Project 3

“Beautiful day”

I was with him at the lake. It was a beautiful day. Perfect weather, clear skies and I was with him for the first time in what seemed like forever. His hair was slicked back from swimming all day. His green eyes sparkled when the sun hit them. We were sitting on the rocks, watching the boats go by, watching our friends swim and laugh. Although I hadn’t seen him in so long it felt like time had almost stopped when I was with him again. I thought to myself I missed him. I missed our hugs, our long FaceTime calls, sneaking around and trying to hang out with each other. I missed genuinely having someone who cared.

Now the fine line of reality versus fantasy is that you can imagine and make someone out to be anyone and anything you want. When did you finally see the reality though? Is it after you broke up on and off because he cheated on you? Or is it when he lied to you and called you to ruin your ego and self worth, just for you to crawl right back into his arms after a fake apology. When did the fantasy fade? Was it after you realized he was always the manipulator, or did you ignore that part of him and paint him as kind and honest? You saw him as the only person in the world you loved more than yourself. You did anything, dropped anything or anyone to have be with him. You craved him, you needed him. He never needed you. He never wanted your hugs or your kisses. He never wanted to call you or hang out. He used your fantasy as a shield to hide his true colors. You knew all along he was these terrible things as he got worse and worse. You watched your sweet loving boyfriend turn into a horrible human being who looked and prayed on your downfall. He didn’t love you, he loved the idea of you loving him, and that’s good enough for you until it isn’t. When do you stop talking to him? Is it after he moved on to someone new? Or is it when he plays you and leaves you.

I stared at him at the lake. It was turning dark, the sun had been setting. The wind started to pick up and I couldn’t see as my eyes were filled with tears. I knew it was not right to want to be with him. I knew my friends and family would never understand the feelings I had for him. I knew in my heart he would never claim me as his again. It hurt so bad. The feeling of every single nerve in your body tightening up and exploding, yet all I did was let a single tear shed down my check. It was then when I knew.

You can never be prepared for a heartbreak, no matter how much you think you are over them it still hurts. Toxic people drain your life to the core. The pain and aching you feel when you hear his name, when you see a picture of him, just any little trace of a memory you had had together breaks your healing heart back to square one.

I wiped my tear, kissed him on the check and swam back to the ground. I packed up my bag as my tears started getting heavier, not being able to control myself any longer and left. I called my best friend as I left, bawling my eyes out. It was the last beautiful perfect day I ever had with him.

NOTES

— Think of the different perspectives and POVS

— Talk about toxic relationships

— Bring in real emotions you felt

— my own expirences to add into

Artistic stament

When I wrote this my original plan was to write a love story, but I didn’t know what to do so I thought of a few poem ideas . I knew I wanted to talk about manipulation and toxicity so I decided to combine those poems with a short story about my ex boyfriend along with some different skills like visual elements to set the place I used to be in. I also took advance of using different perspectives and points of views to create a different unique outlook. I did not want this short story to have an end goal or “quote on quote lesson”, but for people to sympathize how draining it is to be in a toxic relationship and to stay since it was all I had known for an extremely extensive time period .

Although I love writing short stories, this one was a difficult challenge for me to express all these old emotions and make them seem as raw and real as possible so the readers can almost feel like they were in my shoes. I felt like getting my emotions down was interesting because even though I can feel them throughout the story, not everyone can and that was particularly hard. I did a great deal of thinking and brainstorming on how I ought to write this.

The Point of view changes was something I wanted to attempt to play around with a little bit since it shifts from 1st to 2nd quite frequently. It is written in the past tense- due to the fact that this had happened a long time ago, so I wanted the readers to feel like they experienced a part of my life I will never forget. The 2nd pov is supposed to be my inner thoughts speaking to myself, but letting the readers feel like they are a part of everything my toxic ex has done to me and what I went through. The 1st pov is resembling the main story plot of the “last perfect day” I had with him.

Out of all 3 of the projects this was 100% my favorite because I got to explore something new. Usually when I have the opportunity to freely write a short story I choose horror or romance but I wanted to try and show the ugly side of a toxic manipulative relationship. Relationships aren’t just all happy smiles and kisses, and that some people are mean and ugly humans deep down.

What I like about short stories is you have a limited amount of words to put down and you have to create a short story that seems as if it was the whole story and plot. I’ve learned how to tell a story without dragging it on and going off topic which I sometimes can have a problem with.