Part III
October 2012
Jerrica Black
I let
out an exasperated sigh or maybe it was more of a groan, maybe a scream. Either
way, I was so fed up with this feeling. Happiness was so close yet so far.
“Only a
12 hour drive. Have you ever heard of a long distance relationship working?
University students coined the term ‘turkey dump’ for a reason.”
Luke
just looked at me, sadness in his eyes. Then he smiled. He reached out and
grabbed my hand; his skin was so soft and warm from holding his mug. His eyes
met mine, held them, we sat for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he
spoke, “You’re comparing what is here between us, the electricity flowing
between our bodies,” he emphasized this by shaking my hand making me smile,
“you’re comparing this to dumping your stupid high school boyfriend?” He was almost laughing. I could
hear it ringing in his voice. The sound, so beautiful, made me laugh.
“That’s
not what I meant!” I chimed
“I love
that sound.” His thumb gently caressed my fingers. “But in all seriousness, I
think< no, I know, we can make this work. If you’re willing to try, I am.” Suddenly
Luke’s eyes became sullen, scared. When I looked at him it hurt. He`s afraid
I`ll say no.
“I’m
willing.” Our eyes locked on each other, our smiles grew in unison until we
were laughing and crying; we were full of joy and of sorrow.
Luke
got up and pulled me off my seat into his arms. He held me tight, his arms
encircling my waist, my arms clasped around his neck. We stood in silent
embrace until Adam came back in to see how things were.
“Looks
like this are better between you two. It’s late, Hael, you should get to bed.
You work early tomorrow. He gave Luke a
dismissive glance. He was saying, “You may have made it better, but you hurt
her, get out. Now.”
“He’s
right Haelyn. And I have to get up early too,” he paused and added sadly. “Gotta
catch my train.” His lips quickly and tenderly touched my forehead as he gave
me one last squeeze. He began to walk toward the door but turned, “I`ll call
you when I get there.”
I tried
to say okay but all I did was mouth the word, no sound would come out. There
was a lump in my throat and my eyes were beginning to fill with tears again.
Adam rushed to my side as the door closed and put his arm around my shoulders.
I stood staring at the door until the tears turned to sobs. I laid my head
against my brothers chest and he wrapped the other arm around me.
Behind
my back a single tear fell down his cheek; when I hurt, he hurt.
“I love
you Hael, remember that.”
I feel very invested in their relationship now. Waiting anxiously for Part 4!
ReplyDeleteI promise you, it's currently in the works :)
ReplyDeleteJerrica!
ReplyDeleteI finished reading all the parts that are available before commenting.
I think you have a very elegant, emotional style. You include nice setting details, like the willow tree that calms the character (how Wordsworth-ian ;)), the owls and other wildlife that you use to show the passage of time, etc.
I know you say that you haven't finished editing the piece and will do so after it's complete, but honestly, the grammatical errors here and there detract a bit from the experience by virtue of being distracting. You switch from past to present tense in the middle of sentences once or twice, there were a couple of comma splices that I noticed, a couple of places that were missing punctuation... Just little things like that.
But more than that, I think, at the beginning of a story, you should really be concentrating on establishing your characters. You've done a great job of it already, slowly revealing what the source of distress is, who the people involved are, and all this awesome stuff, but some of the first questions you should ask yourself are "who exactly are these characters?" and "why should my readers care?" What is special about Haelyn and Luke, separately or as a unit? Why are you focusing on their potential relationship? How are they different from, say, Edward and Bella?
If you'd like a second pair of eyes for polishing up your story and a second head to bounce ideas off of, I'd be happy to beta. I've been writing fiction since 2001 (oh, I was so bad at it back then), and I'm fairly confident I ranked at the top of all of my English lit/comp classes in uni.