“It’s not like you’ll even notice it’s gone,” I said, “Promise.” My hands grasped my mom’s old Polaroid, gazing upon its scratched lens with ridiculous admiration.
“Honey, Grandma used that to take pictures of me when I was a baby. I highly doubt it even works at all.” Her voice held disgust for the old gem I so desperately wanted for my own.
I lifted the bulky camera up to my eye, focusing the lens on my mother’s youthful face and snapping a photo without any sort of warning. A fuzzy image outlined in white immediately slid out, increasing in clarity as I held it up.
“Yes it does,” I said, smiling at the image in my hand, “See? It’s perfect.”
She laughed, smoothing back my hair, “You’re a strange one, kiddo.”
“Am I?” One side of my glossed lips turned up in a crooked grin. My eyes were still on the dusty mechanism held in my grasp.
She nodded, “And that is exactly why I love you.”
“I could use this for my senior project,” I said, my voice excited, “Make a vintage collage of my life or something.”
My eyes lifted, fixating themselves on the clear evening introducing itself beyond the wall of our house.
“Ana’s coming over soon,” I said, setting the camera’s body down gently and making my way over to the fridge, “That’s okay with you, right?”
She nodded, still glancing back and forth between me and the camera with amusement etched across her features.
Mom and I were complete opposites, so it surprised me that we got along as well as we did. She was all about the girly stuff, spending at least one day every few months relaxed in a nail salon. I was the artsy one of our mismatched duo, my passion being photography and making old things new again. It was quite surprising, the way I had turned out.
“How are you and Ana, love?”
I cleared my throat, wincing slightly at the unanswered question hanging in the air.
“We’re alright. You know how it is, Mom. Life can suck.”
She smiled gently, cupping my chin with her warm fingers. I really didn’t want her pity, but I couldn’t deny that her comfort was helpful.
Ana and I used to be inseparable—the kind of friends who spent every night together talking about boys and other teeny bobber nonsense. Time has the deadly capability of tearing people apart, and I was stuck trying to hang on as tightly as possible to the only friendship I had left.
A heavy knock at the door snapped by thoughts back to the present and I hesitantly made my way to the door, my hand hovering over the brass knob.
“Act normal. Just like old times,” I told my mom quietly, knowing it had been months since Ana had stepped inside this house she used to be so familiar with.
“Ana,” I said upon swinging the door open, “Hey. Come in.”
She smiled, the brightness in her eyes revealing that she wasn’t grieving our suffering friendship quite as much as I was.
“Hey,” she said, her eyes on me but her mind clearly on something else. I realized that her smile most likely wasn’t a result of seeing me, but rather had something to do with other things—far more interesting and greater than myself.
She stepped one foot in the door, gazing around at the sophisticated décor of the entryway she must have walked through a thousand times before.
“I don’t have long,” she said, clearly a little bit guilty. The guilt seemed far from genuine, though.
“You’re not staying? I thought we were hanging out. You know, like we planned?”
I tried to suppress the anger rising in my voice, but I had an extremely difficult time trying to control how frustrated I was.
“Calm down, Wendy. We can hang out later—no biggie.”
I shook my head quickly, scrunching my eyebrows together. I wasn’t important to her, not at all. Not anymore. She could pretend, but I knew she had no interest in scheduling me into her busy life.
“Oh, gotcha,” I said, “We can hang out the next time one of your real friends decides to cancel on you, right? Or when you have nothing better to do?”
“What? You’re joking, right?”
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,855 Reviews
Hey, Snow! Here as requested - and sorry for the mishap just there. xD
I liked this. I thought it was short and sweet and I loved the scene with the mother and the daughter there - yay, nostalgia!
Possibly the main thing that did bug me a little here is that nothing very much happens. I feel like there is something about to happen that is significant, but to me, the chapter is a nice scene with the mother and the daughter and then her opening the door and greeting her friend. I think it was far too short and I feel like it's unfinished, personally. Since it's the first chapter, I want to read something more exciting to hook me so I think you should extend the scene.
Another thing:
If so, why did she argue with Ana? That isn't exactly holding on. I would've liked to see how she was trying to do this and Ana's reaction. Perhaps the fight scene could be put later when she announces she has to go?
Description! I'd love to see some description here - a little more than the bare minimum. How did the photo turn out? What was Ana's expression like? What was the sophisticated décor of the entry way? There's not enough info to imagine any of the scenes and description can reveal a lot about the characters or the plot.
That's all from me
Blues.
Hey Snow,
Just stopped by to have a quick look at this.
There isn't a whole lot to say because this seems like it's the beginning of a much longer story and so there isn't much to get a grip on here.
But just as a general overview of what I think so far, it seems quite good. I like how you have already managed to fit in a dynamic between the mother and daughter and have already planted an idea of the main character's personality. This is all good and has already given me something to connect to as a reader. So keep that up as you continue this story.
I disagree with Aley and think that the Mum not intervening at this point is a good idea. I don't know about you but my parents used to keep themselves scarce when my friends came over and would just linger in the background. If the Mum is supposed to be acting normal then I think it makes sense for her not to intervene, at least not unless it turns into a full on argument.
I'm not sure how this story is going to progress so take this comment with a pinch of salt but I think that the main character sways to anger far too easily with her friend. I mean I know she is pissed at her friend but to me it seems that these kinds of issues between friends tend to be deep rooted, tend to go by unsaid until they get to breaking point and then BOOM. Maybe this is her boiling point and I just don't know the history of the characters well enough or maybe it could be a good idea to stretch this conflict out a little further into the story.
I'm not sure where this is going to lead yet and so am unsure as to whether this is a good opener but I am definitely interested to see where it leads.
Hope that was helpful and feel free to PM me if you have any questions
Bex x
Hey, Snow! Here as requested :3
...well, that was a giant fail.
heehee
My first initial reaction was that the mother should be stepping in to the conflict. She might in the next part, but I don't seem to know where she is at this point.
Aside from that, there was one thing which bothered me as dialog: “Honey, Grandma used that to take pictures of me when I was a baby. I highly doubt it even works at all.” - I would drop the "at all." It doesn't really add anything to what she is saying and I haven't heard that phrase used in that context. Typically if something goes there, it would be a time placement, such as "now."
With that said, I think you flow into the story very smoothly. It doesn't jump right into something that we can't understand. You don't introduce too many characters too quickly, and you have a nice pace for description-action.
I would like a little more in the way of physical descriptions of the girl, but it's not completely necessary.
Also as a writer, I just want to make sure you hear some advice that I have been told many times, Make sure you know the ending, that way you don't fall into the trap of it being a never-ending quest. There has to be a point to writing a story (right now the point seems to be the difficulties of teenage life). Without some guiding point, there is no reason to stop writing, and no reason to start read.
Good luck, and keep writing. It will be fun to see how this unfolds.