peer letters

Intro to Creative Writing

Professor Harrell

April 23, 2018

Unit Three Submission

The Last Dance

“Come on! Come out Maya!” Leslie kept insisting.

“I’m not in the mood to get ready and go out” Maya responded.

“Make the effort to do so. Frank is going to be there and he has two hot friends. You have to meet Ethan. He is tall, build and he likes short girls. You are perfect! I already talked to him about you, he’s excited to meet you” she added.

“Fine! Give me thirty minutes and I’ll be ready. Are you driving to my place and we’ll take off from here or am I picking you up?”

“I’ll drive to your place. By the time I get there, you’ll be ready.”

“Sounds like a plan, see you later”

“Later girl!”

Maya ended the phone call, put the cell on top of her night stand, charged it and decided to get ready. As she looked at herself in the mirror, she can see how long and curly her hair was. The shade of blonde was perfect to bring them out; she made a good choice on the color. The focus of her makeup is on her eyes. She liked to wear heavy mascara while with a liquid eyeliner designed her cat-eyed-look. She put on dark blue skinny jeans, pulled this very nice flowery- spaghetti -strap-blouse out of her closet, and looked for her favorite necklace. She had not worn the necklace for quite some time “tonight it’s a perfect night to wear it,” she thought to herself. The necklace was a gift to herself when she graduated high school, now that she is officially twenty-one, should be a great time to bring it out again. The necklace was heart-shaped locket where on the front had swirls decorating the borders while in the center laid a small rose. Next to the rose, there was “Forever in my heart” engraved. She opened and reminded herself that there is not a picture of anyone in it “Maybe sometime soon, there will be one” she assured herself. She looked at her dresser and lifted her favorite perfume, “So in love” definitely exhibited who Maya really was- Rose-Jasmine filled Violet leaves with a hint of honey and ylang-ylang. Just as she was putting her shoes on, the doorbell rang- it was Leslie.

As Maya drove around, she wished that she was back home. She knew better than to take directions from Leslie- she had gotten the both of them lost.

“Hello? Here, he’ll guide you” leslie said, handing over the cell phone to Maya.

“Hello? Yea..I’m here...Rt15? East or West? Oh ok, I know how to go from there. We’ll be there shortly.” Maya hung up the phone and headed where Andy had directed her.

“I like his voice, it’s very sexy,” said Maya.

“Oh yea, Andy is a good looking guy, but the one I have reserved for you is definitely Ethan” assured Leslie.

When they finally go to the place, a very good-looking six foot guy, light-skinned and short haired, pointed her to parallel park in a spot they had reserved. “That’s easy,” Maya told herself- she was an excellent parallel-parker. She put her car next to the one she was going to park behind from and started to pull in. “What on earth?” Maya said to herself “I don’t understand why I can’t do it?” Frank, Ethan and andy kept looking and smiling. After attempt number three, this six-foot light-skinned short haired guy comes over and signals Maya to roll down the window,

“Want us to parallel park for you?”

“No, I can do this”

“You don’t seem to come close,” he smirked.

“OK! Fine! You win,” she put the car in park, opened the door and let him take a seat. He parked the car easily. When he got out of the car, Maya finally took a good look at him. “Wow, he’s very handsome,” she thought to herself. At that moment, he looked at her, smiled and introduced himself as he signaled for a handshake,“Hi cutie, I’m Andy.” Maya started to blush as her hands got cold and butterflies started to overwhelm her belly. “Hi, Maya.” That’s when Leslie interrupted and introduced Maya to Frank and the famous Ethan. “Holy crap, he’s tall!” she said to herself. Ethan was six feet and five inches. The guy was very handsome indeed, but someone else beat him to the punch- Andy. They all spoke about many subjects, but the one that interested Maya was when they mentioned of going to guitar bar later on.

“Are you coming?” Fascinated Andy anxiously asked,

“Well…”

“We’re coming, don’t worry” said Leslie.

“See you later cutie”, Andy said as he winked at her.

Guitar Bar was overcrowded. There was a line out the door, around the street corner. “Wow, how are we going to get it?” Maya asked Leslie. “Ethan, Frank and Andy know the bouncers. Don’t you worry, we are covered,” she said as she winked at Maya.

The music is loud enough that Maya felt the walls tremble. The lights are turned off and the only ones flashing are the DJ’s strobe lights with the red, green, and blue intermittently illuminating its path. Unexpectedly, Andy grabbed Maya’s waist and pulled her closer to him. She wrapped her arms around him as her heart beat faster and faster. They were close enough to kiss yet the desirable tension toyed with Maya as the song commanded their movements. As the uneasy, electric, pulsating desire peaked in Maya’s body, Andy grabbed her chin and pulled it toward his. The kiss was electrifying, mind blowing and passionate. Everyone around them disappeared and the music went mute as their lips pressed harder against each other. This was the man Maya wanted in her life, she knew it the moment he spoke to her over the phone to give her directions.

“I’ll call you tomorrow ok? I’ll call you tomorrow” he assured Maya. She was overjoyed and couldn’t wait for that phone call. Tomorrow was going to be Saturday, Maya’s favorite day of the week. This must be a good omen, a sign that it will all be alright. “Ok!” she assured him “ok!” as her smile genuinely agreed to her words.

Saturday came, a bright and cheerful morning elapsed. The afternoon felt longer than the morning, yet the phone had not received any phone calls. “He must be busy at work” she wondered, “he’ll definitely call at night” she reassured herself. The anticipation was killing her, it was eating her alive. She was jumpy, fidgety, kept biting her nails until they started to hurt. She kept pacing back and forth between the living room t.v. area to her room where she was charging the phone. Before she knew it, it was 9 p.m. All day had gone by and the phone never rang. “He must have gotten out of work late and he’s probably pregaming with his friend before he heads over to Guitar Bar” she kept excusing it. “It’s ok, tomorrow for sure I’ll get the phone call!”

“I just want you close, where you can stay forever,” Maya heard her phone ring, she put down the wet sponge she was using to clean the dishes with and walked towards her room “You can be sure, that it will only get better...” Maya saw her phone and saw that it was Frank calling her. She hesitated to pick it up, she got a strange feeling about it, but ignored it and decided to do it anyways.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Maya?”

“Hey!”

“How are you?”

“I’m good, just washing the dishes you know”

“Hey, do you have a small moment to talk?”

“Sure, what’s up?

“uh…uh…It’s about Andy”

“What’s up?”

“Maya…(long pause)…uhmn….Andy…Andy is… Andy is dead…”

Maya’s heart dropped. Her stomach had turned into knots as she looked straight ahead into oblivion. She couldn’t get the words out of her mouth, she was frozen.

“Maya, are you there?…Maya!” said Frank concerned.

Immediately, she came to her senses and responded “Frank, stop joking around. This is not a good joke to play. Stop it!” She was sounded very guarded and stern. “Maya! I’m sorry” he said. She didn’t respond back. She wanted him to know that she was serious. Her right hand was holding the phone up to her ear while the left one crossed over her body and held itself at the elbow hinge of the right one. Her body language displayed resistance and it looked tense.

“I’m sorry Maya,” he said again

“Stop it! This joke is not funny!”

“It’s not a Joke Maya, seriously!”

“Stop it, I don’t want to play this game. If you guys are calling me to find out what my reaction would be in case he passed away…it’s a cruel joke. Stop it now! It’s not funny!”

“Maya” he said in a saddened defeated soft voiced way, “Maya, I’m serious Andy is…he is… he is dead” finishing the last word with a faint whisper.

In matter of seconds, Maya went pale. Froze again. She knew now that it was not a joke. Her heart felt heavy, it was burning now, while her breathing rapidly increased as her hands got ice cold. She didn’t blinked, she couldn’t, her eyes had frozen too. Eventually, her eyes started to water, her breathing became heavier and slower. Tears overflowed her lower eyelid and streamed down like a waterfall down to her cheeks, lips and chin. She had lost the love of her life. Time slowed down as she bitterly closed her eyes and her body stumbled down to her knees. With minimal amounts of noise, she internalized her pain -she was screaming on top of her lungs- and began to uncontrollably cry as she held the tips of carpet fiber with her right hand and pounded on with the left, in the corner of her room. Another bright day went as dark as night, and everything around her disappeared. She was alone, agonizing in her solitude as she knew that Andy departed into a dream from which he would never return from. The day Andy died, was the day that Maya died too.