Young Writers Society

On the first day of freshmen year, I vowed to my friends and everyone I talked to that first day that I was not going to make a fool of myself. I was not going to do anything stupid, irrational, downright disgusting. I was going to get amazing GPAs, I was going to date people and find out what type of men I liked and hated, and I was going to keep my friends. That was my goals for freshmen year.

Not many of my friends had goals. Their goals were set in stone - homecoming, latest styles, etc. I didn't care about fashion. I cared about making it through the school year.

I had Latin as a block class - two periods in a room with thirty kids. Everybody tried to take Latin, mostly because of the teacher. Magistra was crazy, and I loved her. She was free, she was alive. She wasn't like what I thought most of the teachers would be. She was, by far, my favorite teacher.

She handed out a list of names the first day of school. There were only two seniors - both admitted they failed Spanish. The rest of us were juniors, sophomores, freshmen. There was about ten freshmen, eleven sophomores, seven juniors, and the two seniors.

I decided on the Latin name Helena. It was a song by My Chemical Romance, a band that I used to love unconditionally in junior high. One of the seniors picked the name Pluto, and Magistra explained to him how Pluto was a very bad man from the Underworld. Pluto didn't seem to mind.

After only a couple days of Latin class, it felt as if the thirty of us were family. Roman family. Greek gods and goddesses. My new friend, Anastasia, shared with me during group work how cute one of the seniors was. I'd noticed him by his band t-shirts. Music was a vast obsession of mine - from Mahler to Slipknot, Nirvana to Avril Lavigne. I loved it all. He'd been wearing The Devil Wears Prada and We Came As Romans. I wanted to comment on them, but I never got the chance.

Until I walked in that week wearing my Nirvana shirt with all the yellow smiles. He walked over after getting his row books from the shelf and said, "Helena, I like your shirt." I thanked him. The next day he was wearing Dance Gavin Dance; I commented on it. When we were partnering up, he asked me to be his partner.

He told me I had good taste in music, and that I knew Latin really well. We named bands that we liked, most of them mutual. I asked him how he knew about the name Pluto, getting the reply that he was into Latin more than Spanish and knew a thing or three.

The next day, Pluto was looking at me differently. Every time we had any sort of eye contact, he'd blink, smile a little, and look away. The same day he commented on my Bring Me the Horizon shirt. Band t-shirts weren't all that I ever wore. On the days I didn't wear them, he commented on anything. My hair, the color of my shirt, my bracelets. It got to the point where Pluto would be the only highlight of my day.

My bruises were beginning to return.

Pluto asked me to the Homecoming dance. He was a senior; my father would never approve, and my mother would want to meet him. So he told me he'd pick me up and we'd go to the football game together.

The night of the football game was magical. We talked about movies: Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, Titanic, Shutter Island. We talked about TV: Supernatural, House, Jersey Shore. It was really fun until it started to downpour, soaking me through my pores. We sat in his car, watching the raindrops linger on the windshield, then slowly fall down the glass, soon blending in with another trail of water.

Pluto and I were gradually becoming closer. I forgot about my goals, I forgot about my wants as a freshmen. I didn't want to start over, I didn't want to get a fresh start. I wanted Pluto.

Tyler was his real name. He was nice to everybody, had loads of friends. I could see the girls lined up for him, most of them pretending to be "just friends." I could see, and I could feel what they were feeling.

He kissed me when we departed from friends at the mall. We walked into Hollister, I sprayed the samples all over him, he backed me into the corner behind the hoodies and kissed me. I wanted to curl up in a bawl and cry, but I swallowed them back until I was alone.

Instead of doing what I should've done, I stayed with him. I let him kiss me again at another football game, I held his hand, I snuck out of the house on Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights to his car, where he'd drive us to the stars. The weekends turned to weeknights. The weeknights turned to study halls. The study halls turned to a couple missed classes.

We weren't failing classes. We weren't sneaking off to the janitor's closet and stripping. We were going to his car and sitting in the back, staring up at the ceiling. We'd trace pictures on the ceiling, write out words, and I'd let him kiss me.

I fainted during gym in mid-November. The nurse didn't notice the bruises, but she ordered me to go home. I texted Tyler while she wasn't looking, and I laid in the car with him. He started asking me questions that day. Why I fainted, why I've been getting bruises. He was getting worried. I didn't know he noticed the bruises because I always wore jeans a jacket. He admitted he noticed them weeks ago, but he didn't say anything because he thought I'd tell him. I never did. I told him not to worry about it, that I've always bruised easily, that I'd gotten no sleep the night before. He took it, but didn't believe.

I cried myself to sleep at night, and while I was dreaming, I'd cry some more.

When Tyler snuck into my bedroom on a Wednesday night, we worked on Latin homework. Declension III endings and sentences using them. They were easy and we finished them within minutes. We laid on my bed together, tracing things with our fingers, ruffling each other's hair. Pluto told me he loved me.

I cried.

He had to ask me repeatedly what was wrong, why I was crying. I knew he'd already made the connections with the bruises, the fainting, the rapid loss of weight. When I told him nobody else knew, he asked me if my parents knew. I shook my head. I told him I'd been in remission since the fifth grade. How much it'd hurt my family. He told me how much it hurt him. I kissed him. He fell asleep holding me that night.

Tyler never told a soul. He didn't have to. I fainted for the fourth time in six weeks. My father took me to the emergency room. The remission was announced.

I had Pluto meet my parents. They fell in love with him. He was a gentleman towards them and me. As for the circumstances, age didn't matter.

Tyler tried to be with me as much as possible. He walked me through the halls, he drove me home, he drove me to school, he spent long nights with me, he kissed me and told me he loved me as much as possible. He was a foot or so taller than me, so he was cautious on the hugs from the bruises.

Early December. I was turning fifteen in days. Everybody knew it'd be my last birthday. I was getting sicker and sicker each and every day - I wasn't going to last very long. Come December of next year, I would be a memory to everyone. Tyler would be in college, Anastasia would be a junior. My father would be silent, my mother would be setting up a memorial, my sister would finally make it to the middle school. She loved Pluto, refusing to call him Tyler.

My fifteenth birthday, December 7th. I got hugs, money, tears, and Tyler. He bought me a hand-made necklace that read, "Pluto Helena Amat." I wanted to marry him. I told him that I wanted to marry him, and he said to me, "Helena, if it was possible to marry you, I would've married you as soon as I met you."

One night I was feeling pretty good until the question popped into my head. I asked Pluto if he had ever seen a future with me. He told me he did, that even though he was soon to be eighteen and I was fifteen, he knew he didn't want to not be with me. That night I asked him to make love to me. I understood his hesitation. I told him I always wondered what it would be like, and that I wanted it to be with him. It was his first time too.

I started chemo on New Year's Day. Pluto would be eighteen in seven days. I suddenly wanted everything that I couldn't have anymore. I suddenly wanted wrinkles, I longed for children, I wished for a family of my own. Tyler laid with me in the hospital and we drew our family. Pluto, Helena, Spartacus, Persephone. Our family. I cried.

My long, auburn hair fell out shortly after Valentine's Day. I threw up so much on Valentine's Day, too. I apologized to Tyler for not being able to do anything with him. He reminded me it was just any other day, only it had a specific name.

Magistra visited me in the hospital every Saturday. She brought flowers each time, reminding me that I was beautiful, that I was magnificent. She'd figured out Pluto and I were a thing by the end of the first marking period.

When I began to sleep more than usual, Tyler was obtaining insomnia horribly. The nurses would come in during the week while he was at school and explain how he would lay on the couch and talk to me while I was asleep. He'd say things in Latin, he'd mix English and Latin up. Sometimes he'd even speak some Spanish. Most of the time, he'd tell me it'd be okay. That it'd all be okay. That I'll be okay.

April 4th was the day I fell asleep and never woke up. Tyler was the one to notice the flatline.

People I barely knew, and people I didn't even know, attended my memorial on April 16th. I watched as Pluto was torn apart from the inside out. He asked me if I was in Heaven, if I could hear him, if I could let him know I'm happier. I could hear him, I was in Heaven, but I'd already been in Heaven since I met him. He hadn't cried in front of me, but now he was uncontrollable. He got into a car accident from reckless driving, trying to rid my memories from him. It hurt me that he would want to do that, but I could see he wanted to keep me inside of him. He wanted me back is what he wanted.

The thing is, I am with him. Each and every single day I watch over him. Each and every day he remembered me until he met a girl at a wedding. He married her when he turned twenty-six. He had a bachelor's degree in Psychology.

On the tenth anniversary of my death, he took out a photo we had taken together. It was of us in his car, staring up at the stars. I'd taken it on his iPod. He'd had it printed and given it to me, but got it back after my death. He took the picture and placed it in the frame, walked out into the hallway filled with pictures, and placed us beside the one with the picture of our Latin family.

Hi there Cyancheshire. Interesting username, by the way.

This is a sad short story and it successfully pulls at the reader's heartstrings. Nevertheless, the story is also dreadfully cliche. I hate to say that, but it is - especially with the destined love and then one of lovers die, forever cracking the other's heart et cetera. It is, for many, an appealing cliche to write with but it's terribly predictable, every single bit of it. So, one of your goals, according to me, is to perhaps switch around this story and make it originally yours. Perhaps include some other characters - expand on Anastasia a bit and it'll be that much more interesting.

That also leads into how rushed this feels. The beginning was decent, supplying the audience with a sense of what 'Helena' is feeling and thinking. But then it seems to rush on, like you didn't have time to finish the story creatively or you ran out of energy or you wanted to finish it off in a hurry. Unfortunately, all three ways are bad since they all conclude in a rushed story that easily loses its appeal to the readers. Don't be afraid to write more, expand and touch on all five human senses. It's key to a good, well-written story.

One thing else you might want to focus is character development. We sort of learn about 'Helena' and who she really is deep down inside but still there feels like there is a large, thick brick wall between the reader and the character. It is crucial for stories and/or novellas/novels to have good characters (and especially with the protagonist!) so they can each in return feel like they relate to the main character. It adds a personal sense to everything, thus making it much more direct. Also, I find that we know so little about Pluto/Tyler. He's a very under-developed character that needs and offers so much more than it might seem. Since Tyler is 'Helena''s lover, he's pretty much like a second protagonist and so treat him just like one.

Yours,
Lavvie

Great story line but because it's a short story and you had such a big time frame, it was a little rushed. Short stories usually have a short time frame. It could even be a story that occurs in ten minutes. Short stories have short time frames and appropriate word length as the writer usually "shows, not tell". They describe a lot of the settings and how the characters are feeling (eg. Instead of writing "she cried", write "she stared down at her open palms, watching the droplets fall into her hands before containing herself and brushing away the tears with the backs of her hand". This sentence shows that she's crying but it doesn't tell it straight away). Showing and not telling makes the story a lot more interesting and not just sentences that are just bang, bang, bang, end of story.

Try to avoid using the words 'said' or 'walked' (etc.), instead use words like 'whispered', 'strolled' (etc.). This also makes the story more interesting as the readers can picture how the character is feeling through their body language or tone of voice (eg. 'said' and 'walked' are pretty general verbs).

When writing stories, also think if the scenario and characters are realistic. Think about this, would a hot senior boy randomly go up to a freshman girl? It seemed very sudden the way he approached her. It was just, one day her friend tells her about him and the next, he comments on her shirt. Put a little mystery into it. Like maybe she catches him looking at her sometimes, or something like that. The impression I got about him was that he was kinda like the cool senior with a tinge of badass-ness. So, I doubt that he'll just go up to her and say "Helena, I like your shirt." Maybe try "cool shirt" or something casual like that. If he was the cute senior, like Anatasia said, you should describe more of how your main character feels when she's with/sees him. Your story is, afterall, in first person (one of my favourites), which makes it very easy to describe how the character is feeling.

I think that this story would work fantastic as a long story but it needs a little more character development. Try not to make it too cliche` (ie. the hot guy with the quiet girl) because there are already a lot of stories like that. Make it more unique, more you. Put something different in it or write it in such a way that doesn't make it too predictable. It also needs a lot more emotion put into it. I know that she has some short of cancer but put that emotion into it. Make the readers feel what your characters feel. Make them cry when your character dies. With time and editing, I think that this will be a fantastic story to read and I really hope that you'll rewrite it with my suggestions because I look forward to reading it. Anymore questions, just message me All the best and good luck I hope that my harsh feedback will help you with your future writing xoxo