Hello everyone,
I've just written my first short story but I'm afraid I'm too timid to share it with any of my friends so I'm hoping for some feedback from others first. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions!
Thanks,
Aphroena
As I drove up the lane and pulled to a stop, my breath caught. I had grown up here, but things were different now. As he got out of the car, he smiled. It wasn’t the smile he’d first given after kissing me goodnight and it wasn’t the smile he’d beamed when I’d said yes, but it reassured me that he was ready.
We walked up the path together, our steps in sync, but the moment we stepped inside I began to lose him. His eyes ricocheted around the room, going dizzy from the height of the ceiling, blurry from the light of the chandeliers and then suddenly still at the sight of my parents standing stiffly on the staircase. I grabbed his hand to bring him back, but part of him was already gone. The room stole the smile from his eyes and replaced it with a look of insecurity I was powerless to erase.
Everything I had ever wanted I had been given, so it seemed odd that I should have to ask as I sat before them. But I saw in the way my mother stared at his hands as he took the white teacup, in the way my father asked about his ‘plans’ and in the way he grew more distant with each answer that he was the one thing that would not come easily.
When he asked for the ring back, it wasn’t hard to take it off. His pain had loosened it and my tears had made it slippery. But as I took it from my finger, more than just stone and metal slipped away. And as the door closed behind him, so did I.
As I walk into the house I can no longer bear, entering the room where I first began to lose him, I look from the top of the staircase down at the floor. The height makes me dizzy and the tears in my eyes blur the light from the chandeliers, but I know I’ll see him smile again soon.