writing junkyard

[tsuneni]

(( so, hi! i'm lizzie. i began writing when i was a young girl, and my biggest dream at the moment is to become a successful author. in the meantime, i'm looking for some comments on a piece that i've been working on so far. please, drop a comment, and tell me what you think! ))
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Still Sleeping Next To Me
 
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Lennon Walters is ten and Aiden Parker is eleven the first time they meet.
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Everything is bright, childish: the glowing blue and green in Aiden’s eyes,
the pink flush permanently behind his cheeks, the ruddy red of his lips.
His hair is short, curling just the tiniest bit at the ends.
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He has dimples. When everything else changes, when he grows and gains
muscles, when his hair gets long, when the colors tinting his skin dilute,
when tattoos cover the stray freckles on his arms, the dimples will stay. A reminder.
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For now, though, Aiden is young and fresh-faced, eleven, standing beside
his mum on the front steps of Lennon’s new home. “Hi,” he says. “I’m
Aiden and I live right next to you. We can be friends, if you want.”
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Lennon, ten, steps out from where she’s hidden halfway behind her
mother’s legs. The boy looks silly to her. She doesn’t know why. “I’m Lennon.”
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“Nice to meet you,” Aiden says politely. His smile is too big for his face.
“Do you want to see my fort? S'really neat. Built it myself.”
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Lennon ducks her head, shy. “Okay.”
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Aiden is eleven and Lennon is ten, and they spend their first day exploring and
expanding Aiden’s fort, draping sheets across furniture until they have their own
space, hidden from the outside world. It’s just for them. Here, Aiden tells her,
they are safe. Innocent. No one can touch them, here. Lennon and Aiden.
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But even when they are outside the fort, there are still things just for them. Lennon
and Aiden. Secret signals: nose taps to show they are best friends, pinkies locked
to show they always will be. Smiles that mean I understand. Hugs that mean I love you.
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In childhood, sticks are swords, blankets are forts, and pieces of string are diamond
rings. They spend summers outside, the sun setting behind Aiden’s curls like a
golden crown and weaving silver streaks into Lennon’s blonde locks. King and
Queen. Lennon and Aiden. They spend winters sipping tea, warm and clingy and talkative.
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These things are only meant for them, for Lennon and Aiden, bright and childish and unhurt by the world.
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The first time they meet, Lennon is ten and Aiden is eleven. They fall asleep
there in the fort, pinkies locked together, Lennon curled up against Aiden’s
side. It’s innocent, simple.
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One day, they will kiss.
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But for now, this is enough.
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* * * *
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Lennon is fourteen and Aiden is fifteen.
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They’ve grown up, grown together, dragged each other out of their preteen
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shells of timidity and awkwardness into this, Aiden and Lennon, Lennon and
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Aiden. Here’s Lennon, and here’s Aiden, and here’s a bond that no one else quite understands.
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Lennon’s love for Aiden hasn’t changed, but it’s grown into something she doesn’t understand. Can’t understand. Not yet.
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Aiden, fifteen, has grown into a young man, all awkward, young grace with his
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gangly limbs and floppy curls. He’s even more beautiful now. Lennon hears
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how the girls in the hallways talk about him, sees how their eyes light up under
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his attention, like planets orbiting the sun.
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He doesn’t see the bad in anyone, not yet. When he talks to people, it makes
them feel important, special, as if you’re the most important thing to him and
what you’re saying is the most interesting thing he’s ever heard. Everything--
everyone--is beautiful, fascinating, to him.
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In return, he is beautiful to everyone.
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They want a part of him, maybe, a look at the sunshine that glows underneath
his skin. And Aiden gives it, delighting everyone with his jokes and charms, lights
up the room with his blue-green eyes and wide smiles. He gives compliments
and warms to everybody’s praise. He loves the attention and it loves him.
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While Lennon doesn’t love the attention like Aiden does, it’s something that comes
along with their love. There’s Aiden Parker, and there’s his girl, and Lennon
never, ever wants to be anywhere else. At fourteen, Lennon can understand that.
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Lennon is fourteen and Aiden is fifteen.
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She’s fourteen and he’s fifteen when he crawls into her bed at one in the morning on
a warm August night, shaking her awake. Panicked, alarmed, and so, so confused,
Lennon opens her arms and grips Aiden to her side. He smells like something unfamiliar; maybe sadness.
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They remain like that for some time, Aiden’s wet eyelashes fluttering against the skin of
her neck, shaking, occasionally whimpering out painful noises, and Lennon just holds
him because there’s nothing she can do.
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When he finally looks up at her, the fading night sky ghostly illuminating his skin, she
can see the wetness on his cheeks and his eyes are lost, red, and puffy. He looks
broken. It terrifies Lennon. She doesn’t recognize this boy.
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Aiden is bright and alive and glowing. Not this.
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“Do you want to run away with me?” is what Aiden says, low and distraught.
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“Why do we need to run away?” she asks.
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“I want to.”
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“We can’t just leave,” she whispers back. “Let’s sleep, okay? Sleep and we’ll talk about this in the morning.”
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“Would you run away with me?”
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“Aiden-”
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“Would you?”
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“Of course I would,” Lennon says, like it should be obvious. “I’d do anything you wanted to me to.”
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“Then let’s go. Please, Lennon. Please.”
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“Tell me why,” Lennon begs, breathless, panicked. She moves her hand to brush her thumb
under Aiden’s eyes, his lips, wants to get rid of these tears and these words, wants to keep
them away from this world. They terrify her; they don’t belong here with Aiden, these ugly things. “Tell me why and I’ll go with you.”
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Aiden tries to shake his head, tries to move away, but she keeps her grasp firm on his shoulders"
until he stops fighting. She tries to ignore the pang in her heart at that. Aiden wants to leave?
Even if Lennon’s here? Lennon couldn’t leave Aiden if she tried.
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“Tell me what’s going on.”
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“My dad left,” Aiden finally admits, and his face falls again.
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And Lennon doesn’t understand, doesn’t know how anyone could leave this beautiful boy,
his beautiful family. Doesn’t understand how the world works yet, maybe. She’s fourteen
and he’s fifteen. So she pulls him closer, closer, closer, until their foreheads are pressed together.
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“I won’t leave,” Lennon tells him. His grip on her tightens, and the tip of his nose is pink,
his eyelashes damp and clinging together. “I’d never leave you. Not ever.”
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“Lennon.”
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“I promise I’ll never leave you,” Lennon whispers back with a smile, and something shifts
in Aiden’s eyes. A flicker of the boy she knows in the daylight, not this torn, broken
boy in her bed. Maybe a smile. No dimples, though.
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Aiden swallows and reaches blindly for her hand that’s on his waist, and then interlocks
their pinkies, and Lennon falls asleep telling him how one day, in the future, they’ll leave.
Together. They’ll go to a big city and have a little apartment. They’ll have a pet cat, she
promises him. Aiden stops crying, and she feels responsible, a little grown-up even.
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Fourteen and fifteen.
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The next morning, Karen Walters finds the two of them tangled up together underneath the
comforter. Anne Parker gets called over and they have a talk, tell them to never do it again.
It’s inappropriate, they say. At fourteen and fifteen, Lennon and Aiden shouldn’t be sharing beds anymore, even just to sleep.
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The next night it happens anyways. This time neither of their mothers say anything. Lennon gets
to wake up to Aiden breathing softly in her ear, his hands warm on her skin. Neither of them
are aware of it then, but outside the bedroom door their mothers are standing together talking quietly.
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“They’ll be good together, won’t they?” Karen whispers.
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“They will. They always have been,” Anne sighs, running a hand over her face. “God, I knew he’d go to Lennon. I knew he was with her as soon as I realized he was gone.”
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“She’ll take care of him.”
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Anne smiles. “He’ll take care of her.”
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“Give ‘em two years and they’ll be married.”
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“We might as well all move in together then, huh?”
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Lennon and Aiden are fourteen and fifteen, practically children still. There’s still happiness.
Laughter. Love. Trust. Trust in each other, mostly. There’s no room for anything else between
them yet. Here’s Lennon, and here’s Aiden, and here’s how it should be.
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* * * *
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Lennon is sixteen and Aiden is seventeen.
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She dyes her hair pink. He gets his first tattoo.
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At sixteen, she understands now. The love she has for him has grown to fill the spaces
she didn’t have when she was a child. It’s grown into longing and desire and jealousy,
something so powerful and essential that there isn’t a piece of her that doesn’t love him.
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At seventeen, Aiden is no longer this gangly, pretty boy with doe blue eyes and dimpled
cheeks and ringlet curls. His eyes don’t shine as much. His hair is cut short. He has
hands that are too big for his body. After his dad left, Aiden grew into a man with dark,
wild eyes and copper hair that frames the sides of his porcelain skin. Different, but
still beautiful. Older, but still beautiful. And something else, too.
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He’s sad now. Sad but beautiful.
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He’s quiet, sunken, shaded.
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Beautiful.
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Lennon knows she isn’t the only one to see it. Karen and Anne are always whispering,
watching him with careful eyes. Worried. Despite the increase in height, his weight
seems to be shedding off. He disappears for hours sometime times and comes back smelling like smoke.
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But, still, it’s Lennon who holds Aiden every night. It’s Lennon who traces the ever growing
amounts of ink on his skin and tells him that it’s okay. It’s still Lennon and Aiden, Aiden
and Lennon, always has been and always will be.
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As usual, they are laid in Lennon’s bed. Aiden’s got his head propped up on a pillow, Lennon
resting on his stomach, and he’s twirling her pink hair through his fingers mindlessly.
“Where are you thinking about for uni?” he murmurs.
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“London, probably,” she says. “Haven’t thought about it too much. But London sounds nice. What about you?”
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“Wherever you go,” he tells her. “I’ll go wherever you want to go.”
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Lennon’s insides soften. “You mean that?”
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“'Course I do. But have you ever thought about, like…not going?”
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“To uni?”
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“Yeah.” Aiden tugs her hair the tiniest bit so that she looks up at him. He looks young like
this, wide eyes and pale skin. “Do you really want to go, anyways? You and me, we
could go anywhere. Just the two of us.”
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“Aiden-”
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“We could go right now,” he says, low. Quiet. “London, if you want. Or Paris. I just want
to go. I want-” His voice cracks, stops, a frown shadowing his face. Lennon watches the lines of his neck as he swallows.
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“We can wait,” Lennon insists, sitting up. “We don’t- we don’t have to go now, right? It’s just
another year or two. And then- then we’ll be in London. Together. You’re just upset right now. You’re…”
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She falls silent as Aiden shakes his head, his eyes stuttering down to Lennon’s lips. Moments drag
by, Aiden’s eyes locked on Lennon’s mouth, Lennon’s heart pounding, and there
they are, Lennon and Aiden, sixteen and seventeen.
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“Aiden,” Lennon says, has to say something or she’ll forget the boundaries of friends. She
watches his eyes flick away from her lips. “We’ll be fine as long as we’re together. No one
else matters. Not anyone at school or- or your dad. Or anything. If you really think we
should leave, then I’ll leave with you. I just don’t think that’s the best thing right now.”
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“But you’d go with me? Just the two of us?” Aiden, seventeen, asks.
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Lennon, sixteen, thinks nothing of it. “'Course I would. I love you, Aiden. I’d do anything for you.”
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They’ve never said those words before. I love you. The two of them have been friends
for almost ten years and they’ve never said those words. Because those words, as
friends, are implied in pinky promises and secret smiles and the tiny tattoos Aiden gets just for her. These words are not.
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Aiden kisses her.
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Lennon is sixteen and Aiden is seventeen when he kisses her.
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Aiden kisses her and it’s soft, slow, careful. Childish. Trusting. They stay like that, pressed
close and trading gentle, knowing kisses, for a long time. It’s familiar, and it’s Aiden,
it’s AidenAidenAiden, always has been and always will be.
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Lennon says I love you and Aiden says I’m sorry.
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They never kiss again.
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Lennon keeps dyeing her hair pink. Aiden gets more tattoos.
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* * * *
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Lennon is eighteen and Aiden is nineteen when they leave for university.
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They don’t share a bed. Not anymore.
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At nineteen, Aiden is sharp angles and sleepless nights and the constant
smell of cigarettes. At eighteen, Lennon adores him. She doesn’t say love,
though. Not anymore. Because whatever she feels for him is something that hurts, and it didn’t before.
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It’s another one of those things that was beautiful in the beginning, the way they
couldn’t even breathe without one another, the way she feels so alone when Aiden
isn’t beside her, sleeping next to her. But now, it oppresses her, an addiction that
lives under her skin. She even gets it with Eli, sometimes, keeps waking up in
the middle of the night because she feels lonely.
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Lennon never thought that their friendship would turn against them, but then again, she’s learned a lot in these first months here.
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Lennon is eighteen and Aiden is nineteen, and they are a combination of the past
and present, children and adults, friends and lovers, Lennon and Aiden, and it’s
hard to tell where one end and the other begins. There probably isn’t a difference,
and trying to draw the line would doom them.
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Because it’s hard to define it when they’re this young, eighteen and nineteen, best
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friends without boundaries. That’s the hard part, here. Defining them.
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But this—Eli—is easy.

Eli. The boy who is everything Aiden is not. The boy who kisses her unthinkingly
and never smells like smoke. The boy who holds her hand. The boy who loves her.
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Sometimes, Lennon thinks she might love him back.
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Sometimes, late at night when he can’t sleep, Aiden will call her. Sometimes he
cries. Sometimes Lennon will meet him places at five in the morning, coffee in
hand, and they’ll watch the sunrise together. Sometimes he pulls her into his
lap and just holds her. Sometimes he won’t even look at her.
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Sometimes he smells like someone else’s perfume. Sometimes
alcohol. Always smoke, though. Always Aiden.
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Sometimes, Lennon doesn’t even answer the phone when Aiden calls.
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Lennon is eighteen and Aiden is nineteen when they leave for university.
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They don’t share a bed. Not anymore. But they’re Lennon and Aiden, Aiden and
Lennon, always have been and always will be, whatever that means.
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Sometimes, Lennon thinks Aiden is the worst thing that has ever happened to her.
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Always, she loves him.
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* * * *
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Lennon is nineteen and Aiden is twenty when he shows up on her doorstep at one o'clock in the morning.

They haven’t shared a bed in six months.

Aiden looks so, so tired. He’s all pale skin contrasted with harsh colors; his eyes are
bruised violet underneath, his lips are chapped to a raw red, and his usual glowing
irises are a dull, pale blue. There’s sadness in the slope of his shoulders, how he meets Lennon’s eyes and just stares.
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Lennon knows the curve of his collarbones better than she knows her own
body, but she still doesn’t recognize this boy.
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“I can’t sleep,” he says.
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Lennon steps outside onto the porch, closing the door gently behind her. “Eli is here.”
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“I need you. Please, Lennon. Come back to bed.”
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And that’s all it takes. The way his lower lip quivers and his voice cracks with the very
last syllable is enough to make Lennon drop every single part of her life and follow
him back to his car, leaving only a note on the back of a Chinese takeout menu as an explanation.
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Eli - I’m with Aiden. Be back soon. Laundry should be ready Tuesday. Xxx
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Lennon knows she shouldn’t be okay with dropping every single part of her life just because
Aiden asked her to. She knows that. It’s just. It’s Aiden, the same boy who she shared a bed with up until six months ago.
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And, yeah, maybe the fact that she loves him is part of the reason that she went. But she likes to
tell herself it’s because Aiden’s been her best friend for as long as she can remember, and
Lennon can’t live with herself knowing he’s hurt and she could do something about it.
 
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[sealdust]

Hmm... I like it.


However the end point is one where we don't see the consequences for Lennon with Eli - or how Aiden's new confession will change things for them both. I feel like there is more to the story than what has been told? Like why Aiden's father moved away, why that caused him to crumple so much. Because it's unclear if he wants to leave because he's chasing his father, or angry at his mother, or just upset with them both? I honestly feared for part of it that it could be because his mother was violent? You kind of excuse it with the entire 'Lennon doesn't understand how the world works' thing, but I feel that without a clear basis behind why he wants to run away, why his parents broke up, it's kind of harder to understand? And with the entire best friends thing - he initiated the kiss, and it's not clear whether that's because he had feelings for her, or because he wanted to see if he could. The 'I'm sorry' bit, while understandable, doesn't quite give a reason behind why? Is he sorry she loves him? Is he sorry he kissed her, knowing that she loved him? Is he sorry he doesn't feel the same way? All of these things give the story different meanings. The reason why he returns to her, why he drags her from her normal routine to help him - I feel like that would also transform the piece as well.


It's beautiful though, and I love the spacing. Without it the story would have been a bit blander, but because of it, it's clear that it's a more poetic piece about the lives of these two individuals. I just feel that there is a bit of meaning absent from it (in terms of the bits I have highlighted above). You don't have to add them if you don't want, it will still be a beautiful piece, but I feel like those details will create so much more meaning, even if they aren't revealed right away.


I'm not sure if you intended this reading or not, but Aiden seems very selfish. He's self destructing, and it's almost as though he wants Lennon to self destruct with him? And Lennon seems confused - torn between trying to move on from her first love, feeling obligated to help her best friend AND potentially hurting the person she knows loves her, who offers her security and comfort, who she wants to love (and sometimes convinces herself she does). I'm not sure if she's using Eli - but that's one way to see their relationship as well.

 

[tsuneni]

[SIZE= 11px]@sealdust[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 11px]hi, thank you so much for commenting and giving me your opinion. i'm craving the criticism because it just helps me improve my writing and such.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 11px]so, in regards to your opinions, i think the first thing i should say is that, yes, there's more to the story to be told. i began writing this about 2 years ago, and it's grown to be a cluster of parts and chapters. lennon and aiden's story isn't finished yet. now, i should point out that most of the story, while it is in 3rd person, is through lennon's eyes and thoughts. there's so much information we're missing about aiden, what happened to his parents, what he thinks, because not once have i written it where we see his thoughts. i kinda hoped it would put a bit of mystery to it. despite that, his mother is not violent. her and her ex husband fought a lot, and aiden never saw much of it, so when his father left, he didn't understand why. nothing was happening? now, about the kiss, aiden is very cynical about love. his parents kinda ruined it all for him, and after his father left--his father was a big part of his life--he was so scared to lose anyone else. he felt that if he were to say "i love you" to lennon and to possibly start dating each other, there was a chance he could lose her too. so, like in the story, he prefers to have one-night stands. aiden showed up at her doorstep for unknown reasons to both of them. you could just say he missed her, and that he can't sleep without her. the sleeping part will be explained in the next parts i post.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 11px]wow, thank you so much. i'm not sure if you meant spacing, like the time switches, or the spacing, like the paragraphs. nonetheless, thank you, thank you, thank you. but yeah, more details will be added in the next parts.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 11px]aiden is self-destructing, and he knows that. but he's blinded by his need for lennon, and the fact that their friendship could be breaking apart, and he's afraid to lose her. it really does confuse lennon, and her thoughts will be written down soon enough. there'll be a lot of arguments between the two. in a way, she is using eli. she just wants to move on from her love for aiden, with a boy that loves her back, but she always goes back to aiden, and it's a real conflict between her and eli.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE= 11px]again, thank you so much for your comment and for reading, and i hope you read the next part--when i do post it.[/SIZE]
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[sealdust]

@duende Of course. And in regards to spacing, I meant both format and with how you linger on each stage of their lives. Also, I'll certainly read the next part. I get how omission was supposed to add mystery, but there's a certain element of passiveness which Lennon seems to have if that is the case? I mean, if my best friend wanted to run away, I would thoroughly interrogate why (maybe not necessarily to my friend, but there are the assumptions that people make about why other people want to do things). Or the whispers you overhear from your parents when they don't know you're listening. I mean, when I got rejected by someone, my mind was still swimming with reasons despite the fact that I'd been given one already. I guess what I'm curious about is whether Lennon is the type to ruminate on these things, endlessly wondering about possibilities, or whether she gives up, not wanting to dig deeper, afraid of what she'll find. Because I couldn't tell which of those things she was, and that would have been a really illuminating character trait which would help the readers understand the vague bits a little more (because it almost seems like these things, which should affect Lennon since she cares about him so deeply, don't really affect her that much). I know she doesn't seem like the type to push someone further than they can take it, and that leads to basically: continuing to let it haunt her thoughts, or trying to forget about it. I mean, she could be both? I know that you wrote that she thinks nothing of aiden wanting to run away the second time (Lennon, age 16). But I don't think it's possible for anyone to just simply dismiss what is essentially such a huge change? She's had time to try to figure it out, and since he's tried to convince her to run away before, I can't imagine it being dismissed as easily as a fantasy? Sorry. I could be wrong. I guess it confuses me since I know there would be 0% chance I would ever think nothing of anyone wanting to run away?


And I love the piece regardless of the lack of clarification in some areas. I feel invested in your characters already - despite how flawed they seem. Your storytelling skills are beautiful, your writing is beautiful. I just really wish you the best of luck when it comes to your writing and the future you will create with it. Anyway, this is all just my opinion, and that doesn't necessarily make it right, so just stick to what works for you. I hope my comment helps.