I watched you walk your way to school with heavy steps—is it because of the cold? There is an inexplicable sadness in your eyes, a different kind of melancholy that makes people empathetic for you. These days, I noticed that you have become reticent and unforthcoming. I know you’ve been terribly sad with what happened, and I’m terribly sorry for you. Your friends tried to cheer you up, they tried to do things that can make you happy; yet you refused their company. Your parents told you to go on with your life and live like you did before, to be happy today and to move on, but you never listened to them. You always retreated to your room; it’s the same scenario every day: you wake up, go to school, go home, sleep, wake up, go to school, go home, and sleep. I remember you used to be the football team’s quarterback. Now you’ve lost interest in playing. I remember you used to have this carefree laughter whenever we walk down the school hallways in the afternoons. Now you’ve replaced your laughter with scowls. I remember whenever we stayed out late on my front porch, those summer nights when we camped out and you always sing me to sleep with your nonsense songs, and then we’d both wake up to see the beautiful sunrise. I remember how you held me in your arms when I’d gone to see you after my parents fought over something, how you told me that things will not always be this way and everything will be okay. I remember how you covered my ears and told me that all I should listen to is my heart, and how you kissed my tears away and held my hands until I could smile again. I used to remember how I constantly talked to my friends about you, and how you confessed that you also did the same with your friends. I also remember how we made impulsive promises to each other; soft-spoken, sweet, and foolish, almost childish promises. Now, it was different. Things changed. Life had been easier back then; it had been happier. I used to believe that it was already perfect, that nothing can happen to change it or make it different. I know you felt the same too. And I know that no matter how hard you try to be happy again, it won’t be easy for you. Nothing is easy now. The perfect picture painted with bright and happy colors is now marred with shades of gray—pain, loss, grief, and sadness. You always tell those people that you’re okay. Are you even going to lie to yourself? How can you put on a smile and say you’re fine, and then walk away with tears in your eyes? You told me before that I should never lie about what I really feel. Why are you doing it now? Why do you hide when you cry? Do you want others to continually believe in your lies? I know you. I’ve known you for a long time now, enough to say that you’ve changed. And I’m not happy with it, especially because I know I’m the reason behind. I’m very, very sorry. My words will never mean anything to you now, they will just be weightless dust forever suspended in the air. They’ll never reach your ears and you’ll never have the chance to listen to them. I’m sorry. I wish I could do anything for you, but I simply can’t. I know I can’t. And it hurts to be here, stuck and helpless, forever wanting to hold you again. If ever I had the chance to hold you again, I swear I’ll never let go of you. I can only laugh bitterly about it. I don’t have wishful thinking, so I can never will things to go back the way they were. I wish I could tell you that even if I wasn’t the one made for you, I was given the chance to meet you and the choice to love you. Every night before you go to sleep, I see you crying and I silently cry with you. It was never your fault, so stop being so reproachful. I wish you could hear me. I wish there could be a way for you to see me, for you to know that you’ve been hurt enough and that it’s time to let go. It’s been seven months since my death and every Saturday after that, you always brought a single rose to put on my gravestone. I didn’t believe it before, but now I know the feeling of having someone just beside me and yet feel so distant and far away.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hey tele.
First of all, it's hard to review this because it's one giant paragraph. That's some serious formatting hindrance for your readers-- the block of text is intimidating, and it's hard to extract certain ideas without them all running together. So split up your thoughts! Also, it makes us want to skim-- I missed the part about her death the first time around, so I was completely confused about the most important aspect of the story.
"these days" indicates present tense, but the story seems to be in past tense. Reconcile your time-line with the narration.
You say "I remember", "I remember", "I remember"...and then suddenly you used to remember? There with the tenses, again-- watch that. You want to stay consistent with the narrator and what they're narrating, if that makes sense. You do that in the next line too when you say "Now, it was different".
I like the imagery at the end here, but why does she suddenly think her words mean nothing to him? If they shared as special of a relationship as you described earlier, why is she suddenly meaningless?
This is where my problem is, really: this could be anyone. A sweet couple, strong emotions, yes, but there's nothing defining here that tells me who these characters are, except that one used to be a football player and the narrator died. I don't see anything of their personalities except that they miss each other. It pulls at our heartstrings, but it's too vague to really make us feel for these people.
I think what you need to do is turn this from the dead girl's dramatic monologue to an actual scene. Show, Don't Just Tell! Here you're telling us her feelings, saying "I'm not happy with it" and "feel so distant and faraway", and we're supposed to take her word for it. But if you showed us an actual scene where she follows him (invisible, in angel form, or whatever you like) and actually observes his depression instead of just talking about it, it'll jump off the page and into our hearts. Make this character-specific-- give us details about why we should care about this couple.
Anyway, good job and PM me if you need anything!
~Evi
This is just truly touching and sad and a lot more
I read it and it was beautiful then i read the last paragraph and read it
all over again, right from the beginning xD
This is soooo good and you have good descriptive words
to explain the feeling (:
I really hope I can read more of this but you stopped at the right time (:
You know when you read something SO good and you want to read more
and want it to continue but still deep inside know they stopped at the right time?
Thats how I am feeling right now xD
I absolutely loved it (:
<3