Nope never. Still can’t believe it.
Short Story / Icy Summer Kiss (Analysis)
I've always been a bad judge of character. My subconscious leads me towards people who are inherently bad for me. Sometimes, I wonder, does my inner mind have it in for me? Does it secretly revel in my suffering? My inner pull towards the “bad boys” has always existed. Always.
When I was seven, one of my best friends in the whole world was Nathaniel. He was beautiful. Ever tan, with brown hair that was always cut a little too long. With a toss of his head, his hair would dangle over his brown eyes. This brown veil teased me; I could never really see his eyes, know what he was thinking. Even at seven, he had perfectly white teeth. Straight. Inviting.
Nathaniel’s house was always filled with a hustle-bustle that my house lacked. I loved the noise of his numerous brothers, the cackle of his mother. His house felt lived in. It was never quite clean. There were always toys strewn about and paperwork piled on the stairs inside the doorway.
In the summer, we spent our time in his yard. The grass was patchy. It never grew together, too many cars parked on it, I guess. We laughed. Cooled ourselves in the shallow depths of his plastic pool. We ate watermelon at his kid-sized picnic table. He could spit the seeds of our snack farther than anyone else I knew.
One hot afternoon, we were sitting on the concrete steps of his stoop. I sucked the melted juice of my ice pop and stole a sideways glance at Nathaniel. His hair dangled precariously over his eyes as he worked the frozen blue ice out of the plastic.
“Have you ever kissed anyone?” I asked.
He shrugged. Bit off a chunk of ice and grinned.
“Well? Have you?”
I watched as he turned the plastic sleeve upside down and drained it. He stood, shaking that head of hair.
“Why?”
I shrugged. Watched him. He kicked at an invisible rock and missed.
“Adrea kissed Jason,” I said.
“And?” he asked.
Adrea lived next door to me. She was my other best friend. The night before, we’d had a sleep over and she’d told me how nervous she’d been. She dared me to kiss Nathaniel. I’d gone on and on about how gross it was and that he probably had cooties. In truth, I was curious, and, if I was going to kiss a boy, I definitely wanted it to be Nathaniel.
“And nothing. I just wondered if you’d done it too.”
“Nah,” he said.
“Want to?”
“Huh?”
“Do you…I mean, have you ever wanted to kiss….you know. See what all the fuss is about?”
I’m not exactly sure how our conversation transitioned into me chasing him, but it did. My adrenaline was flowing and the details of that fateful lap around his yard are hazy. Nathaniel, with his long tan legs, was a much faster runner than I. Still, to this day, I think he wanted me to catch him, or I never would have been able to.
I wrapped my ice pop sticky fingers around his wrist and pulled him to a stop. The kiss was short, filled with a hybrid taste of blue and red sugared ice.
Afterward, we grinned at each other and ran for another ice pop. We never kissed again.
I moved away from Lost Colony Court and Nathaniel during the summer before fourth grade. I’ve seen him once since. We were twenty. We flirted. He promised to call. He didn’t.
A few weeks later, I read about him in the paper. Arrested. My beautiful, tan Nathaniel faced 1st degree murder charges. A Kmart robbery gone wrong. The Bloods responsible were all being charged in the security guard’s death. I followed his story through the black and white letters of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. He got life. A life for a life.
Even when I was seven, I knew how to pick ‘em.
I often wonder if Nathaniel’s family had moved when gangs began infiltrating our neighborhood, would his life have been different? Is someone capable of murder ever really able to be a different person? A good person? Did the Atlanta pen allow him to keep his beautiful hair? Can you remain perpetually tan incased in cement walls? Most importantly, does he still remember that icy summer kiss?
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CiannaSkye reviewed Version 1 -
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You’ve done a good job here at thrusting the reader into the mind state of a seven-year-old. The dialogue and actions seem realistic. I noticed a few punctuation issues. I suggest that you lose the last paragraph. The series of questions kind of dull the clever ending. Otherwise, I liked this.
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ScarletsPoison reviewed Version 1 -
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This was really intresting. I thought it was great how you used his hair and his eyes whenever you talked about him. It had a lot of…. something to it that I liked. It’s really sad that he got put into prison. When you were little did you ever think he could have ever ended up like that?
soft_summers reviewed Version 1 -
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This is a great start :) I loved your description of the first kiss, but the connection between that and this girls way of picking boys is lacking. Nathanial being a murderer was shocking and abrupt. What other clues could she have noticed that would foretell this end? What other relationships show that she indeed picks the bad boys?
Overall you did a good job, and I myself would not be able to write it lol. Great job!
rollingbolus reviewed Version 1 -
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you use the word ‘bad’ twice in the first two lines, you could change it, or the structure to something like: a lousy judge….., inherently bad/ bad judge….,who hurt me
Ever tan --- ever-tanned?
We laughed. Cooled --- this sounds like you’re laughing at the cars parked in the yard: We laughed and cooled
He shrugged. Bit off a chunk of ice and grinned. --- He shrugged, bit off…
tan Nathaniel --- tanned
charged in the --- for the
Overall, this is a pretty good snapshot into the buildup to a moment in childhood. But even though at the beginning the narrator is lamenting how she’s always drawn to bad boys, Nathaniel’s murder charge comes as a bit of a surprise. From the off the reader has the feeling that she gets ‘treated’ badly by men, but there’s no inkling of this in the interaction between the two children. There’s also no mention of how she’s suffering in the present so it’s hard to connect the pieces of this story; they remain a tad disjointed.
Having said that, you describe this first kiss well, it’s very easy to visualize.
good luck working on this
FrakKevin reviewed Version 1 -
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Ever tan,-Even?
I liked the begin because while reading I figured Nat was the first and last good guy she ever dated…but this was more like the genesis of her bad boy journey…and it started all with the ultimate bad boy. I like how you describe the kiss and how it taste…because I remember mines tasted like snot…we were seven and it was winter lol. Good read though.
DallasS reviewed Version 1 -
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Whoever’s teaching you in that class is amazing- That was really one of the best pieces I think I’ve read from you list and it was amazingly detailed! I loved the emotion you put into it—The ending upset me even though it was a memoir- I thought you’d still be friends today ;) Never pictured a Kmart robber!
Criticism: It’s really hard to give critcism on this, it’s actually so hard for me I took it through spelling and grammar check just to make sure. The only thing that comes up is the fragments, which I loved you using- They really stopped and made you think. I read the whole thing out loud and I didn’t see the need to say anything bad! The only advice I would give is that I think instead of being a short story, you could write a little bit more of when you first met and turn it into non-fiction for Sasee!
10/10 and in my favorites.
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