Young Writers Society

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm Knight Hardy here on a mission to ensure that all works on YWS has at least two reviews. You will probably never see this but....Imma do this anyway.

First Impression: So this one was actually slightly confusing to me. I didn't really understand what was happening beyond the most obvious parts of the plot. It could just because most of the metaphors flew over my head but yaa I just wanted to say that. But story wise it was a pretty smoothly flowing story and the language was also pretty good.

Anyway let's get right to it,

You gave me your heart beneath the budding leaves, and I asked what I was supposed to do with it; I had never had one before, and you knew it. So you chuckled beside me and slapped me playfully and pointed to your full chest and said, “make it beat.”

So I did, and it grew into two hearts and when school ended I gave you the one that I had called mine, before you pushed me into the sinkhole and dove in after me just so that you could say that we fell for each other.

And I hated you when you were in the hospital, and I showed it to you in that get-well card I bought from Hallmark for a dollar, and I showed you when you looked at me and said that they had told you that you were dying, and I never ever cried, even though you wept for the world you had cast aside with your certainty.

You told me the doctors had said that you might have a few more days. I can’t remember what was wrong with you besides the arrogance you had sworn to me you had abolished and I had believed you.

And when you died, I said “good” and I watched your ashes be scattered into the waterfall.

Now I sit, with the only heart I have, and it’s broken and it’s yours, and I know that we were each other before you died and I had first gotten you drunk. I watch the shooting stars tear the sky apart now in perfect incisions, and I don’t think I’ll ever quite know how this story ends, but maybe it was when your younger brother was born, a year after you killed us both, and your parents started smiling again. Maybe.

This was a really nice piece. Crysi did a great crit, so I won't bother repeating what she said. Romantic fiction can be stupid or great, and this was great (plus sweet). I just loved your writing style. Great job!

James T. Frugo wrote:(Does anyone know how to make tabs work?)

You gave me your heart beneath the budding leaves, and I asked what I was supposed to do with it; I had never had one before, and you knew it. So you chuckled beside me and slapped me playfully and pointed to your full chest and said, “make it beat.”

So I did, and it grew into two hearts and when school ended I gave you the one that I had called mine, before you pushed me into the sinkhole and dove in after me just so that you could say that we fell for each other.

The stars are different now with shadows of similarities, the sort of shadows that people see in them before saying that all humans have looked up and seen these wonderful stars since the beginning. They’re wrong (not just because some people are blind or live in cities) because when I looked up into them I was looking into you and dreaming through your eyes, and now I see them and you’re nowhere and I’m awkward with only myself and the needle-pricks of painful light.

We sat behind waterfalls and watched it all come spraying down. I asked you if you thought the water liked to collapse onto the weary but strong bedrock, and you laughed, and said that you didn’t think it did, and maybe it just meant that we were the only thing in the world that was supposed to work, and I laughed at the morbidity of it, because the water was so peaceful as it made its way down, always changing, always the same, like the leaves that we saw bud and then die as the bridges burned and something we had called “love” tumbled away.

I heard that you were out drunk driving that night that those four kids died. Did you think, ever, that you would be that water? Did you ever question your mad certainty? And when you swerved to avoid that cow that was standing out in the street that you could have seen standing there for miles and miles, were you at peace like that gentle water?

And I hated you when you were in the hospital, and I showed it to you in that get-well card I bought from Hallmark for a dollar, and I showed you when you looked at me and said that they had told you that you were dying, and I never ever cried, even though you wept for the world you had cast aside with your certainty.

You told me the doctors had said that you might have a few more days. I can’t remember what was wrong with you besides the arrogance you had sworn to me you had abolished and I had believed you.

I went to the sink-hole and searched for the bottom, and I couldn’t find it, but I remembered that you had that one time when we were together, before I learned that it was ninety feet down and you could only hold your breath for a minute and a half, just long enough for me to yell at you when you were on your death bed.

What was it that you had said that you believed about death? Something about, when you die, going to wherever you had thought you would when you were living? And I asked you where you thought you were going, and you looked into me with eyes that pressed like a cold stethoscope against my chest and ice down my back and seared into me and you said, and you were–we were both–terrified at your answer, and you said “hell.”

And when you died, I said “good” and I watched your ashes be scattered into the waterfall.

Now I sit, with the only heart I have, and it’s broken and it’s yours, and I know that we were each other before you died and I had first gotten you drunk. I watch the shooting stars tear the sky apart now in perfect incisions, and I don’t think I’ll ever quite know how this story ends, but maybe it was when your younger brother was born, a year after you killed us both, and your parents started smiling again. Maybe.