A semi autobiographical short story! Needs critiques and suggestions!

[Corvette623]

“You just don’t understand how much you can hurt me..” I let the words roll around in my mouth. I stroke the paper in my journal that holds this phrase.

“You just don’t understand how much you can hurt me...” He really didn’t. He was always so concerned with his feelings. I mean, it made sense. It just frustrated me. I felt like I had trusted him with something, something I didn’t give to everyone and he just disregarded its value.

He didn’t have to want it, he didn’t have to cherish it, he just needed to understand that what I had given him wasn’t something to be played with. It was a responsibility.

Looking back, I can’t believe how incredibly selfish of me that was. Blaming him for all the pain I felt. And even if it was his wanton disregard for my love that caused my turmoil, I am the one that gave him that responsibility. He never asked for it. But that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t seem to understand that he could hurt me. He seemed to think he was the only fragile one, the only one that could be broken. I didn’t want to hurt him. Not at all.

Maybe he was right to not trust me completely.Sometimes, I would question my own intentions:“Have I really created a connection with him? Am I just being blinded by lust?” The fact that I didn’t know still scares me.

To this day, I feel the sting of remorse when I think about that day at the beach. The day that I went too far.

------------------------------

The sound of footsteps, tramping down the stairs, woke me up. I opened my eyes and felt the heat of the sun beat down on my face through my window. The familiar dryness of a late morning sat heavy in my throat. I turned onto my other side and reached for my phone, ignoring the moistness of my shirt. I have a notification. A text message from a random number.The sequence of numbers seemed familiar and it hit me. It was Nick’s number. I knew it by heart back then. I had deleted his contact from my phone in an attempt to get him out of my head. It didn’t work.
The text read:
“Holden, you know I don’t hate you.”

I simply responded with, “I know”.

Those texts would generally be a trimonthly occurrence. I would call him at some god forsaken hour, in a lonely desperate stupor. He would never answer but, that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want him to answer so I could talk to his voicemail. It was one of the only ways I’d ever been able to really talk to him.

The next day he would text me with some terse response to what I had said. It was never what I wanted. It was always hollow. That always made me angry. I just wanted some sincerity. Some genuity. Sometimes it would concerns me that, maybe, I was the one being insincere. And maybe I didn’t really know what sincerity was. So I never said anything because, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t want to be wrong.

I sat in my bed, clutching my phone waiting for a response. The footsteps began ascending the stairs again. By the speed and the volume of each step, I could usually tell who was coming up the stairs. The steps were quick and sharp into the ground, as if whoever was coming up had been excited about something. My door bursts open and I hear the voice of my youngest sister call out.

“Beach day! Beach day!” she chanted, opening everybody's bedroom door. She had woken up an hour earlier than all of us, hoping we would leave to the beach earlier if she was ready. Much to her dismay, that morning we all slept in. Well, had slept in.

I roll out of my bed and go to my closet, leaving my phone on the charger. My room was warm from the open window but the lilac paint made it feel cool. I ran my fingers along the clothes in my closet, deciding what to wear to the beach.

[Lanydx reborn]

Okay I know I'm not on one to do this but here it goes. I'd make it a bit longer, and second! BEAT THIS MOTHER KUPO!

[Corvette623]

Why longer? Just curious?

[Lanydx reborn]

Well it might let people know more. Also I wanted to read more.

[Corvette623]

I'm thinking about publishing it in my zine and doing a little more each zine.

[KingdomKey]

This is certainly different, I like your take on this Corvette. So, this Holden is infatuated with Nick and told his feelings to him, I'm guessing. So, what's next?

[Corvette623]

That's the thing xD
I don't know
This is all happened to me xD
So I don't know what I wanna include. I'm trying to allude to some kind of event that I wanna reveal later on. It's not necessarily very well developed. This story originally started out as an entry in an online journal

[kairi_angel]

Not meaning to sound cruel but it's kind of short, like a blip of info that we'd find on a blog or something; not in a book. Maybe expanding it, more description, more depth. While it happened to you, yes, maybe go from that and expand it into something else? That way if you don't want to talk about what EXACTLY happened, you can go in a different direction, not necessarily more comfortable, but just see where things can go.

Edit to continue on what I was saying since I posted that while on my phone:

It's very hard to give critique to something that's happened. Should I comment on the writing? The dialogue? Maybe you don't want to change that because that's what happened. It's very difficult to base something completely on an instance rather than be inspired by it, making new characters who have a similar experience rather than the exact same thing happen.

I think it's good that you're writing from experience, mixing real life into your writing but it seems more like a he said she said kind of rant more than writing.

If you want me to continue on, comment on the actual writing, say my two cents about the wording and stuff like that, I may. It's rather short so it shouldn't take me too long, either.

[landseasky5412]

I'm with Sabrina here. It's very bloggy rather than a memoir or "auto-bigraphical" piece. If that was your intent then keep it as it is, but don't expect much C&C because it's hard to critize a blog post :/ If you're going for more of a memoir approach then I suggest you look at examples and exerpts of authors who have dabbled in the genre. Memoirs can be incredibly enjoyable to read while still holding some factual truth.

If you're going for an auto-biographical feel then I suggest you write about something else because this blurb doesn't necessarily constitute that genre.

tl;dr
you should probably look into memoir writing

[kairi_angel]

Did it anyway. Was really waiting for a response so I could post it. Ain't I a stinker.

First off, maybe get a title? Maybe something to get the reader's attention, if this is in a zine, maybe it'd be of a series of sorts? I don't know. I'm just going to jump around things that I think could be rearrange and have typos. Second, I kind of don't like the tense used but that's personal preference. It just kind of allows things to get confusing but as a memoir/autobiography, those are always told in a past tense. You're telling a story, not narrating yourself in a room. Also on another random note, you should probably indent between paragraphs because it looks A LOT better on this site, much easier to read.

Anyways, let's do this. It's been a long while since I've written a full critique like this, so forgive me for mistakes and coming off as a bit bitchy. I'm commenting this as a written piece, not a blog piece, by the way. I feel I should mention that.

I'm not really going to comment on the repeated paragraph. More circles, more confusion. But uh, why did it exactly end here? You had one paragraph of actions. Who's footsteps were those? Are you going somewhere? Something. You're basically unsure about everything and it's cool to have some uncertainty with a character, more than okay. But that's all I see here. You have potential, you just need to work on some things. I'm hoping I helped and wasn't too harsh. Like I said, it's been a LONG while since I've done one of these. But yes, that's all, let me know what you think.

[Corvette623]

Thank you so much! That's all really helpful. I'm planning on expanding it. I really do like the idea of making it past tense, So I willl try to mess around with that. It was written in present tense due to the fact that it was a kind of journal entry before it turned into this. Also because I really had no idea where it was going. I still don't xD
I'm trying to figure out an end! Once I tweak it and everything I will definitely repost so you can take a second look! Thanks very much! :D

[kairi_angel]

You can just edit your op and not bother reposting. Easier to manage.

I'm glad you liked the review though!

[Corvette623]

Reposted!!! :D
Would love to hear your opinion again.

[kairi_angel]

With another review promised in the morning I'll see if I have time to reread it and give an opinion. =w=

Right now it looks like just tense differences.

[Corvette623]

I didin't change it too much. I mainly wanted to see if you thought I was headed in the right direction.