Looking Back

Just looking back on a few posts here and noticed the post where I declared my intention to write something more uplifting and less cynical... I guess that didn't happen.

The most recent thing I've been working on is a short story about a girl juggling a relationship with an abusive boyfriend and a heroin-addicted best friend, but isn't as dreary as that makes it sound, I hope. It links slightly to my last piece, and at the moment I've got about 6,000 words. I was aiming for around 10,000 but at the moment there's not really any plot or structure and I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it as a story.

“You’ll never understand the ways you’ve helped me.” He tells me. “You’ve released me. You’ll never believe the state I was in before I met you.”

The look in his eyes tells me he’s being a soft and sincere and affectionate romantic. The grip with which his hand takes my arm tells me I should be afraid of him, of what he could be capable of.

“Jay...” I begin the question before I’m even sure what I’m about to confront. I take a moment and he looks at me and smiles a smile that would have made my heart melt a month ago. He’s become this sweet and loving and genuine male out of nowhere, and he tells me that this is my influence – I’ve drawn the sweetness out of him and into the forefront of his character.

The silence has lasted too long now and I realise it’s no longer appropriate to ask him whether he did, in fact, murder his brother, so instead I place both of my hands, softly, on either side of his face and give him a delicate kiss, hoping he mistakes delicacy for affection.