who wants to read a short story?

here's a story i wrote a bit ago. i write sometimes and i don't know if it's any good, so let me know what you think. criticism of all sorts is welcome and encouraged. if you read this, thank you very much. i hope the formatting turns out okay.

[FONT=&quot][/FONT] [FONT=&quot] “I thought you didn't smoke.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Things change,” Margot coolly replied to a voice behind her. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]She didn't turn around. She knew who it was. She just sat plainly, apparently examining the wrinkles in her long white skirt. Her skirt had little white flowers sown around the bottom edge. It contrasted nicely with the green grass on which she sat. She picked it out because it was simple. She wore it frequently and it had stains on it. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “How long have you been standing there?” still staring out from her perch on the grassy hill, she spoke as if nothing mattered less to her than the answer to the question she asked. She seemed more interested in the sloshing lake in front of her than her visitor. She came here often, just to sit and stare at the lake. She would sit in the same spot, on a small outcropping of the grassy hill, her knees pulled close to her chest.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “I just got here. I wanted to see you, and I know you still hang around here. Is that okay?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “It's fine.” Margot blew a thin stream of smoke towards the grey sea and extinguished her cigarette in the sandy grass. She tilted her thin neck back so that she could get a better look at Wallace. Her smooth brown hair fell into the wind as she turned. It had been a few weeks since she had first spotted him. His beard was gone this time. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “God, you're still wear those things?” Margot flicked her chin lightly, noting Wallace's old glasses.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Yeah, I guess I do.” Wallace said. “Can I sit here?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Okay.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “You know, I meant what I said.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Uh huh.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Listen, Margot, things are…” his voice trailed off, “different now. Do you want to go for a walk?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Please, Wally, I'm tired. We can talk here.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wallace stepped toward Margot and found a seat next to her in the grass. He was wearing long pants, but when he sat down, the grass tickled his ankles. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “I'm not kidding, those things I said, last time we spoke, I meant every word.” [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “God, that was ages ago. You knew I wouldn't come see you. And you didn't have the guts to come see me. You never had the…”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Hey, listen, okay? Miles don't exactly melt away. Things happened that night, real things.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “You said you'd be with me in the morning”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “I know.” Wallace's voice cracked.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The speaker finally cracked in his ear.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Hello?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Margot? Can you talk? We need to talk.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Yeah, we can talk. We do need to talk.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Margot, I'm tired of sitting here. I leaving Ithaca tonight. I want to be with you in the morning.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“What?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I said I'm leaving.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“No, I heard that. You mean, you're really coming to see me? What about school? What about our plans for the summer?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Fuck all that; I'm tired of wasting away here. I promise, I'll see you in the…”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Click[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Something came up that night, Margot. Something.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I know what came up. Your goddam rationale and your goddam…”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Margot.” Wallace interrupted. “Don't cry. Please. Just don't, okay?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“You left me where I said I would meet you. I sat there until the sun went down. I thought you cared. I thought you knew what you meant to me.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I know. I know. Margot, Just listen to me, please.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I trusted you…”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The payphone prompted him to insert another quarter. He didn't have one, and he knew it. “It's okay,” he thought, “she knows I'm coming. She knows.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wallace walked back out to his waiting car. It was an old Volvo his dad gave him when he graduated from high school. It was an off-white wagon. Not exactly what Wallace would've picked for himself; but a car is a car, nonetheless.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]He checked his watch. The grey numbers told him that nine o' clock was eight minutes ago against a dull green light. He hopped into his car and started the ignition.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I don't know if I care about you enough to listen to what you have to say, Wallace. I think you flaked out. You know that if I were the one with a car, I'd have been in your arms that morning. But no, it was you.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Margot, stop it. Just stop it. You don't know what it's been like.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I don't know? God, I told you everything I know. You told me everything that you know. Why am I still talking to you?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]She pulled a box of cigarettes out from a pocket on her brown jacket. The jacket contrasted nicely with her pink blouse. Margot just loved colors like that. Pink. White. Brown. She smacked the box against her hand harder than she needed to, and she removed a cigarette and pressed it into her lips.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “Fuck. Do you have a match?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wallace slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out an old aluminum lighter. His grandfather had given him that. He lit the cigarette, and Margot took a long draw. Again, she blew a long, thin stream of smoke out towards the grey sea.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]They sat in silence for a moment until Margot regained her composure. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “I hear you're married now.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wallace pulled his knees up towards his chest. “Uh huh.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]He said it as if it were a confession.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “To whom, then?” Margot's gaze was firmly fixed into the distance between the shore and the horizon. She wasn't really looking at anything anymore.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] “It doesn't matter. She doesn't matter,” Wallace croaked.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Does she matter? Does she matter?” Wallace was stuck. The car was still running, and according to his watch, it had been running for forty-two minutes in the same parking spot near the payphone. Wallace's hands gripped the steering wheel as if it was the only thing that mattered. He just sat in the cool leather seat, watching the traffic light a block a way. He had the pattern down in his mind. Green. Yellow. Red. He couldn't stop thinking about Margot, and when he remembered when and where he was, he decided he was too tired to drive. He slowly switched the car off. Everything halted to silence. As he sat there, Wallace, thought about how after having heard the motor run for so long, when it was off, the remaining sound seemed to be less than silence. “It's like a vacuum of sound,” He whispered aloud.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In a daze of thought and lost emotion, Wallace opened the car door. He stepped out, onto the street, and he began to walk down the sidewalk, not knowing where exactly he was headed. He just wanted to hear something.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“If I just had another quarter,” he thought aloud.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Finding himself sitting on his dorm room bed, Wallace pulled out an old notebook, full of empty pages. He sat for a while, moving the pen as if he were about to write something, but at the last second decided not to. Finally, he scratched a few words onto the open page. He tore the page out, folded it, and put it in his wallet. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Margot, I have something for you.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“What?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wallace sat forward a little to reach into his back pocket. He pulled out his wallet, and from his wallet, he removed a folded piece of paper.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I want you to have this.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Okay. What is it.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“It doesn't matter. I just want you to have it, okay?”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Okay.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I should go.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wallace stood up and slowly made his way through the grass, away from the shore.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]He left his room and drifted through the empty campus. It was dark, and he couldn't even see the stars. On a night like this, he should have at least been able to see the stars.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]He walked until the sun went down. And then kept on walking. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] He looked at his watch; it told him that in twelve minutes, it would be twenty minutes after one in the morning.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] He approached the bridge. He looked at his watch. The dull green glow told him that one in the morning was eight minutes ago.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Now, at the bridge, he took off his watch.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]He dropped his watch off the bridge and watched it silently plunge through the thick darkness.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] He threw one leg up onto the railing. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]And he stood up. Reaching his arms out to feel the wind. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]With his eyes wide open, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]he leaned forward.[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] And watched himself fall silently through the thick darkness.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]

 

thanks for reading.
i appreciate it.