Hysterical Friendship.

This beginning scene needs help and I'm sick of working through it. Thoughts?
Do you like the way I ended? Do you have a better idea?
I'd love your input.
Thanks.




“Hey hon,” said Rosa sticking her cell phone between her shoulder and her ear, “Did the Suns win, or did you just miss me?”
“No, it’s- I gotta tell you something.”
His beautiful, contemplative voice had an edge behind it, hinting that something was wrong.
“What?” she asked, fighting the uprising of premature panic.
“It’s… it’s Becky.”
The June air started to feel icy as it blew in thorough the screen.
“What about her?” His tone was sickening her with worry and she felt her hands slowly starting to shake.
“She’s- she…”
“What about her Eli?!”
“She attempted suicide.”
It was amazing how fast she felt it, the black hysteria knotted in a flourish of nausea. Her heart felt like it was falling out of her chest as she began to gurgle incoherently.
Her body felt too small to contain this as her voice sobbed into the phone.
“No! No! Eli! Where is she?! Where- where?!”
“Methodist Hospital.”
Rosa was flying around the room, willing all the numb and frozen useless parts of her body to find her car keys.
“There’s something else.” Rosa heard Eli’s voice in the phone she’d completely forgotten was in her hand.
“No, no. What?!”
Shards of daylight were scattered in beams across the hardwood, she waded through them and struggled to pull herself together fully enough to walk out of the room.
“She blamed you.”

&&&

The parking lot smelled like gas and French fries from the Hardee’s across the street.
The steering wheel felt taut and bloated under its incasing of leather.
The red Honda in front of her looked a little too new, a little too shiny.
It was too quiet. Too absent of any kind of noise that could possibly battle with the uproar that was going in between her ears.
When five minutes passed, she felt like vomiting.
When six minutes passed, she felt like leaving.
When nine and a half minutes passed, she went inside.
Eli was there at the entrance waiting for her and she didn’t protest when he came to wrap his arms around her. They’d always been a miracle drug of sorts, but today they did nothing to allay the soft panic that curled up in her toes and sizzled in her heart. Other than the panic, she felt nothing, only numbness.
“It was terrible Rose,” he muttered into her hair.
Some animal instinct told her that he needed comfort too. She blindly fumbled at his back and shoulders, trying to find a landing point for the fierce pressure she could provide.
“I come-,” he cleared his throat, “I come home and all these ambulances are surrounding her house. There’s a crowd and a stretcher and police tape.” He still hadn’t let go and his messy, rushed sentences were right on her ears.
“She jumped out the window. The highest one too. She just jumped. Cracked spine, cracked skull, broken leg. Thank God she’s alive. We’ve been- we’ve been friends since forever, and I just, I just…”
“Mmh.” Rosa felt the suckerpunch of fear mixed with surrealism.
“I want to see her,” she said, pulling away.
Eli shifted his glance to the window.
“The note-,” his voice cracked, “The note,” he continued after clearing his throat, “was crumpled up beside her. Aaron told me, he had it in his hand. And, and I read it and…”
“And what?” She didn’t want to hear, but she needed to.
“It said, ‘I couldn’t be Rosa.’”

&&&

She walked into the room without thinking, because without thoughts her feelings had nowhere to land.
She looked small. Of course she always looked small. But right then, pale against the sheets, Becky exuded a juvenilia and vulnerability.
“Do you have to come in here like that?” asked Becky, some kind of unspecific contempt spinning outward from her.
Rosa’s preplanned words stuck in her throat.
“Like what?”
“Too beautiful.”
Rosa didn’t say anything. She watched the sunshine out the window without seeing the way it illuminated her cerulean eyes.
She sealed her lips and nodded swiftly before walking out, fists tight.
It was ten minutes before she returned, hair slicked tight against her scalp in a low ponytail and every vestige of make-up gone from her face. Red borders rimmed her eyes and made it look like she’d been either crying or scrubbing too fiercely.
The silence felt a little like airborne nausea. Rosa tried not to occupy her mind with anything other than the feeling of her arms crossed over her torso as she walked back in.
Her throat caught and her voice stumbled as she attempted to say something, anything.
“Better?”
“Hardly.”
“Becky?!”
“What?”
Becky’s eyes were gently emitting only a small fraction of the hate that leaked out through her words.
Rosa slowly made her way to the uncomfortable-looking bedside chair and sat. She pressed her nose between a pair of folded hands and let a few stray tears escape. The only thing she could see, feel, or smell was the mixture of skin, snot, and saltwater.
“Why would you do this?” she asked quietly.
“Like you don’t know.”
“I don’t!”
“Please.”
Rosa wasn’t acquainted with the Becky that attempted suicide. The one swaddled in plaster who had eyes like stone. But she was best friends with the Becky that hated to fail, the one who kept a bit of angst always in her back pocket, the one that never gave up.
“I just don’t understand.”
“You seriously don’t understand?!” Becky looked like she was on the verge of tears herself.
“No, I don’t. I don’t understand Becks, explain it to me.” Rosa was already crying fat, heavy teardrops that blazed slick trails down her cheeks.
“You’re perfect! You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you have the perfect family, the perfect friends! You have the grades and the confidence and the social life!”
“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” Rosa muttered as Becky spoke.
“And you have Eli. You won him. God, it’s not like it was even a competition. Why the hell would he want me when there’s you?” Becky was crying now also, spitting the words through the deluge and her wavering sanity.
“What the hell do I have? My bookshelf? My butler? My silver Jag and my so-called family who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about one another?”
“That’s not true!” cried Rosa, braking through the rant.
Becky fiercely wiped at the puddle of water collecting around her eyes.
“Then why don’t you enlighten me as to my many blessings, oh perfect one?”
“Don’t call me that!”
“It’s true. It’s so goddamn true!”
Rosa stood up from the chair shaking her head and crying
“I could never live up to you, and you loved it.”
“You don’t see my cracks Becky!” she cried, the sharp edge of scream in her voice. “Everyone has hard times, everyone has issues! You think I like living in my sister’s shadow? You think I like feeling guilty about Eli and worrying about how I’m going to pay for art school?!”
Becky rolled her eyes, “I bet you never even liked me.”
“Becky, I love you! Why are you my best friend if I don’t love you!?”
“I’ve always wanted to be you, that’s why we’re best friends. I satisfy your vanity.”
“You’re crazy! Don’t ever talk like that! Don’t ever say that again! I love you Rebecca Wilks. I love you because you’re hilarious and witty and smart in offbeat sort of way. You teach me something new every time we talk. I love you because I know you’d drop everything to help someone if they needed it. I love you because I know you’re such a good person through and through! Becky.”
Becky had broken down into sobs that contorted her face and shook her torso.
Rosa picked up the tissue box on the window ledge, slowly sat back down, and offered it to her.
While her best friend cried, she took hold of her tiny, pale, left hand just to let her know she was there, just to let her know she wasn’t going to leave.

&&&

It was an hour of hell and silence before Becky spoke.
“I don’t hate you,” she said quietly.
“No?”
“No. I think it’s more of myself that I hate.”
“Please don’t.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m not sure that I can help it.”
Rosa swallowed and squeezed Becky’s hand a little harder.
“Just tell me this. If you… if you could try suicide again, would you?” It was almost a whisper, but she needed to ask.
It was a full minute before she responded.
“No. No I don’t think I would.”

Wow this is good, friends do end up being jealouse of each other weather its about looks, what they wear or what house they live in, but in the end you still have each other no matter what I really liked this, hope to see more of your work.

Hellooo. ^-^ Here -finally- to review this for you. I'm working off iPod Internet again it seems, so I hope my review still turns out good. But feel free to let me know of anything I'm missig or happen to skimp out on. Onward with the review.

So in the beginning of your story you begin it with a phone call from Eli, Rosa's boyfriend. In a way I grew to like your choice of this, because it sort of ties in the three together. Becky's jealousy with Rosa and her boyfriend. It's a stable sort of standpoint I think, becase that's basically what the theme of your story reverberates around. The profound jealousy that lies between the two.

It was also sort of powerful how you ended the first opening scene with Eli telling the main character Becky blamed her attempt at suicide on her. That's a lot of weight to carry on one's shoulders. Here is where I really think you gave the story its strength. And as for the preceeding scenes, I think you did well in keeping up the story's tempo, but I found myself disagreeing with much of the little stuff.

Here and there I'd run into a few places where the flow of your story became a little choppy through your way of wording things. One example, here:

She blindly fumbled at his back and shoulders, trying to find a landing point for the fierce pressure she could provide.  

This sentence here didn't make a bit of sense to me. Why is she trying to provide fierce pressure? It seemed like you were attempting to articulate a thought into words but couldn't get it exacty right. Happens to me a lot, I swear. One thing I would definitely try to do is go back and reread these moments of feeling and be sure what you're saying really makes sense. It can be difficult sometimes to get certain words out.

One little thing I didn't so much like was the way you decided to separate the scenes. You would insert "&&&" for some reason. I just ended up seeing it as "and and and", lol. Try something more like: "~~~" or "***". It'd look more like the layout of a story with those types of scene separation. Really, anything other than "&&&". But this is me just being nitpicky.

There was a part I loved with this where you had your character waltz on into Becky's hospital room, only to have her walk back out and come in a second time with all the makeup wiped from her face and all. I think by adding that part in you accomplished a few things:

1.) The fact that her friend really is jealous of her, and the last thing she wants to see is her radiant best friend walk in to see her completely unglamorous. 2.) You revealed a very sincere and true side to your main character. In the eyes of the reader I think, she became humble and a truer side of her shined through a little bit. Which was refreshing to read, even if it was only a small thing.

I think your ending -although simple- carried a strong tone to it. By asking if she would ever attempt to committ suicide again should she have the chance to go back, and have Becky answer no, I think ended up sending a message across in your writing. Great job ending the story on a note like that.

Overall though, I think the story was nice and it had it's sentimental values with it, but there was something missing to make it completely pop. Maybe it was just too short of a story for me to take in all that there was to offer, or maybe I was just expecting something a tad bit more deep in thought due to the content of your story, but I'd give it a 79% out of a hundred probably. I think you could have taken things in a little bit. Made it more impactful of a story, but you did well.

I enjoyed the read, and I hope my review is in someway helpful, that's all that really matters here. Great job, and keep writing!

-Smylin'

Rosa was flying around the room, willing all the numb and frozen, useless parts of her body to find her car keys.

This might seem tiny and useless but that little itty bitty comma after “frozen” makes a huge difference on the sentence as a whole.

The parking lot smelled like gas and French fries from the Hardee’s across the street.
The steering wheel felt taut and bloated under its incasing of leather.
The red Honda in front of her looked a little too new, a little too shiny.

In most cases, I would tell you that this section (and the one just below it with the (five minutes, six minutes, nine and a half minutes) should all be in one paragraph but I rather like the impact that they make when they’re set as tiny paragraphs. The two sections also balance each other out pretty well so I have to give you props. *claps*

They’d always been a miracle drug of sorts…

What exactly is “they’d” referring too. I’m guessing you mean his hugs or at least him holding her but it doesn’t really come off that way.

Other than the panic, she felt nothing, only numbness.

You kind of contradict yourself here. First you say that she feels panic, then nothing, then only nothing and numbness. Careful!


Overall
I’m actually really glad you asked me to read this. There weren’t many flaws and I think the only way you could improve this is to add a little bit more description here and there like with the hospital room over even something small and rather insignificant like the interior of Rosa’s car. Little details can make a story a million times better as long as you don’t overdo it.

Good luck and best of writing! If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or drop a note on my wall!

~lilymoore