Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language.
love /ləv/
noun
an intense feeling of deep affection.
"babies fill parents with intense feelings of love"
a person or thing that one loves.
"she was the love of his life"
verb
"do you love me?"
There's so many stages that us as humans go through to really understand this emotion. It takes us through a journey of different forms of it. I've never had the real experience like others did, it was like I repelled the feeling. Any time love would get near me, it'd cripple and burn at my touch.
And I didn't notice, or seem to care, because I was above love. As we all think, the ones that are too pained already to get ripped again.
"I didn't know you were such a light weight Dafnie," he laughed, smiling over at me with those sky blue eyes, "Now how are you gonna drive me home?"
The car seemed out of focus with the lights steaming passed my vision, making the dark car a bit brighter. I sunk into my seat, the leather cooling my body. He was plopped in the drivers seat, a five star smile playing on his face. How could a guy like him even look at me twice?
No, no girl should think that some guy is above them. That's sick, why would I even think like that? But then, I just take a look at him and melt again.
"I can drive, maybe in an hour." I slurred with a smile on my face.
"We can sit here until you sober up a little more..." He said.
Looking over to my right, I saw the empty city streets, only the street lights showing any form of life. My heart was racing an I wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or my anxiety.
"We've done this before," I swallowed hard, suddenly losing the blanket that the alcohol draped over me. "We've done this scenario, the one where you and I sit here for hours, lost in this tiny world of you and I and then when we are out there," I pointed at the windshield. "out there in the real world, we can't even acknowledge each others existence."
He averted his stare to his lap as he fiddled with his hands, unable to face me. I guess for once the alcohol that lined my blood helped me speak, instead of keep on pretending everything was okay.
"For God's sake Phillip, we blocked each other on social media without a reason. And then we come here when I'm on liquid luck and pretend nothing is wrong." I felt my voice crack.
"Aye, you blocked me!" He spat, finally meeting my eyes. My stomach clenched as I fought the feeling to back down.
The tension grew thick as I took a deep breath. "Because you fucked up!"
"How the hell did I fuck up?"
This car felt too small too fast. I traced all the words that flooded my mind, unsure of what to say without looking crazy. Well, I wouldn't look crazy, I'd be stating the truth.
"You stopped talking to me Phil," I paused, "I would come up to you and make that effort to say 'hey, what's up' and you couldn't even look at me anymore. We all became friends, you, me, and Andrew. So you know what friends do? They hang out, they talk."
He adjusted in his seat, running his hands through his blonde hair. I could see his Adam's apple bob up and he swallowed hard from anxiety. I was getting at him, finally.
"So I hung out with Drew, like any normal friends do. I spoke to him just as much as I spoke to you..." Taking a deep breath, I looked out the windshield for a moment. "But then you got distant and blocked me from your life, so I pushed away too and just hung with Drew."
"That's why you blocked us? Cause I stopped talking to you?" He mumbled back.
"How are we friends if you can't even look at me dude? Why should you be on my snapchat if you don't even snap me back?"
He ran his hands through his perfectly swooped hair again, unable to meet my eyes. My heart felt heavy, and breathing seemed like a task. A car zoomed passed us, causing me to jump in my seat and him to look away for a moment.
I waited a minute before speaking again, not liking the fact that I was attacking him.
"Why should I have you guys as friends if Drew was just trying to get out of the friendzone with me?" I asked, my voice softer.
That's when his eyes met mine, making my skin crawl. "What?" He asked.
"When I was hanging with Drew maybe two weeks ago, you texted him saying 'try to get out of the friendzone', something like that. You know how that made me feel?"
"Wait, Daf..." he tried but I cut him off, feeling tears brim my eyes.
"No, dude, I thought you guys were my actual friends. I didn't think I was just another toy. And did you maybe stop to consider how I felt? Not just how Drew felt? You know that I did not have feelings for him."
"That's what I meant, he'd have to try cause you don't." His words seemed to be lined with lies, as I watched his lips tremble.
I took another deep breath, watching another car zoom by us, it's high beams radiating off of the side view mirror next to me. Our eyes could not meet as my heart continued to race. It was too hot in this car.
"Bullshit," I hissed. "We both know that's bull Phil. You knew exactly what you were saying and so did he. What was I? Can you tell me? Cause we were all friends, getting along and shit. Fuck, we even had nights that we'd talk for hours. The fuck happened to that? I felt played Phillip!" My voice was raw, overpowering all the sounds around me.
"What happened? What happened to you making that effort to talk to me? We even texted. We sat in my dad's car for hours with your friend Peter passed out in the back, opening up about our lives and shit. I even felt..." I paused, noticing the way he was looking at me, his eyes somber that disgusted me. "I felt shit and I hated it. I used to have this stupid crush on you, and I never believed in anything about it. I found someone else. I never pursued you because we never even spoke. But then we did speak and I thought we could be friends."
I shifted in my seat, looking at my phone that sat in the cup holder. The screen flashed with a few text notifications dancing on it. Swallowing hard, I tried to speak some more.
"We were friends, and then it felt different. I flirted. I don't do that Phil... and I know how you are, not really, but a little and I didn't know. But then when you stopped talking to me, I figured what the fuck happened? We weren't even friends anymore?"
"I'm sorry," He blurted.
Tension set between us, so thick that I couldn't catch my breath. Those two words felt strong, sincere, flooding all my thoughts.
"Phillip, I wanna know what you were thinking this whole time. Why did you flirt back if you didn't want anything? Why couldn't you tell me we were just friends instead of ignoring me? Why did you sic Drew on me even if you knew I wasn't the slightest interested in him? Why did we stop talking? We got the fuck along."
"I wish I knew what the hell I was thinking." He ran his hand down his face, taking a deep breath. "But I didn't mean to push you away, I was scared."
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139,640 Literary Works • 672,638 Reviews
sorry-- my review twice for some reason ^^; just ignore this!
Hi! Here to give a review ^^
The word "Love" caught my attention which brought me to reading this, as I am a sucker for romance-themed writings. When this kind of topic comes to mind, to me, I think of the language used to be very flowing and elegant like the word itself. Within the first two sentences (after the definitions), I felt that the wording was a bit rigid for me. This occurs in a few more lines within the story, so perhaps it wouldn't hurt to re-read your own writing and make some changes from a reader's point of view? Also, "There's so many stages" would turn into "There IS so many stages," which would be grammatically incorrect. Because you used the word "many" implies there is more than one stage, which would mean the correct wording should be "There ARE so many stages" (or 'They're').
I liked the touch of the definition at the beginning of the piece, but this may confuse readers. I personally didn't know how to read this part-- as part of the actual story or as something that the writer is informing the reader about. Perhaps instead of having this part in the format of a definition found on google, you could incorporate the definition into the first paragraph itself, talking about the definition in your own words.
Swear words in writing is something that you do have to be careful of. It's a little bit different when using them in normal conversation with a person face-to-face, because on a page profanity can come off a lot stronger to the reader and make them pause for a moment. It's hard to tell how angry the character is, or if it is just their normal way in speaking. I did think that because 'Dafnie' was drunk was because she was swearing a bit. Just be sure to keep that in moderation and use those kinds of words very rarely in a piece. If anything, they should be used to evoke a strong emotion in the reader, that is if it's what the intention of the scene is.
There are some grammatical and punctuation errors, but there is bound to be some in every piece of writing, so this is a common error. All it takes is going through your writing with a "fine-tooth comb" (as my teacher says), and thoroughly checking over this tiny easy-to-miss errors. I don't want to make this review sound so negative, so I will say that I very much like the plot of the story. It intrigued me that we, as readers, were thrown into the midst of a very tense moment between two friends figuring out the love in their life. In this sense, I sympathized with the main character, and even 'Phil,' who says he was scared and was the reason why he pushed her away. Love can be a scary thing, and you portrayed that well. The story finishes off with this fact, leaving the reader hooked, wanting to know more. But if you plan to not continue this story, readers could get frustrated and feel the ending is "unsatisfying." So be careful!!
I hope you keep writing and sharing with the world your own individuality in the world or literature!!
- Lisbeth
Heyo. Care for a review?
Things in this story are eerily similar to a certain situation in my life. Like. Very eerily. I'm slightly freaked out. So in which case, I could empathise with the MC more than easily- I felt like she(?) was speaking out my frustrations. So, yeah.
Something that I wasn't too fond about with this story was that there was so much history. There's so much being said about the past which makes me wonder why we're in the car talking about it, and not actually in the past, where this all started, hearing it from the beginning instead of hearing it through dialogue- which always sounds to me like the MC is trying to catch the reader up on past events. I think you could make this go a little smoother by actually telling some of what happened rather then having the MC tell it. Sometimes a bit of background info is okay, especially if it saves the MC from saying things that they normally wouldn't necessarily say or NEED to say in the story. If you think about it, both characters know what has happened in their past relationship, so why are they stating every detail to eachother? I know it's tricky to work in that kinda stuff though.
I also thought the opening could have been a bit stronger. The only thing that connects it to the story, is that it mentions heartbreak and love. Which, when you think about it, it could have been tacked onto really any love poem or story. I'm not trying to be mean, by the way! But that's how that opening kind of felt to me, like it was tacked on. I think you could get away with cutting out that first bit and starting right off with Phillip telling Dafnie he didn't know she was such a light weight!
Anyways, that's just my thoughts! I quite enjoyed this, even if I was shocked and rather terrified by the similarities to my own experiences! Keep it up! c:
-Socks
Hey Nike, I really liked the way your story started here, although I would have to say I have seen a lot of movies and stories start this way, but its a nice way to start and draw the reader in. The first few lines that describe how you feel about love and how you have gone through so much to avoid the feeling of love, you are blaming the essence of love rather than admitting that it was you that didn't allow yourself to feel the intricacies of love, I don't know the reason, maybe you were too scared to scar the idea of love you had and you wanted to preserve the idea rather than experience the real thing, these few lines or rather what I made of these few lines sets the tone for rest of the story, which is quite smart work as a writer.
The characters, Female lead is drunk and the alcohol circulating inside her veins is somehow unlocking doors that were forcefully kept locked for a long time, again very good work, this shows that the character wouldn't normally say, do these things but under the influence of alcohol, they let loose and that intrigues the reader as they are now being exposed to a side of the character that he/she doesn't normally display, but then again she seems to be conscious of the fact that she is drunk and feels anxiety soaring up, this is a grey area for me as she is not completely consumed by alcohol so is she not venting it all out is she keeping something inside for herself? as we tend to be self-conscious when we are fully aware of our actions.
The tension, heat, anxiety, discomfort, unwillingness of the male lead to talk is all very well defined and although all this is kind of read in between the lines it is quite obvious and intense very hard to miss, cars racing by adds a pinch of mild chaos.
I just have one question why had Phillip done that? you said there that he was scared does that mean he was confused or is he replicating female leads or your feelings about now worthy of love or pushing love away or is he afraid of intimacy or is he in love with the idea of love so he wants to preserve it?