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How Many Seconds by Glowbug
Link to story.
Plot
I can say, quite honestly, that this is one of my all time favorite fics. Not just in the one parter category, not just in the Literati category but in the entire GG fandom. Everything I have read, enjoyed… and this makes my top five favorites. Easily. This fic is so beautiful, so haunting, so emotional. I love it very much. I read it when it was first posted, and my first reaction to it, well… I had shivers. Upon another reading today so I could review, I nearly cried at the end. And I hate getting emotional at what I read.
Rory and Jess meet in a graveyard. (Is everyone saying, huh? Do you not get the meaning?) They meet sometimes, once or twice a year, usually in a coffee shop. This time though, it’s different. Rory’s getting married. She wants a reason not to. Jess can’t give her one. They kiss, beautifully, sadly, and he says closure, and she says it’s something more.
Two years later, he meets her in a supermarket. She’s pregnant. It’s not her first. She’s too many seconds away.
Characterization
Flawless. Rory – mysterious, scared, indirect. She’s avoiding the point, only confessing when Jess finally gets it out of her. She’s looking for a reason. Looking for a way out, wanting it to be him.
Jess – smoking, sarcastic, refusing to pry. He pries. He never voices what he feels. We get that from the description around the dialogue and it’s almost painful to read. He wants it to be him, but he understands it can’t be. He pushes her away using all the right, hurtful words. “But he knows that given the opportunity, he would kill himself trying.” He tells her he doesn’t love her even though he does. It’s Jess. So Jess.
Style/Flow
Fantastic. The style here – how many seconds. Brilliant. I’m not kidding, I love it. How genius of you to use that. He cannot measure using distance. He has to use time because it is “the only logical way to see her clearly.” Time is used so well here. Meeting in a graveyard – meeting where lives end. Meeting where all things end. So how fitting is it that they end there? The only place where time literally ends. She’s too many seconds away from him.
Flowed wonderfully, by the way.
Structure/Spelling/Grammar
No errors. No complaints.
Things To Work On
Nothing. Don’t change a thing. Keep doing what you do because you do it wonderfully.
Things That Rocked My Socks
Where do I start? Seconds used to measure their distance. “The leaves crunch beneath his shoes until he is three, two, one second away from her.” “[S]he is too many seconds away from him to measure.” The banter before the real truth comes out. Rory’s outward desperation. Jess’s inner desperation. The use of cigarettes. (Mentioned in the beginning, “he notes that she never needed cigarettes to look alive…” and then used later in the story when Rory tries one.) The graveyard. The ring worn around Rory’s neck. Jess’s use of the word “fairytale”. Rory’s naivety. The kiss. The way you write. The way you describe things. How caught up in this short piece I got. The words you use. The way you use the words. The tingles I received the first time I read when I reached the end and Rory is pregnant, and Jess lays a hand on her stomach. The fact that you used the end, brought us into the future, and didn’t just leave it in the graveyard.
All of it.
Letter Grade
A+ (And beyond that.)
Reviewed by:
Angeleyez
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