[pre][pre]He walked home, his backpack slung over his shoulder. His face was pensive, his shirt was black, his pants were blue. His earbuds were in his ears, and his ipod was in his pocket pumping music out of them; he wasn’t listening to it. His eyes looked away into space, at nothing. He walked up the steps to his house and let himself in.
He flopped down on the couch. Should he do homework? No. There was no point. What was that sound? His ipod. He ripped the earbuds out of his ears with a hand that shook like a leaf in autumn. He dropped his ipod on the ground, the twin white snakes whispering their song out of round, silver mouths. Damn. He shouldn’t have dropped his ipod. He couldn’t get another one if he broke it. Should he get up? No, no point.
He got out his backpack and began doing homework just to keep his hands still. Automatically answering questions; couldn’t focus. Read Lord of the Flies for English. He got out the book, opened to his bookmark and began to read.
piggy picked his way over to the pair of twins whats your name he said sam and eric they said sam and eric piggy repeated sam eric eric sam then he got muddled and the twins laughed then piggy picked his way over to the twins whats your name he said sam and eric
He couldn’t read. He had too much on his mind. He put down the book and got out his homework again.
1) How many available electrons does sodium have?
Sodium has one available electron.
2) Why aren’t you calling the hospital to ask about Beth?
Damn. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about it? He shouldn’t be trying to forget about it. He had heard at school today that Beth had, that Beth was— No. He couldn’t think about it. He glanced over his homework, gave up on it, and turned to his computer. He got onto the internet and logged on his IM; he saw his friend Sam was on.
Beastboy28: so jon how r u doing
Jamanite51: im fine, u make the bsebll team?
Beastboy28: i dnt no yet. But I think so :-)
Jamanite51: amy fine?
Beastboy28: i dnt no, we broke up. im free now!!
Janatgurl101: hey Jon! i saw u on the browser and i tht i could go on and say hi.
Jamanite51: hi
Janatgurl101: yeah well, how’s Beth doing?
He logged off. He went outside to go for a run. His feet rhythmically pounded the ground. His retrieved ipod was in his pocket, bouncing against his hip. The serpentine earbuds had their round heads nestled in his ears again, playing music after he hit shuffle. The bright blue sky extended far above him, the brown earth far beneath him. He was just himself, just a rhythm, inhale-two-three exhale-two-three inhale-two-three exhale-two-three. His mind was wiped clean, his brain as smooth and blank as a fresh sheet of paper.
Music drifted in through his ears, filling the space in between them. He imagined the earbuds wriggling into his head through his ears, coiling up in his brainless cavity, looking out through his eyeholes. He would be just a zombie, who didn’t care, who didn’t have to care about Beth. Damn. All that bliss gone. What was going on, why did he care so much? She was just some girl; they were just a pair of fourteen-year-olds. It wasn’t really serious, was it?
When he got home after his run, he went upstairs and put his ipod in his room. Then he stripped off his sweaty clothes and got in the shower. He shuddered as the hot water hit him. He let the heat in, soaking his body, washing away all the aches and pains.
He picked up the bar of soap and lathered up, then began to scrub furiously. He tasted salt as he washed off all his sweat. He grabbed the shampoo and rubbed it into his hair. As he washed, he thought about Beth. He couldn’t keep running away from it, after all.
So, why did he care so much about her? That was a hard question; he could come back to that later. Was she ok? That was a question he could face. He had heard at school that she had got in a car crash, and was in the hospital, that she was knocked out when the rescuers got her out from the twisted remains of the car. No, that was wrong. He had got texted by her older brother, saying Beth was in the hospital. Her older brother was strange; he thought that there was something really special going on in between Beth and him. Of course there wasn’t, they were just friends. Of course. Anyway, he had checked his texts in between classes, and had found that one. He had almost burst out crying in math class. OK, he was on firmer ground here. That was when he had heard all about the accident.
He shivered as the pounding water began to cool. He twisted up the hot water tap and kept on thinking.
He had first met Beth a year ago. She was the new kid in the class, eighth grade. They had sat together at lunch for no real reason, and then they began to talk. It turned out that she liked to run, like he did. So he told her that the high school cross country team allowed eighth graders to practice with it. So he and Beth began to practice with the team. They were the only two eighth graders, so they ran together a lot. They were pretty compatible runners, and they became good friends. He once took his sled to her house in the winter of their eighth grade year on a snow-day. They went sledding together down the hill behind her house, and he met her older brother and father. Then he and Beth went running again in the spring of that year too, just for fun. Once, he stepped in a ditch and twisted his ankle. Beth stopped to help him, and her older brother gave them a ride back to his house. Then Beth and her brother drove off home, but not without a brief hug from Beth.
RRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn phone. He turned off the nozzle and climbed out of the shower, dripping water on the bathroom floor. He grabbed a towel and dashed out of the bathroom.
RRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He wrapped the towel around his waist, and left wet footprints on the floor as he went in search of the phone. Up to now, he had been waiting lethargically. He hadn’t realized it, but inside he was curled up, poised to strike at any opportunity to learn about Beth. And now his attention had the phone in its jaws, and it wasn’t about to let go.
RRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Hello?” he breathed into the phone.
“This is Jon, right? Beth’s boyfriend?” said the voice on the other end.
“I’m not—” he began, but then he paused. Was he…leave that for later. Right now, he was going to try a new tactic. “Yeah, it’s Jon.”
There was a laugh from the other end. “Thought so,” the voice on the other end said, “this is Tim, Beth’s brother.”
“Yeah?”
“Hey hey hey! You don’t have to be so defensive! I’m in the hospital with Beth-”
Involuntarily, his pulse quickened. He began to imagine all sorts of horrible things happening to Beth. He tried to free himself from his sadistic imagination, but he was caught in its coils. And they were squeezing hard.
“-and she’s ok.” completed Tim without pause. He breathed a mental sigh of relief. “She wants to talk to you, so here she is.” A small rustling crackle escaped from the phone, and then there was the sound of Beth’s voice.
“Hey Jon”
“Hey.” His tongue seemed suddenly swollen, and his throat was mysteriously clogged.
“So, the doctors say it was just a minor concussion, and a few cracked ribs. I’m gonna be fine in a day or two”
He tried to say something, but the blockage in his throat had gotten so bad he couldn’t speak.
“So, you still want to go to the dance on the twentieth?”
He found his voice. “Yes. Yes, of course.” A sudden realization hit him. “Beth?”
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
There was a pause.
“And I love you too, Jon Serpent.”[/pre]
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Hey, Fiver!
Welcome to the site. ^_^ One quick note before I begin to ramble at you- the 'pre' button is something that seems to exist only to freak out peoples' computers. Unless you have some extremely crazy formatting, it's probably a good idea to just learn the BBCode. It's painful and boring, but usually looks somewhat cleaner. You'd have to substitute tabs for line breaks, too, but that's easy to do.
On to your story!
Most people are going to say it was "sweet".
In the traditional sense of the word, parts of it were, yes. But it was sweet with an edge- and sweet with an edge is probably one of the few things you can do as a writer to make me throw myself prostrate at your feet and praise your name.
I'm just a little weird like that.
In any case, this is something that a lot of people are going to be able to relate to, and if they can't relate to it, they are a) possibly not human or b) still going to be affected by it, anyway. This puts extra pressure on you to make sure that it's positively grand- if you were writing a memoir about giving birth to your children on a mountain top for an anthology meant for mothers who have given birth to children on mountaintops, you wouldn't have this same kind of pressure. Why? There's no way anyone who hasn't given birth to a child on a mountaintop is going to be able to relate to that. The feeling of alienation, and of things left unsaid? Everyone knows that.
Two things to consider:
PRODUCT PLACEMENT
You use the word 'iPod' a disproportionate amount of times in the first two or three paragraphs. It's good to be clear on what you're talking about, lest he be slamming his head against the floor, but you want to be careful that things are not too redundant. 'It' is an okay word to use, within moderation.
SMART ALECKS UNITE
When you ask questions in the narrative of a story, every smart aleck in the world is going to think of something to say in response. Should he do his homework? If he wanted to graduate...
It's best to think of readers as small children- you need to be two steps ahead of them, lest they stick forks in the electrical sockets or run with scissors. You've got to be proactive. You want them to love your story, and have no way of finding something wrong with it, no way to manipulate it- and so, a statement like "He should be doing his homework" would work a lot better than introspective questioning.
___
Tell me how the contest goes- I hope I could be of some help. If you have any questions or have put up something else, don't hesitate to PM me. ^_^