A Fragment of Silver and Cold

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

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: This was a really well done first part I think. You really manage to nail the emotions involved rather well and on the whole it's just very well done I think. You've really managed to portray these two characters very well here.

Anyway let's get right to it,

I wandered into the house, noticing immediately that something was wrong. Where was my beloved to greet me at the door? And why was everything off? Immediately, my gut instincts kicked in and I raced up the stairs, throwing everything I’d been holding – mail, purse, keys, etc—down onto the ground.

I threw open the white door to the bathroom and retched from the sight, my eyes going wide. I had known for years that my girlfriend cut, but I never suspected it to be this bad. The wounds were wide and gaping, and the razor next to her looked like it was made out of blood, rather than being covered in it.

Right away, we have a pretty strong opening here. The start was a little quick as far as the description was concerned. I feel like that could've been setup over a bit of a longer period to hammer home this part a little better, but I think you've started really well here. The immediate sense that something is very wrong followed by that horrifying description of the area works quite well to paint a picture of the sort of situation that's happening here.

“Lilli? Lilli… What happened, Lilli?” I asked. I was almost stunned beyond my words, but I knew that my panicking would do nothing productive. Instinctively I reached for the bandages, thanking the gods when I noticed there were only a few cuts. She might scar yet again, but it wouldn’t merit a visit to the hospital like the last time had.

“I don’t know… I was okay… And then I wasn’t okay… And I needed you,” she murmured, her red eyes fixing themselves on me. I reached down and took her wrist, beginning to wrap it tightly with gauze. She winced and I murmured a few scattered apologies as I tried to keep my wits about me. I never knew quite what to say in these situations.

Hmm, okay well things don't look to be as serious as I assumed it might be with the sort of descriptions we had going on. It was pretty extreme there to start off with, but it looks like things are not nearly that bad and this person is perhaps a bit used to see this as well because they don't spend all that much time being surprised but immediately go about trying to resolve the situation here.

I knelt to get closer to her, and I could feel the warm liquid soaking into my skirt. It didn’t even register that the blood would forever blot into the pure white fabric. Instead, I sat there, almost as numb as she.

“I didn’t want to make you come home early from school. I thought I was just going to cry, y’know? I thought maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad episode, Cor,” she whispered.

I tightened down the last bit of the bandages and pulled her close to me, letting her rest her head on my shoulder. “Lilli… Lilli, it doesn’t matter to me, you know. What’s one missed lecture compared to your life?” I asked her. She made an attempt to answer, but a quite, high-pitched noise was all that really came out.

Hmm, well you immediately get a good sense of the sort of relationship that the two of them share here. You can see that these two definitely care about each other very much. The situation that this Lilli is in is also an interesting one, it appears she knows there's a bit of a problem happening and is trying to do things to deal with that, but there are things that tend to happen a bit out of control.

“Lilli, you know I love you,” I whispered, stroking her hair. “You know that I worry so much on the days when you have to stay home. You’ve got your antidepressants, yes, but those aren’t helping so much anymore. I can’t give you what you want if you don’t reach out to me,” I told her.

She pulled away and leaned against the cool tile of the wall, staring at me. Her raven hair was in disarray around her face, clinging to her cheeks. She looked more pale than usual, and I questioned my earlier assessment of her wounds. Perhaps an ambulance would be best…

Well, with the amount of blood that ended up all over the place in that initial description and the fact that she is in fact that pale, a visit to a hospital is probably a good idea there. It looks like this person had lost a pretty large amount of blood there.

Her falling tears snapped me back to attention and I made eye contact with her. “Lilli,” I began. I paused, considering the best way to word what it was I wanted to say. “Lilli, you have to let me help you. This all starts with you,” I told her.

“There is no help for me!” she screamed. She whacked the floor with her hand and I jumped back a bit, afraid of her. Though I would never admit it to her, I was always deathly afraid that she would reach out and strike me because I had crossed an invisible line.

Okay, this is an interesting little twist there. It seems as if Lilli has relapsed a little or is just sort of lashing out a little at her situation. It does come a little out of nowhere with how calm everything was despite the situation when things began. It is pretty realistic though for something like this to happen at this point.

“You don’t get it! There is no help! You haven’t seen what I see, Cor. You don’t know what I know,” she whimpered. “I have scars you can see, some from myself and some from those that abused me in the past. But the point is, you can’t tell me how to fix myself when I don’t even know how. Cor, imagine if you dreamt every night about hearing your ex commit suicide and you relived the memories of when you were tortured for your mother’s drug money. You can’t,” she murmured, shaking as the tears began to freely flow. She shook, but I didn’t dare move towards her for fear she would have an outburst again.

Okay...well we're getting some backstory laid out there. Not a bad way to bring that sort of thing across there cause you do really get a nice sense of how things are through situations like that one. Its a good moment that you're creating here among the emotions just to give us context on the mental state of this person.

“You’re right, Lilli. I don’t know what any of those things are like,” I told her. I had adopted my “baby voice” for her. My tone was calm and soothing, and I tried my hardest to erase the frustrations.

She looked like she was going to say something else, but the sadness in her eyes forced me to interrupt her. “Lilli, I don’t know how awful it must have been to live the life you did,” I began. “But I know what you have now. You have me, and my house, and my parents, and my love. We will protect you, Lilli, and we will help you. But you have to remember what love feels like,” I told her. I was almost pleading with her. I wanted her to stop so badly, but I didn’t know how to make her do so.

Hmm, this is definitely a pretty good depiction of someone that really seems to be trying to understand help this person that's suffering in this terrible situation from their past here. I really like how they're trying to understand the person and makes sure they know that their feelings have been acknowledged. We've had some really great dialogue so far.

“I don’t even remember how to smile right, Cor. How am I supposed to remember how it feels to be happy?” she asked.

I moved toward her silently, still kneeling in front of the broken girl I so desperately loved. I tilted her chin up and wiped her tears away, pushing her hair back until she looked so close to the “happy” girl I loved. For an instant, I wondered how much of her happiness she faked just to make me feel better. I threw the thought aside and kissed her, realizing that if she couldn’t remember how to feel happiness, I would have to help her.

The kiss was sweet and chaste, and pulling away was a hard decision. I blinked a bit, noticing a spark playing into her eyes that I had never quite seen before. “I mean these words, Lilli. I promise you with everything that I am and everything that I ever will be, that I will stay with you. I’m never going to leave you alone. I promise that you are in good hands,” I told her.

Ahh....these little wholesome moments are always awesome to see in any kind of situation and this little kiss that we get to see here works really well to convey the depth of feelings that are involved here. This is flowing along really well here so far.

She reached up and put her hands to my face, her bandages giving off a fresh and clean scent to the movements she made as she ran her fingertips over my cheeks.

“I promise,” I reminded her, taking her hands in mine. “You are my everything, Lilli. You mean the world to me. And I won’t let you go down without putting up one hell of a fight,” I murmured, pulling her into a tight embrace.

“My new life starts today,” she whispered, and I realized just how much I had wanted to hear those words. Now, things were looking up. And now, she would finally start to get better. She loved herself, I realized, and that would make all the difference.

Hmm, a nice little promise for the future there to close off this piece and I think that's a great way to end here.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Overall, I think this is a strong start here. I really liked this opening piece here, and there's definitely more than enough going for us as readers to want to read on here.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry