“C’mon. why won’t you tell me?”
“You’d laugh.”
“Alex, you’re my best friend. Sure, I’ll laugh, but then you’ll laugh, and it’ll all turn out okay.”
My best friend, Amber, had been pounding the question of who I liked into my head since we’d gotten into our secret man-hunt spot. We’d never been found there.
“No.”
She was lying next to me, her slender chest steadily falling and rising. Her soft, red hair was hastily piled onto her head, with a few stray hairs falling down.
“Why? You know I liked Matt. You asked, so I told you. You’re being stupid.”
She smelled so good, like pineapple and cherries. She flashed me a meek, yet sly smile, making me look at her beautiful, full lips.
“So? That was you. You’re different.”
She got up, and glared at me for a moment. Alexander, you tell me who the lucky lady is, right now!”
Her eyes, the were so deep, yet so strong. No emotions were shown on them, yet I knew everything from that one, short glare. The gleam from her emerald nose stud distracted me for a moment.
“Why?”
“Why? Why does the sunset? Why do we play this game? Why are we lying surrounded by pine trees, in freezing weather at three a.m.?”
I always liked her best when she was pissed off at me. Her cheeks flushed, her arms raised above her head.
“Shh.. They’ll hear you and the game will end.”
She lied down next to me, her neck resting on top of my arm.
Now, we listened for voices. Jackie, Matt, Jimmy, David, and Connie were all yelling for us to come out.
“If I tell you, we have to answer my question first.”
“Fine.” she said, sighing. You could basically hear the eye-roll in her voice.
“Why?”
“Why? That isn’t very specific, Al.”
I hated when she called me Al. I hated it with a fiery passion that I was amazed didn’t burn her.
“Why do you put up with that jerk, Matt? If you were my girl, I‘d never treat you-”
She coughed. “I’m not answering that.”
I could never fight with her.
“Fine.”
“ask something else.”
“Why do always hide?
“Huh?” she asked, general, fake confusion in her voice.
“You know what I mean. You have never, ever told anyone you loved them. Not your mom, not any of your boyfriends.”
“Your wrong.”
“No. everyone knows you, but no one does. I bet you no one could tell me your favorite color.”
“you know why, Alex. Do you want some deep, profound explanation? My dad left my mom. My family is as messed up as they come.”
We hear voices coming closer, so we hush up for a bit.
I looked at her, and she returned my gaze, our lips a breath away from each other’s.
“That girl I like? She was abused. She barely ever eats anything. She screams at people for there stupidity. She argues with everyone, no matter how important or how much they out-rank her. she has a nose stud. An emerald, if I recall. It shines. Her laugh…its so beautiful…it makes everyone and everything else glow.”
“Oh.”
“Hey! I see them!” Matt, that stupid bastard, broke the silence.
She got up, and ran. I followed her. Our spot should never be seen. Matt saw the movement like how a cat sees a butterfly, how a fox sees a rabbit in the grass.
That’s all his is. I thought. A fox after a rabbit. Amber was the poor, inspecting, rabbit.
He walked over to us.
He walked over his blonde hair, his blue eyes that Amber loves so much-. He walked over, and the moment was gone.
Mentally, I compared myself to him. Long, blonde hair that covers his eyes, over-sized hat, skater-type cloths...a complete jerk. Me, All I had were what Amber described as "Coffee colored eyes that shine so much, through so much pain." Black hair, and my brother's old hand-me downs.
Amber stood up to meet him. He kissed her, hand on her hip, touching her in a way that I knew brought back painful memories. Memories of him. If I had a gun, I’d blow his smirking face off the face of the planet.
She kept one eye on me.
Looking, seeing my envy, apologizing, and melting me with one short glance over her "perfect Guy".
To me, her neighbor.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,025 Literary Works • 672,766 Reviews
Hey Icefire! As requested. I'll avoid your grammar issues as asked, and focus more on the story itself.
I think the best part of this story is the ending: we see how strong Alex's envy is for Matt, and it's the first true indication of emotion in the story. The talk of shooting him, and the fox/rabbit metaphor, really shows how he feels.
The beginning and middle parts of the story are weaker, as they are dominated by mostly weak dialogue and average description.
Things like:
and
Are disappointing. Disregarding the typos and grammar problems, they're very straightforward and there's a lot of telling. If you want to improve your description of emotion, don't write "no emotions were shown." That's not writing; that's just telling. You need to show the audience.
"Her eyes were blank, but the shortness and intensity of her stare was enough to tell me everything." That's an example. The part about her nose-stud is unnecessary, too.
The shortness of the dialogue makes it realistic and snappy, but I did yearn for some more insight into their lives and relationship. Because this was so short, it didn't really give me us much about the characters. The strictness of the setting and situation meant we had to gain everything from the dialogue, and because it was devoid of any information, it was a struggle to be interested in bits like "Why?" and "I'm not answering that." You should work on developing your dialogue so it becomes fully effective. I didn't really feel any emotion through what they were saying. Instead you relied on telling the audience how they felt. "I like it when she was pissed at me" is the first indication Amber is angry. Before that I thought she was simply being whimsical with all the questions.
So yeah, avoid telling and improve your dialogue to make this brim with a bit more of emotion. Right now it seems forced and contrived. Good luck!
Hey, Icefire! I'm Colleen, and I'm going to review this for you.
I think this would sound better as: I hated it with a fiery passion. I was amazed I didn't burn her. Personally, I think the 'burn' part sounded funny. Maybe you could say, hit her, or something. I don't understand how he would burn her. But, maybe I'm just being stupid.
Okay, the second sentence sounds kind of weird. I get what you're trying to say, here's how I might do it. Everybody knows who you are, but no one really knows you. I bet nobody could tell me your favorite color.
You switched to present tense here, it should be: We heard voices coming closer, so we hushed up for a bit.
That's all Amber is going to say? If she doesn't say anything else, tell how her facial expression changed. Did she look shocked? Happy? Sad? We need more info. This is an important part, Amber finally knows how Alex feels.
Okay, I did like this. However, it does need more detail. How did their hiding place look? What made it so secretive? How come nobody could ever find it?
I liked the characters. Alex seemed well developed, but I think I'd like to see more emotion from Amber. She seems to have had a bad past, you need to show that.
So, if you add more, please PM me, good work!
In this case it should “sunset” should be two words. “Why does the sun set?”
Capital A
General fake confusion?
You’re
Capital Y
Their
I think you mean unsuspecting.
I think some more description in here would be good. I’m having trouble picturing and understanding the whole situation. Why are they hiding? Who are they hiding from? Why does Amber keep going back to Matt?
Second, I think you need to do some proofreading. There are quite a few typos in it and I don’t think I caught them all either.
I really like the dialogue though. It’s very realistic and dialogue can be tough.