I wrote this for my creative writing class. We had to do this exercise that includes a conflict that is not talked about directly.


Abigail finished rolling the joint and handed it to Joshua. The look in her eyes were cold and unforgiving. Her mind was ever at work, processing new information, renewing her hate for him. She was waiting until the perfect moment to let it all loose. Her heart felt empty, she felt ignored. She felt that this was the person she was supposed to be closest to, and now in this single moment in time, she couldn’t feel more distant.

Joshua put some music on, some Grateful Dead, and began examining the joint in his hands before he lit it.

“Not bad, I’m pretty impressed,” he said with a smile, his eyes lighting up as he looked at Abigail.

“I know, I learned from the best, huh?” she said with a slight smile on her face.

Abigail sat there, letting the sound of Jerry Garcia’s guitar filter through her mind, allowing it to replace all of her thoughts. Music was the one thing that made her live and music was what brought Joshua and Abigail together in the first place. There was a time when they’d go off together and see numerous concerts, getting so drunk they would just sit down on the grass and start laughing until they couldn’t stop. But Abigail wouldn’t let Joshua’s charm get the best of her this time. She was tired of playing games.

“So there’s this concert coming up in June that I really want to take you to,” Joshua said as he began to light the joint. “You’ll love it. I already bought tickets for us, so you have to go. But I thought that we’d take this vacation to Georgia and see this concert while we’re there.”

“Who?” Abigail asked, forgetting her anger for a minute.

“Neil Young,” Joshua said nonchalantly. He paused, taking a hit of the joint, rolling it around in his hand again. “and Pearl Jam.”

Abigail’s heart began to pound. This is what happens when she is angry. He pulls a fast one, tries to avoid the whole conflict by throwing something like that her way, getting her to cheer up. It’s not going to work, she thought, not this time.

“Neil Young and Pearl Jam?” she questioned, thinking it over in her head. That would probably be a good show. She’s always dreamed of seeing Neil Young in concert ever since she met Joshua’s aunt who happened to be a Jesus freak by day and Neil Young fanatic by night. Will they do a bunch of songs off Mirrorball? Are they going to play at the same time and jam out together?

No, no, no. Stop thinking about that, she thought. Focus on the point.

“Well, that’ll be cool,” she said, trying to maintain composure. “Are you going to bring anyone else?” And by that she meant Justine and Kevin, the couple that Joshua had been rather close to lately, and in Abigail’s opinion, too close.

“Why would I? It’s our vacation, not someone else’s,” Joshua replied smoothly, expelling the smoke from his lungs. “Well, at first, I wanted to see if Pat wanted to come with us, but I wanted to do something for you. I wanted a vacation, just the two of us, no Pat, no—“

“Justine and Kevin?”

“What?”

“I just thought—“

“I don’t even like Justine, she’s weird. She gets all bitchy all of the time, mopes in her room, and then tries to get close to me in front of Kevin to make him jealous.”

Abigail’s thoughts exactly. Although Kevin and Justine had been living together for almost a year, you could sense a tension between them. Kevin was the sort of independent guy who liked his freedom and Justine would desperately cling onto him, afraid he’d let go. When Abigail would accompany Joshua in going to see Kevin, she couldn’t help but notice Justine would go out of her way to do things for Joshua or act overly nice, right in front of her, like Abigail wasn’t even there. And being the jealous girlfriend that she is, Abigail felt that Joshua preferred Justine over her.
But now that he said that…

“You really don’t like her? Well, she seems like a nice girl…” Abigail started, running her fingers through the dark blue carpet.

“No, I really don’t. The only reason why I go over there is because Kevin is cool, but Justine is really starting to freak me out. Their relationship is really unhealthy, that’s all they do is yell all the time. Here,” Joshua handed the joint to Abigail.

Abigail began to process this new information in her mind as she took the smoke into her lungs. Had she completely over exaggerated this in her mind? Was she overreacting? She exhaled, staring into Joshua’s sparkling eyes. He moved closer to kiss her and she let him. The anger began to dissolve as she realized that she had no real reason to be upset to begin with.

Five minutes ago, Abigail was sure that Joshua would leave her for Justine. Instead, he talks about going on a vacation together and already made the plans. Joshua had cleared up everything without Abigail speaking a word of it. It was like he read her mind. Guilt began to well up inside of her in place of anger, as she realized that she had not trusted the person that meant the most to her. She took another hit, looked into his eyes, and thought to herself, well this time I’ll let it slide.

I liked this...good use of references in particular The piece flowed well, never drifted and always kept it's focus - well done. I also like how you tackled something which may seem quite passing, or almost tedious, yet showed that these things can sometimes affect us the most.

The only thing i wasn't sure on was the last paragraph...See i really love the last couple of lines of it, but everything before seems unnecessary, because it just serves as a summary...and in a way you're allowing the reader little room for thought or interpretation, because you're telling them everything that's happened. But as i said, the last two lines are great, so maybe you should try and merge them to the end - maybe replacing the 'the anger began...' line with the 'Guilt began to well...' part of the last paragraph, and just ending like that..?

That's just a suggestion though, please don't see it as the right thing to do at all!

Overall, a good read, well done

i hear you, woman. the situation i know is slightly similar. only my "Abigail" really wanted to break up and my "Joshua" seemed to read her mind every time she made a decision to speak, buying fancy dinners and jewelry she knew he couldn't afford. golden cuffs...