped to personify William as being real and not a 'cardboard cut-out'. The issue of teen pregnancy introduced at the end was a surprising twist. The title, Cross Your Heart upheld the suspense until this revelation. Ultimately this was very smooth to read, a fact helped by an interesting plot. I understand this was a "One-shot" but you could expand on it by establishing more details around the storyline (location details etc) and move from there. Certainly this piece has promise for development.

Sincerely,
Elitehusky

Hey me again
First i just wanted to say....I totally think that this story is amazing! i loved how you describe their secret way of keeping secrets. Oh,and i love the ending! truth to be told, i didn't know that the secret that she was pregnant :O i was surprised! (in a good way;) ) i thought maybe it was something else,but you really did a good job in this story.
Keep On writing!
~Book Person~

Hey Wicked!

Pink here, dropping by to do a short review.
So, I think you had a good idea here. I mean there were minor mistakes but I won't point them out. I like the cute idea of the heart crossing, it added to the deepness here, for some reason I thought it was very cute and somehow it a little innocent and bittersweet. Now, I do think you should have added some more emotion and possibly made this a bit longer.
I liked the ending, I knew it was coming however. I just wished you explained a bit more his reaction, I was wanting to know what he thought of the idea and what plan they would come up with. However, you said it was a on-shot and I did like it nonetheless. Just wished it was longer. Keep it up!

~Pink

it was William, her ex-boyfriend and her best friend.

A) If I'm correct, you should capitalize "it" here because the sentence before it comes to a full stop.
B) The story flows SOOO smoothly up until this line -- it's just so bare. Is there anyway you can make this one line less boring?

She could hear the urgency in his voice as she stood, “you said there was something wrong?”

A) There's some punctuation/capitalization issues there.
B) This is a weird sentence in general. She heard him as she stood? I'd suggest rephrasing.

Otherwise, I like this. It's simple and well-written, and the cut off point is perfect. So many questions are left unanswered, yes, but it's a perfect dramatic line. Some more detail and more characterization would be great, however. There are a few grammar issues (mentioned above), but otherwise you did a great job!

Holy crap, short! lol. I like it, but hate that you ended it like that! It only makes me want more! Keep writing!
Sierra