The Day We First Met

Dear Hannah,

My life has turned into a cliche. All because of a boy. Did I ask for this? Maybe in a tear-filled, hormonal moment.

Allow me to explain.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry," I stammered, my head still down.

"You're fine," a voice replied.

I glanced up just a bit, and my eyes landed on two metal bars next to long legs. Crutches, to be perfectly specific. My face turned even more red from embarrassment as I met the eyes of the boy I'd nearly tripped. They were blue, the dull blue-grey of the overcast sky, and they scrutinized me. Then his shoulders shrugged and he walked, or hobbled, away. 

This is not a teen movie. This is life. When our eyes first met, there were no sparks. He's not the captain of the football team or my arch nemesis. He's just a cute boy, right? And I'm just a girl.

This is how it goes.

I'd been sitting on a table with my friend Sarah during our free hour of the week. He stood off  in the distance with a bunch of other guys, who were all having an animated discussion. Then they all sort of conglomerated near us. So naturally, he turned to talk to Sarah because they're friends. It was around this point that I asked how he sustained the injury that crippled him. 

"I was playing street hockey," he answered cheerfully. "Some guy tripped me and I rolled my ankle."

I nodded sympathetically and continued with meaningless small talk for the next twenty minutes or so until he floated back into the group of boys hovering in front of us.  Then the bell rang, and we'd already parted ways...sorta. 

That's when the aforementioned accident occurred. That's when I became smitten with him, I guess.

And I couldn't even remember his name.  

Reviews

[Jaydaut]

"My life has turned into a cliche. All because of a boy. Did I ask for this? Maybe in a tear-filled, hormonal moment."

In this sentence the narrator speaks, assuming the reader will understand, which relieves the narrator of having to enunciate the complete thought.

Allow me to explain.(:)

"I glanced up just a bit, and my eyes landed on two metal bars next to long legs. Crutches, to be perfectly specific. My face turned even more red from embarrassment as I met the eyes of the boy I'd nearly tripped. They were blue, the dull blue-grey of the overcast sky, and they scrutinized me. Then his shoulders shrugged and he walked, or hobbled, away.

"Just" never use weak adverbs.

"I glanced up just a bit," Glanced up from where? Did your narrator fall? Is the narrator short? What happened that gave occasioned your narrator to apologize?

"...and my eyes landed on two metal bars next to long legs." Taken literally, this could be interpreted to mean the narrator's eyes fell out of her head... landing on two metal bars next to long legs. Unidentified "metal bars" and "long legs". "Metal bars" are in my mind far more substantial than crutches, Jails have metal bars. "Long legs" could be a table or a chair.

Your writing makes far to many assumptions.

J.