I hear footsteps coming behind me, and I shudder. I stand frozen still in the alley that once held all of my dreams in place. A five here, twenty there. I made my life here. I sacrificed everything. Here. Here is where I learned how to play my first guitar around a crackling campfire. Now I stand here, waiting for destiny to find me twenty years later. Twenty years later, I stand here to find something I never knew I was searching for. Footsteps fall behind me, splashing in shallow puddles that reflect a sallow moon.
"You're late, love."
I laugh, "That's all you have to say? You've waited twenty years for me. A few short minutes mean nothing."
He clutches my wrist and spins me around, “You’re right. I've waited long enough.” He leans in to kiss me, but I hesitate, “Cass, I have a husband and kids. I can’t do this. Singing and playing music in an alley when you are fifteen is one thing, this is another.”
He leans away from my face to look into my eyes, “I don’t know what to say, Tracy. If you called me here just to reject me, why am I here in the first place?” I look to the damp cement below me and let a tear fall into my reflection. My eyes slowly find his, and I say, “Because I need to let you go.” I pull his face quickly to my lips and kiss him hard, taking in his scent to remember until I die. My hands find his hair. Dirty blonde. Soft. Shiny. This used to be mine. My hands fall to my sides, and I turn to run to my silver Mazda. Don’t turn back. Don’t turn back. Don’t turn back. I whip my head around to see him one more time. He’s gone. “Cass! I love you! I always loved you!”
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140,602 Literary Works • 673,549 Reviews
Hello, steampowered here for a review and to welcome you to YWS! This is going to be quite a short review, since this was such a short piece of writing and I enjoyed it so much, but I’ll try my best.
As I’ve said many a time, it’s a definite talent to be able to tell a story in such few words and you should be proud of this achievement. When I read this I was left wanting more, which I guess is a good thing, but it also makes me feel you could definitely expand on this if you wanted to. What is Tracy’s backstory? What has triggered her to meet up with Cass now? What is her husband like? Is she happily married? The conflict here is brilliant, and I feel like the idea isn’t explored to its fullest potential. So while I admire the shortness of it, I think you could write an equally amazing version going into the lives and histories of the characters. But that’s just me, and you definitely don’t have to take any of my suggestions if you don’t want to.
As someone who knows absolutely nothing about cars (I’m woefully, shamefully ignorant) the significance of this sentence was kind of lost on me. I’m going to assume it’s a flashy, expensive car – if so, referring to the make of car is definitely good because it tells us something about Tracy – she’s wealthy, and perhaps she only married her husband because he was rich and she was a penniless teenager playing music in an alley. If it isn’t, I would simply say “run to my car” since going into any more detail would do nothing for the story.
(Yes, I actually know nothing about cars. I know Jaguars and Porsches happen to be flashy cars, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge)
One more little point. When you have a verb like “I laugh” or “I hesitate” that isn’t actually a way of speaking, you don’t connect it to speech. For example:
is actually incorrect. However:
is fine, so don’t change this. When something isn’t a speech tag (speech tags being things like “I say”, “she tells me”, “Bob said”) it isn’t connected to the speech and instead forms a separate sentence. So the first example would be:
Hopefully this review was of some use to you. I’m looking forward to reading more of your work, and keep writing!
Ok, question right off the bat; why is this called "Remembering the Call"?
Like, seriously, there's never a call that takes place, well, unless you count that yell at the very end, but still, that doesn't seem all that important in comparison to everything that happens in this short scene. And man, this is way short.
Now, work like this being short isn't always bad. In fact, It's probably a good thing. It gets straight to the point, but still has enough description that we can follow what's going on. Well, sorta.
That first paragraph was weird. Yeah, I get that you're trying to recall memories, but some of them don't make sense. For instance, why did they have a fire going in an alley? Doesn't that seem rather dangerous? Is it one of those trash can fires or something? And she sacrificed everything? Are you talking about her virginity or something? Did she run away from home to be with this Cass guy? Like seriously, there's being vague, then there's being uninformative.
Also, why didn't you describe Tracy? You give vague descriptions of everything but the main character, are we supposed to just come up with our own idea and run with it?
And there's the thing with her kissing him. WHY WOULD SHE DO THIS?!
If she's trying to let him going, won't it just make things harder by kissing the guy? Wouldn't it make more sense to just have her say goodbye then walk away? Obviously she does have some idea of what the right thing to do is, so you can't just have her go against that thought process at the end! That's flip flopping.
Sorry if I came off as harsh, I'm not trying to be, just saying my opinion.
Keep writing
~Maddie
It's called "Remembering the Call" because Tracy is remembering her past life per say and remembering the way it was. And she kisses him to let him go. You know the song One Last Time by Ariana Grande? It's king of like that except deeper and not based so much on the sex. Does this make any more sense now?
One last time is about an ex-girlfriend who can't let go of her last boyfriend, because he dumped her. I don't believe this is any deeper than that song.
And if she's remembering a time, then why is this in present tense? And she doesn't do too much "remembering", its only like one sentence that she recalls the past. You can't be iffy and using "per say", cause that means you don't have a solid reason for your choices. In my work, which is novel narratives, I have every single decision planned out and I have a reason for everything. Even the name has a reason.
Last thing, and I am talking from experience right now, kissing as a form of letting go doesn't work AT ALL. It just makes you feel worse and actually makes it harder to move on. Don't go the route of the kiss goodbye. It doesn't work like that in real life
I know that kissing goodbye doesn't work that way, but she wants him to be hers one more time before she has to let go of him. She is wishfully thinking that if she lets go of Cass she can let go of the past attached to him.
Ok, question right off the bat; why is this called "Remembering the Call"?
Like, seriously, there's never a call that takes place, well, unless you count that yell at the very end, but still, that doesn't seem all that important in comparison to everything that happens in this short scene. And man, this is way short.
Now, work like this being short isn't always bad. In fact, It's probably a good thing. It gets straight to the point, but still has enough description that we can follow what's going on. Well, sorta.
That first paragraph was weird. Yeah, I get that you're trying to recall memories, but some of them don't make sense. For instance, why did they have a fire going in an alley? Doesn't that seem rather dangerous? Is it one of those trash can fires or something? And she sacrificed everything? Are you talking about her virginity or something? Did she run away from home to be with this Cass guy? Like seriously, there's being vague, then there's being uninformative.
Also, why didn't you describe Tracy? You give vague descriptions of everything but the main character, are we supposed to just come up with our own idea and run with it?
And there's the thing with her kissing him. WHY WOULD SHE DO THIS?!
If she's trying to let him going, won't it just make things harder by kissing the guy? Wouldn't it make more sense to just have her say goodbye then walk away? Obviously she does have some idea of what the right thing to do is, so you can't just have her go against that thought process at the end! That's flip flopping.
Sorry if I came off as harsh, I'm not trying to be, just saying my opinion.
Keep writing
~Maddie
Hey, Blue! Welcome to YWS ~ ^^ Hope you enjoy yourself here! Allow me to jump right into the review.
First off, this is nice, short and sweet. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but in this sense, it's a little too short. The descriptions are good, you give us a good sense of what's happening, but there isn't enough time between us -- the readers -- meeting the characters and the end for us to empathize and identify with them. This huge event happens which will likely strongly affect this woman's life, but we don't feel anything. I recommend extending this a little bit. Perhaps give us more of a build up in the beginning where she anticipates seeing him again, and remembers things from their past together. The guitar, how it felt, the look on his face or something. Maybe a time they hung out together, alone and she wanted to confess but couldn't. Just give us more to envoke some sense of feeling in our hearts.
Quick nitpick ~
Luckily this doesn't happen a lot, and I can understand what you were trying to do, but this kind of repetition with essentially, or what feels like, the same sentence twice but just worded differently is too redundant and just takes away from the piece more than it gives.
What I don't understand, though, is why he says she's late? >.> Throughout most of this, I was really confused who was who. For instance, I thought that the woman (Tracy?) was there first and he just showed up, because it is written in her perspective. But then it confused me because his name is Cass, and without knowing the woman's name yet, I believe that the perspective was in the male's eyes because the narrator had spoken to Cass. I recommend to make things a little more clear about who is who and how they originally showed up, but I could've sworn Cass was waiting on Teacy >.<
Quick final thing, (aside from it feeling a little rushed, because everything halls so fast and it's short -- which piggy backs in the point that this piece is too short. Add detail :3). Remember that every time a net speaker comes, they need a new line. You do it a few times, but sometimes Cass speaks and then Travy speaks and they're in the same paragraph, which is a little confusing.
Overall, I could get a good sense of where this take place and the "forbidden love" (in a sense. It's more socially unacceptable to cheat on your husband, but it's a thing.) Just add a little more muscle to this and have it envoke some feelings.
Hope I helped some ~ Best of luck, happy writing,
~Wolfe
Hey BlueDaisy2018, and welcome to YWS!
This was a pretty well written piece! In fact, I don't have much to critique, so I can pretty much only make suggestions.
I'm going to start off by saying that I enjoyed the irony in the piece. I'm not sure if you meant to do this or not, but it seems that, no matter how hard she tries, Tracy won't ever be able to "let [Cass] go," even though that's supposedly what she came to do in the first place. I'm starting to feel bad for her husband though....
That said, I do have a question:
.... I'm unsure as to what you are referring to here. Maybe you mean five and twenty dollar bills being given for her guitar skills? If so, maybe you could clarify that a bit?
This isn't confusing per se, but I did notice, in the last paragraph, the way her thoughts and the action seems to collide. It may just be my preference, so you can do whatever you want, but I think that separating a few of the sentences by lines might be a good idea.
One more thing:
This seems a little abrupt to me. It seems like there should be a slight introduction to it, such as, "I take a deep breath. 'Cass! I love you! I always loved you!'" But again, it could just be my preference, so it's really up to you.
Overall, I liked it! It seems to be the climax her love has led to, even though her love may never truly go away.
I hope this review helped, even a little. I hope to read more from you!
Cheers!