Published December 29, 2012
A/N~This story is one of many I wrote for NaNoWriMo. Contains semi-triggering content. Also, the title is not #23, I just did not know what to call it.
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After the first fight, everything is perfect. He tries not to make her mad, brings her coffee and takes her out for lunch.
He can feel the brick wall she keeps up breaking down.
He's breaking it down.
They go out for a fancy dinner. Snow is now falling down, visible under the street lamps. He feels like he is in a snow globe.
A red rose stood in a thin glass vase, an angry slash of red across the dainty white tablecloth.
She still wears long sleeves when they're alone. She still plays with her sleeves when she's nervous. She's doing it now, not looking up at him.
He doesn't even need these clues to tell him something is bothering her.
She avoids the topic of herself, although he brings it up in surreptitious ways. She talks under her breath in monosyllables.
He fills in the blank spaces with meaningless anecdotes.
Food comes. He eats, she stares at the plate, frozen.
She squeezes her eyes shut, as if she's trying not to cry.
He asks her what’s wrong.
She ignores the question, eating to pacify him.
He's never seen this mood with her. He knows something is wrong and she refuses to say. They spend the evening sizing each other up. She dodges every question he asks, he asks more questions than he did in all sixteen years of school.
After dinner, they walk around the city centre, hand in hand. They walk bundled in winter jackets and hats and the snow falls and piles around their feet. A wind blows, it's not cold, but it's not warm either. It makes them stay closer together, so they could feed off of each others warmth.
It's magical. The overall effect is Narnia-like.
Anything could happen.
The silence suits the setting.
They walk, hand in hand, faces stony, each fighting a different battle.
After about twenty minutes, she breaks the silence.
She asks if he'll hate her.
He says he could never.
She leads him to a bench, and she sits down. She takes off her ruby red coat, and plays with the sleeves that covers her arms. Underneath, she's wearing a strapless flowered dress, one that showcases her chest and legs.
She hesitates for a moment, and he watches her every move. He sits next to her, and urges her to tell him whats wrong. She looks at him with a wild, nervous look in her eye. She opens her mouth, ready to tell him she can't tell him.
She doesn't want to scare him.
He places more pressure than he probably should, but she's scaring him. he does not want her to know, but she's scaring him.
He knows she's on the verge of saying it, so he keeps quiet. She attempts a subject change, but he diverts it back to her.
He's smart. He's brilliant.
Without looking at him, she goes to remove her sweater. The action is prolonged, dragged out, every moment a bated breath.
She shows him her wrists.
Both of them are covered in bandages, bright scarlet in the dim night.
He looks for one minutes, and then looks away.
She does not explain, just slips her sweater back on.
He says she should go to a hospital.
She says she's fine.
Like a fool, her believes her.
He wants her to stay strong, if not for her, for him.
He says he loves her.
The words hang in the air, awkwardly. She stares at him for a moment, and cannot formulate words. He stares back, certain of the response she'd give.
With her, he should be certain of nothing.
Now that it is out loud, all he wants to do is repeat it. Say the same three words over and over again, climb a building and scream it from the rooftops. His stomach is buzzing. seconds turn to minutes.
Minutes that she does not reply feel like hours.
In truth, she does not know how to reply. Her ex-boyfriend only told her he loved her after she picked him up at some random club and sat with him while he puked.
Neither of these things are happening, and she cannot figure out how to respond. They sit, her hand on the cold metal bench. He puts his hand on top of hers and she moves.
He can feel the wall coming back up.
He slides her a look, and she gives him one in return. One of uncertainty and unease.
He does not like where this is headed.
She, like Carah Adams, is about to tell him that he's wonderful, that she likes when he makes her laugh, when he kisses her really softly, but she does not, will not and can not love him. (Not with handsome, varsity star Mark in the picture.)
She does not say anything. Not for a very long time. What an awkward end to an awkward night. Mentally, he kicks himself. Why did he say that? Why would he let it slip?
It felt so right. He was so confident.
He never learned that he would never be one hundred percent confident.
He starts to draw circles with his numb finger on the bench. The silence is killing him.
He's so stupid.
She does not, cannot say anything. She gets up and walks away, leaving her jacket behind. She is not cold. Her parents taught her from an early age that avoiding her problem was the best way to deal with her problem.
It never is, and she is too silly to see that.
He gets up, and starts to walk in the opposite direction, taking her jacket with him. He wonders if this is what being left at the alter is like. A deep sense of regret sits in his stomach. He walks with his hands in his pockets, wandering slowly, not eager to go home.
He is starting to realize that in this city, a city filled with a million people, that he is alone.
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138,653 Literary Works • 672,189 Reviews
I am very intrigued with your style of writing. I was drawn in at the beginning with your words and imagery, but then you lost me once they left wherever they ate for dinner. The scene where she showed him the scars was good, but I felt that the emotion that you put into the beginning of the story was gone and it became weaker. When you wrote, "(Not with handsome, varsity star Mark in the picture.)", it ruined the story for me. Grammatically, there were a few errors, but nothing too serious. The only real problems were your choice of words.
hey girl, lemme gitchu a review up in here!
take this out and let your piece live and breathe in its own time, separate from any other works, especially when referencing them does nothing to improve your work because you can already set the quiet snow quite well.
unnecessary, and a silly bow to the mail gaze. we do not need to hear about her chest and legs when we have her silence and arms to worry about.
this is completely genuine.
this is completely confusing. what does this even refer to, and why do you say she's about to do that if she doesn't actually say that at all?
now, i really have to commend you on giving the genuine awkwardness of the moment. that's what happened between these two people, and you let us revel and bathe in it, 'cause there was nothing else to do. i do think, though that if she got up and left, there would be at least some reaction in him, which you completely skipped. even if he doesn't say anything, does he close his eyes so he doesn't see her walk away? does he start to say something, but hold back so all that comes out is a noise?
*altar + also why is he thinking this suddenly? isn't he sixteen? or twenty? and why is he thinking of marriage around a girl he just met? unrealistic.
i also wonder why he feels alone. he feels apart, separated. alone for now, but not alone for good the way your ending makes it seem.
i'd maybe call this after the restaurant or walk away, if you're looking for title suggestions for sure.
please, above everything else, let me know if you have questions and i'll try to clarify what i've said. let me know if you want me to review something else.
good luck. press on. keep writing.
Hey there, wonder,
I'm going to start up by saying I really like this kind of writing, where there are no names, but there definitely are characters. The whole thing is about their feelings and the way they interact, and it's simply lovely. So, no surprise: I like this piece a lot.
I think you do a brilliant job of showing us what's going on here, and really bringing the reader in to feel it with the characters. The awkwardness and nervousness of the whole situation is very much clear - especially after he says he loves her. I think the short line there really makes the words punch, and I can definitely feel the awkward silence afterwards. You've also done very well at showing all the tumbled emotions that come with love and matters like self-injury - I've seen writing that just walks past all the conflict and heartache that comes on both sides of that, but you've stopped to delve right into it and make the reader ache with them.
There aren't many things I want to say about improving this, but I'll have a go. Firstly, the line "(Not with handsome, varsity star Mark in the picture.)". I'm not really sure about this - not sure it fits with the rest of the piece and its anonymous emotion. Your call, completely, but I personally would take it out.
And second, more major than that nitpick: when they sit down on the bench and she takes off her coat, there's a confusing moment where I'm not sure what she's wearing. The problem is the conflict between "strapless dress" and "sleeves that cover her arms" - at first I thought they were her coat sleeves, but she just took that off... and it took me a moment to work out what was going on. I think this could be fixed really easily - something as simple as making it "underneath her sweater" would do it. That way the reader can continue with the immersion that the rest of the piece gives them.
I think that's pretty much it, though, and I hope it's been at least a little useful. Drop me a PM if you've got any questions, or catch me in chat.
Cadi x
Hey, wonder!
But I decided to read this because I didn’t think it would be anything like that, and it wasn’t. I actually kind of liked it — it was very true to real life, if sad, and that was the main thing that struck me about it. The things that the characters said and did and felt came across as properly real to me, as did the characters themselves. This is the kind of thing that could easily end up seeming melodramatic or overdone, but again, this didn’t. 
The way they communicated was believable, understandable and true to their characters.
I’m usually kind of wary of reading stories from the romance section because I always seem to end up reading the really terrible ones which are full of cliches and totally unrealistic mushy stuff.
The one thing that bothers me a little bit is how vague it is. It’s a vague kind of style, and there’s nothing really wrong with that, but in quite a few places I did wish that I knew a bit more; that I had a bit more to go on while imagining all of this happening in my mind. It would have been nice just to read a little more description of the characters themselves, of the settings, their actions. I already feel for the characters as it is, but I think I would have felt for them even more if the story didn’t seem so impersonal in places.
Another thing that I didn’t really get on with was the way you used these lines:
I’m not sure what it is about them, exactly. Maybe it’s the way that, again, much of the story seems quite impersonal. It seems to kind of be from the male MC’s viewpoint, but not always; so I’m not really sure whether these sentences are things that he thought or just statements. Is he the one who sees himself as a fool reflecting back on it, and her as silly? =/
I think the previous reviewers have covered most of the nitpicks and things, so I don’t really have much else to say. ^_^ In short, my overall impression is that I did like it; I think it would be even better if it was a bit more personal and emotional, a little more solid, a little less vague. The things that are definitely already there, though, are the real, understandable story and characters.
Sorry if this isn’t really of much help.
~Mist
Hello, Angel here,I am here to review.
I like the way you wrote the story in sentences, it added to the drama. But you might want to add a few details here and there. For example, when they went out to dinner, describe that scene a bit. The last line had an impact to it and was a nice touch.
Overall, nice idea, you just need to work on the details. Also, it would sound better if the characters had names. The story needs a title as well since it's the title that catches a reader's attention. Good luck and keep on writing.
Hello! It's my Nike
Here to review
After the first fight, everything is perfect. He tries not to make her mad, brings her coffee and takes her out for lunch.
- This is alright. I get the scene.-
He can feel the brick wall she keeps up breaking down.
He's breaking it down.
-This is really... simple? Yes. Make it original.-
They go out for a fancy dinner. Snow is now falling down, visible under the street lamps. He feels like he is in a snow globe.
- I seem to not believe he feels like he's in a snow globe... better description would be necessary. -
A red rose stood in a thin glass vase, an angry slash of red across the dainty white tablecloth.
-Okay. I see that you have two different descriptions here. It feels out of place together. Make them work because I really like the 'angry slash of red' part, it's good.-
She still wears long sleeves when they're alone. She still plays with her sleeves when she's nervous. She's doing it now, not looking up at him.
-Stop using 'She' and 'He' too often.-
He doesn't even need these clues to tell him something is bothering her.
She avoids the topic of herself, although he brings it up in surreptitious ways. She talks under her breath in monosyllables.
He fills in the blank spaces with meaningless anecdotes.
Food comes. He eats, she stares at the plate, frozen.
She squeezes her eyes shut, as if she's trying not to cry.
He asks her what’s wrong.
She ignores the question, eating to pacify him.
-Be more descriptive.-
He's never seen this mood with her. He knows something is wrong and she refuses to say. They spend the evening sizing each other up. She dodges every question he asks, he asks more questions than he did in all sixteen years of school.
After dinner, they walk around the city centre, hand in hand. They walk bundled in winter jackets and hats and the snow falls and piles around their feet. A wind blows, it's not cold, but it's not warm either. It makes them stay closer together, so they could feed off of each others warmth.
-This is better.-
It's magical. The overall effect is Narnia-like.
-Make it believable.-
Anything could happen.
The silence suits the setting.
-Can anything really happen? And why does the silence suit the setting?-
They walk, hand in hand, faces stony, each fighting a different battle.
-Faces stony sounds bad.-
After about twenty minutes, she breaks the silence.
She asks if he'll hate her.
He says he could never.
-I like that you don't add the speech. It's more, nicer.-
She leads him to a bench, and she sits down. She takes off her ruby red coat, and plays with the sleeves that covers her arms. Underneath, she's wearing a strapless flowered dress, one that showcases her chest and legs.
-How would he know what the dress shows if she's wearing a sweater?-
She hesitates for a moment, and he watches her every move. He sits next to her, and urges her to tell him whats wrong. She looks at him with a wild, nervous look in her eye. She opens her mouth, ready to tell him she can't tell him.
-Re-read your story and fix the grammatical errors and spelling!!-
She doesn't want to scare him.
-Prove this.-
He places more pressure than he probably should, but she's scaring him. he does not want her to know, but she's scaring him.
He knows she's on the verge of saying it, so he keeps quiet. She attempts a subject change, but he diverts it back to her.
He's smart. He's brilliant.
Without looking at him, she goes to remove her sweater. The action is prolonged, dragged out, every moment a bated breath.
-I feel like the guy is the main character. If you are writing in first person, make it first person material. Edit that.-
She shows him her wrists.
Both of them are covered in bandages, bright scarlet in the dim night.
He looks for one minutes, and then looks away.
She does not explain, just slips her sweater back on.
He says she should go to a hospital.
She says she's fine.
Like a fool, her believes her.
He wants her to stay strong, if not for her, for him.
He says he loves her.
The words hang in the air, awkwardly. She stares at him for a moment, and cannot formulate words. He stares back, certain of the response she'd give.
With her, he should be certain of nothing.
Now that it is out loud, all he wants to do is repeat it. Say the same three words over and over again, climb a building and scream it from the rooftops. His stomach is buzzing. seconds turn to minutes.
-'Now that it is out loud' makes no sense. Try, 'Now that it's all out there'.-
Minutes that she does not reply feel like hours.
In truth, she does not know how to reply. Her ex-boyfriend only told her he loved her after she picked him up at some random club and sat with him while he puked.
Neither of these things are happening, and she cannot figure out how to respond. They sit, her hand on the cold metal bench. He puts his hand on top of hers and she moves.
He can feel the wall coming back up.
He slides her a look, and she gives him one in return. One of uncertainty and unease.
He does not like where this is headed.
She, like Carah Adams, is about to tell him that he's wonderful, that she likes when he makes her laugh, when he kisses her really softly, but she does not, will not and can not love him. (Not with handsome, varsity star Mark in the picture.)
She does not say anything. Not for a very long time. What an awkward end to an awkward night. Mentally, he kicks himself. Why did he say that? Why would he let it slip?
It felt so right. He was so confident.
He never learned that he would never be one hundred percent confident.
He starts to draw circles with his numb finger on the bench. The silence is killing him.
He's so stupid.
She does not, cannot say anything. She gets up and walks away, leaving her jacket behind. She is not cold. Her parents taught her from an early age that avoiding her problem was the best way to deal with her problem.
It never is, and she is too silly to see that.
He gets up, and starts to walk in the opposite direction, taking her jacket with him. He wonders if this is what being left at the alter is like. A deep sense of regret sits in his stomach. He walks with his hands in his pockets, wandering slowly, not eager to go home.
He is starting to realize that in this city, a city filled with a million people, that he is alone.
-Why did they separate?-
OVERALL: Good story idea. The plot is kind of empty. Fill it in please. You have a few errors here and there. The description is really bad. Unless that was the point. If that was the point, make it better. More looser and pretty, to say. And stop using 'He' 'She' all the time. Find a different word for them.
Hey there!
This was nice - I'm surprised, I'm not a fan of romance. This is very sad, but something I feel a lot of people face. Being rejected, ignored, heartbroken - alone. Alright, enough gushing!
For some pros, I enjoyed that the writing was broken up into short chunks, and sometimes one sentence. I think you did it for a dramatic effect, and it worked. I like how you took simple actions andshowed their importance. Nice.
Now, on to some cons...(don't worry, you get suggestions!)
In this sentence, "A red rose stood in a thin glass vase, an angry slash of red across the dainty white tablecloth.", I wonder why you described it as an "angry slash of red", as usually a rose is something delicate, sweet - it symbolizes love. I think that you tried to make it foreshadow what was to come, but I think that it needs more detail, most likely contrast, or move it to later on in the story. For example - "A red rose stood in a thin glass vase, an angry slash of red across a dainty white tablecloth, something that once symbolized ....." Feel me? If you moved it to later on, maybe add it after she appears upset, then this sentence would work fine. You could even say "A red rose stood in a thing glass vase, now an angry slash of red....."
"She leads him to a bench, and she sits down. She takes off her ruby red coat, and plays with the sleeves that covers her arms. Underneath, she's wearing a strapless flowered dress, one that showcases her chest and legs." My biggest thing about this was how it comes off a bit...uncertain. It's a bit confusing, as when I first read this, I thought "if it's strapless, how does it have sleeves...?" then I realized "OH, she must have on another jacket or something..." Maybe just clarify it a bit, then again, it is common sense once you think about it. xD
Minor typo *He, not he in the third following sentence
Minor typo *Seconds in "seconds turn to minutes"
"Her parents taught her from an early age that avoiding her problem was the best way to deal with her problem.
It never is, and she is too silly to see that." I feel like "silly" is the wrong word here, kind of immature compared to the rest of the story...if that makes sense? Try a word that would go along with the reason she is that way...maybe "corrupted" or "naive".
Now, some more gushing! Your ending sentence is -wow-, really drives home the meaning. I had to work to find issues, so great job!
~Epic