Published January 5, 2016
I slipped out of my car and stood tall in the crisp winter air. A few dozen people were already out on the frozen lake, which meant I was late for the party. I grimaced when I thought about how uneven and ragged the ice would be. Not that anyone could change it. It was a lake. How was anyone supposed to keep it perfectly pristine?
"Audrey!" I called, when I saw her on the ice.
"Hey!" She waved me to me and I held up a finger. I tugged on my skates and aced them as tight as I could. And, thanks to my lack of upper body strength, that wasn't very tight. I waddled until I hit the ice. I began gliding swiftly over to Audrey and Alli.
"Hi guys." I greeted. They hardly paid me any attention though because of a black sedan pulling up near the lake. I watched as Mark and Nate climbed out of the car. I sucked in a slow breath. Oh my, Mark really was handsome.
"Look at him!" Alli squealed. She shook Audrey's arm and they both gawked at the boys. I'll admit, I was staring too. I whipped my head around, hoping to see my other friend, Alana. When I saw her I moved as fast as I could over to where she was skating with her five year old brother.
"Alana!" I hissed at her. "He's here." I had told her all about my crush on Mark, and she was the only one that I knew that wasn't enamored.
"You promised tat you'd talk to him today!" She reminded me. I bit my lip. At church, she had wanted me to talk to him, but because of my social anxiety that I got around new people, I had utterly refused (some might say I chickened out. They would be right.) to talk to him.
"Do I have to?" I whined. I wanted to more than I wanted to breathe, but I was terrified.
"If you don't, I will." She threatened. I hesitated. Maybe it was for the best... He would never like me anyways... I watched as him and Nate slid onto the ice and began talking to a group of boys. I stood in silence, staring at him like a stalker. And I felt like one too. After a few minutes Alana grabbed my arm and pulled me into motion.
We began skating over to where he was when the ice decided to ruin my life. I didn't know if my toe pick had snagged on a rogue chunk of ice, or if Alana had tripped me, but I went tumbling down. Down, meaning I slammed right into Mark. We tumbled to the ice in a pile of snow gear, sharp blades, and cold skin. I looked at him where I lay, which happened to be right on top of his chest. We were both breathing fast, but probably not for the same reason.
I pushed myself up slowly, holding my weight with my arms. I didn't move, for some unknown reason. "I am so sorry..." I whispered, feeling my skin heat up with blush. He smiled and chuckled.
"It's all good." He said, "Nothing's broken." I slid backwards, kneeling between his outstretched legs. His calves brushed against my knees. He sat up slowly and we stared at each other for a moment. I looked at his hands and gasped.
"Nothing broken, but your hand is cut." I breathed out. He lifted his hands and seemed intrigued at the gash on his palm.
"Well then." He said. He stood up and held out his uninjured hand to me. I took it gently and he pulled me up.
"I have a first aid kit in my car..." I whispered and gestured to my small Nissan Altima. He shrugged and I skated towards my car. He followed and I waddled on my skates to my trunk. I popped it open and sat on the edge. I pulled off my skates and slipped on my stylish boots. Mark came and sat next to me, doing the same as I. I leaned into my trunk and puled out a small box.
I pulled out a thing of wrappable gauze and began binding his hand. Touching him made me blush, and he stared at me for a good while. I taped down the edge of the gauze and stared back at him.
"I really am sorry." I said again. He laughed.
"It's alright." He said, "This is a bit awkward but, what's your name?" He whispered. I flushed and looked at my hands in my lap.
"Rachel..." I whispered.
"Like Jacob's wife." He said, "In the bible." I nodded and he smiled.
"Well, Rachel, I'm Mark." He said. He began to stand and I panicked a bit. I stood up with him, dumping my first aid kit on the ground. I went from pink to dark red as we knelt and started picking up the scattered supplies. When we were done, he helped me stand again. Oh geez, I thought I was dying. My heart wouldn't slow down. "Wanna take a walk?" He said. He nodded his head toward a path that led into the state park. I shrugged.
"Sure." I said. He didn't let go of my hand as we walked into the dark. We talked for a long time and I learned a lot about him. He was from Louisiana, he was second youngest, only older than Nate. He loved sports, video games, and swimming in the ocean. His favorite animal was a bear, and his favorite color was orange. He learned a lot about me too. I loved the sound of his voice.
We stopped at a bench at some point in the conversation. I was drowning in his voice. A nagging voice in my head said "Are you an idiot? Didn't your mom ever tell you not to go walking in the woods at night with a boy?" I told that voice to shut up.
"Wow, Mark..." I said, I paused for a moment, "You must miss Louisiana." I looked into his blue eyes and felt a connection. He smiled a bit and cocked his head to the side. He draped his arm loosely around my shoulders.
"Yeah..." He lowered his voice a bit, "But I'm starting to see the perks of living here." I held my breath as he leaned in a bit closer, until our lips were almost touching. "Rachel..." He muttered before I lifted my head just enough to cover his mouth with mine. I melted into him and he did the same. I shifted so my body was better facing him,laced my arms around his neck. "You are the stupidest person I have ever met" The voice said. I pushed it away, and let one hand drift from his neck to his chest where I grabbed the front of his long sleeved shirt. "Idiot" The voice sighed. I couldn't push it away any longer, so I slowly pushed myself away from Mark.
My breath was ragged and so was his. I hid a smirk as I thought "And that was my first kiss...". I looked down and stared at my hands for a minute.
"What did we just do?" I whispered. I heard him sigh, but neither of us moved. I was still almost on his lap.
"I don't know..." He said. I looked into his eyes and he laughed, "But I liked it." He said. I blushed, and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. I was shaking from the kiss, and quite possibly a pinch of anxiety. I relived the kiss over and over. My feelings for him had exploded. But I couldn't help wonder what would happen if anyone found out about it? I looked up and saw Alli staring at us and gasped. Mark and I both shot up from the bench. Even from a distance, there was no mistaking the tears running down her face, or her anger-clenched fists. I looked at Mark as she spun around and ran back towards the ice. He shrugged, wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and we began walking towards where a disaster was about to hit.
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139,289 Literary Works • 672,524 Reviews
Heya, Eevee! Cassy here to do another review! Haha.
Kill. Me. Now. Another. Short. Story. >.>
Let's just get to it, shall we?
The first thing I noticed was this-
I feel as if you could rephrase this. This just feels... Off. Read it aloud. Sounds kinda choppy, at least to me. Try something like,"We began skating over to him, when the ice decided to ruin my life." I think that this really helps it for flow reasons, or I'm completely wrong and you should stop reading now.
The next thing I noticed was this-
Like the last thing I said, I feel as if you could rephrase this because it just sounds off. Play around with words ending in ing and do it that way. Instead of putting,"blush," at the end to make it sound weird- try this,"I am so sorry..."I whispered, feeling my blushing face heat up even more." I mean, you saw the guy and liked him. You were embarrassed before it happened, that just made it worse. So, hence the blushing. Also, specify the face. When you first said,"skin," I thought of a lobster-woman, and to be honest that sounded pretty rad but I don't think that's what you were going for.
The third thing I noticed was just a comma preference for flow-
I feel like you could get rid of the comma here. You're talking about how quickly you were standing up, so I feel as if the following lines should be quick to emphasize your point. Grammatically it doesn't have to have a comma, so I think you're perfectly fine without it.
Alright, I'm on to the next one. Hope this helped.
Keep on doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on.
Your friend, Cassy.
Greetings,
This was a wonderful story. First kiss, first love, and all the anxiety that goes along with it. You crafted this story very well and your characters are full of life. They each express their feelings in different ways and try to convey them in a proper fashion and the aspect of having someone else who is heartbroken while anothers has become full is a good way of showing the dynamic of relationships. Hopefully Alli will find another person to
My only real nitpick is the sentence structure. For the first few paragraphs it was very choppy and doesn't flow very well. It feels like hitting a speed bump every five feet and throws off the rhythm of the story. You also need to watch your spelling a little. I found a few spots (Such as at the beginning where she "laced" up her skates.) where a word was missing or in the wrong place.
Overall, good story. Keep up the good work.
Happy Writing!
Hi! Before I start I just want to say that I loved your description. It gave me a look at the story, as it's meant to do, and what it was about perfectly. It put a picture in my head of what's probably going to happen. It was very good. So I'll just give some pointers, maybe some grammatical errors in this review:
In the third paragraph you put, 'she waved me to me' I don't think you meant to put that extra 'me' after she.
When she first started talking to Alana she said, 'you promised tat you'd talk to him.' I'm going guess you were meaning to put that.
Those were the only mistakes I saw, but can I just say...wow. I wasn't expecting that at all, even from what I said in the beginning. I thought it was just going to be a story about a girl embarrassing herself in front of her crush. Nope. I can see now why you chose your title, and I think it's very nicely put. I'm glad you didn't call it My First Kiss or something like that. It was an original title, and something that I don't think many people would have come up with. And truth be told, I wasn't expecting her to actually fall into him. Your story was full of surprises and I enjoyed every second of it. Great job!
I'd really appreciate it if you'd follow me and take a look at my work. Thanks for the story!
Keep Writing
B.E. Writer
Hi! Before I start I just want to say that I loved your description. It gave me a look at the story, as it's meant to do, and what it was about perfectly. It put a picture in my head of what's probably going to happen. It was very good. So I'll just give some pointers, maybe some grammatical errors in this review:
In the third paragraph you put, 'she waved me to me' I don't think you meant to put that extra 'me' after she.
When she first started talking to Alana she said, 'you promised tat you'd talk to him.' I'm going guess you were meaning to put that.
Those were the only mistakes I saw, but can I just say...wow. I wasn't expecting that at all, even from what I said in the beginning. I thought it was just going to be a story about a girl embarrassing herself in front of her crush. Nope. I can see now why you chose your title, and I think it's very nicely put. I'm glad you didn't call it My First Kiss or something like that. It was an original title, and something that I don't think many people would have come up with. And truth be told, I wasn't expecting her to actually fall into him. Your story was full of surprises and I enjoyed every second of it. Great job!
I'd really appreciate it if you'd follow me and take a look at my work. Thanks for the story!
Keep Writing
B.E. Writer
Hi! Before I start I just want to say that I loved your description. It gave me a look at the story, as it's meant to do, and what it was about perfectly. It put a picture in my head of what's probably going to happen. It was very good. So I'll just give some pointers, maybe some grammatical errors in this review:
In the third paragraph you put, 'she waved me to me' I don't think you meant to put that extra 'me' after she.
When she first started talking to Alana she said, 'you promised tat you'd talk to him.' I'm going guess you were meaning to put that.
Those were the only mistakes I saw, but can I just say...wow. I wasn't expecting that at all, even from what I said in the beginning. I thought it was just going to be a story about a girl embarrassing herself in front of her crush. Nope. I can see now why you chose your title, and I think it's very nicely put. I'm glad you didn't call it My First Kiss or something like that. It was an original title, and something that I don't think many people would have come up with. And truth be told, I wasn't expecting her to actually fall into him. Your story was full of surprises and I enjoyed every second of it. Great job!
I'd really appreciate it if you'd follow me and take a look at my work. Thanks for the story!
Keep Writing
B.E. Writer
I liked this.
What you have here is a very short story that ends with enough closure that you can stop here, but while also leaving an opening for future expansions. Whether you did that on purpose or not, I would like to read on if you decide to continue this. Here are three mistakes that I noticed, but as with any story, there's surely more.
"I tugged on my skates and aced them as tight as I could." I think you meant 'laced' instead of 'aced', but maybe that's an ice skating term and I'm just dumb.
"You promised tat you'd talk to him today!" 'tat' should be 'that'.
"I leaned into my trunk and puled out a small box." 'puled' should be 'pulled'.
Okay, I think you described Rachel's feelings very well, from struggling with the thought that her crush would never like her to the kissing scene with Mark. And with how short this is, I think you did a pretty decent job at giving Rachel a personality, but I personally would have preferred more. I also think you need to rework some of the dialogue, such as "Do I have to?" That in particular seems somewhat unrealistic to me for someone of her age. I would have thought to hear that from a five- or six-year-old, to be honest.
I didn't exactly like how Alli just happened to appear right then at the end, right at the perfect time (or wrong time). I feel like this is a scene that EVERY author and movie director tries to make. Perhaps that's because too much drama in books really annoys me, but I see scenes like Alli walking in on her best friend kissing her crush ALL THE TIME. After awhile it just gets old and unoriginal.
All over, you did a pretty nice job. It was fairly well written and I liked how you got straight into the story without endless paragraphs of setup and preparation. It drew me in almost immediately and I do not regret reading this piece.
Keep writing!
- BookWolf