Hi! So, before I review this, I have to give the small disclaimer that I noticed a few obvious mistakes in spelling and whatnot, but it's nothing that you wouldn't see yourself without another quick pass over the piece, so I'm going to skip over those in favor of focusing on the more structural aspects of the piece.
I'm going to go paragraph by paragraph and get really nitpicky for a while, then give my general thoughts at the end. With that out of the way, I shall stall no longer and get right to the review.
"I’ve thought a lot about how to do this."
Nice first line you got here, not perfect, but pretty good. The only flaws I can see are the facts that the questions it raises aren't quite as compelling as they could be, and it doesn't really set up anything else in the story. You can ignore that second one if you want, consider it a bonus. You can, and probably should give it up for the sake of drama if you can. Anyway, it's a good first line.
Let's move on, since I took entirely too long on just a single line (if that doesn't tell you sonething about my thought process, I don't know what will).
"I’m no rookie. I’ve researched and drawn up stats and charts. I’ve read books, countless of them. I’ve witnessed my brother jumping down from fifty stories."
Now, this section serves the purpose of building suspense, clueing the readers in on your MC's borther's suicide, and setting up the fact that he thought this through. And yeah, it does that pretty well, but I can't help feeling that it could have been done a little better? Structured, I mean. For example, "I'm no rookie" implies that the MC has done this before, which he clearly has not seeing as he's not dead and gives no implication of having tried to kill himself before. Maybe, instead of "I'm no rookie" you said, or rather, he said, "I know what I'm doing" or something along those lines. It has the same punchy effect that I assume was intentional, as most simlilar lines are, and it sets up a better expectation for what the readers are about to, well, read.
My reason for pointing this out is this, the line "I'm no rookie" paired with the line "I've witnessed my brother jumping down from fifty stories" gives off the impression that maybe he's about to do some kind of stunt or something. The fact that suicide is even involved takes a few seconds to register, and changing up the language a bit could remedy that.
And moving on, again.
"I shouldn’t expect them to lend me a minute when they don’t have seconds."
I just like this line and wanted to point it out.
"My parents love me, I think. They just have an odd way of showing it: a wooden spoon breaking on my spine, locked up in a nearly bare room with a few chemistry and math textbooks and some pencils. They want a good life for me: a nice income, far away from the shit-town that we live in, a respecting husband."
When you describe how the parents had an odd way of showing their affection, maybe try not just stating the facts of the abuse? I know you may have read that as kind of rude, but hear me out. When an abusive parent shows affection, the victim is more likely to interpret said affection as coming from the moments between the abuse. The, "good job kid" grunted out about a report card that sports only A's, that one time they went out for ice cream because it was on the way and the dad was hungry, or even that time the mom let them have the rest of the mashed potato's because she didn't want to deal with the leftovers.
Or maybe you were going for the "good intentions" aproach, in which the victime believe that the abuse was committed with their best interests at heart, in which case I would recommend having your MC state what he thought his abusers, his parents, were trying to acompish when they broke those wooden spoons on his back, or when he was locked in that room. Tell us why those are the things that are thought up when your MC tried to think of their parents' affection.
"That’s why I’m here, on the sand. It’s quite windy; the waves are like walls that open into different worlds. I imagine that if I could wade through them, I would break through to a parallel universe; that I’d find fun and figure out a way to bring it back to earth."
Nice transition to the present day. I don't have anything else to say about this.
"There’s also my phone (with undeleted history, because really, who cares?), my old fluorescent blue sneakers (they’ve always been my favorite even though they don’t fit anymore), and a crisp white paper tucked beneath a rock. The paper has writing on it. A last note. I figured I should give my parents an explanation, in the least. An assurance that it wasn’t their fault. They’ll need it."
My only complaint here is that the little comments in parenthases break up the flow a bit. not enough to be more than a non-issue, but seeing as they aren't really featured anywhere else in the piece, they feel sort of out of place.
"I need to tell him that I love him. I feel dread as I realize that I forgot to write that in my note. And I feel confusion as I remember that I chose not to."
Okay, so my issure here is an odd mixture of predictable and weird. The predictable part is this, you're telling, not showing. Now here's the kind of weird part, how I know that is because of the words that I have put on my literary red list, so to speak. Those words are "I feel" (and all varriations). The third rule of writing (Cyr edition) is don't tell the readers that the character felt this way or that, show them the character reacting to the feeling. If you must, at least remove the words "I/he/she/they feel/felt" (convoluted? Yes. Written down on a thrity page doc? Also yes).
In case I wasn't clear (because I hardly ever am) I'll give an example.
"She felt the cool breeze caress her cheeks and shifted her hair from her face." You see this line? This sappy, sappy line that sound like it was ripped right out of a dramatic love story just before the emotional climax? You know how you could see her, but you couldn't really feel what she was feeling? Like you were beside her, but you weren't her?
Let's write it again, because I'm in English teacher mode from helping my sister figure out what a comma splice was and also how to work Pottermore for some reason.
"The cool breeze caressed her cheeks and shifted her hair from her face." Better? No? I'm probably just bad that this. Anyway, I hoped that little rant was helpful, my twelve-year-old sister seemed to think so a couple weeks ago. Then again, acording to your profile, you're seventeen and therefore probably better at this than I am.
Existential cirsis later, though, let's jump to the end because everything until that was great. No comments, no complaints, no adjustments aside from little grammar things I wouldn't know how to descibe or fix anyway.
"Ryan."
Yes, the name. So, earlier you mentioned that the parents wanted the MC to get a husband, which led me to believe that your MC was a girl, but Ryan is generally considered a boy name. What I'm getting at is this, I'm fairly certain your MC is trans and if he is cool, I've gotta show this to my friend (who will react either minimally and awkwardly, or by going on a very long rant about trans rights and the suicide rate and all that depressing stuff that has no buisness being discussed at 7:05 on a school bus).
Anyway, that was my bit, I hope it was helpful. Goodbye and happy writing!
A mysterious side to a story never hurts either
Points: 999
Reviews: 95
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