Coco,

I really liked the almost visceral descriptions of wolves eating meat off of bones. They reminded me of the feelings of erosion one might feel from being around someone like the mother in this story who demands so much while giving very little. Your writing is so lyrical and so poetic, it’s really interesting to read this piece. The overall thread throughout of the wolf vs. dog was really intriguing to me and helped to characterize the people in this story a lot. The analogies of this broken family was really well done, though I wanted some reason why the mom has been awful to her kids. We know the verbal abuse and bad housing conditions but where is the Dad? Mom didn’t originally want the kids, how did this influence her relationship? Did they have to flee him, leaving the whole family damaged? There’s also potential to have an interaction between the mom and daughter as well. I wanted more on the reasons Sandy left, other than just escaping. Is there another reason he left? It also makes me wonder how much Sandy would worry about his younger sister after he left. Did he leave messages to his sister that she simply didn’t see? Essentially, this is the story of a daughter trapped in a narcissistic mother’s home and searching for escape in her brother. Great work and amazing word choices Coco!

Daphne,

The title was really clever. The whole story I was wondering when it was going to pay off and it was really cool to see it all come full circle. I almost laughed while reading the ending because it just felt so effective and the payoff felt so earned. I really loved the repetition of “There are X weeks until she can move out of the city”. It helped to really ground us in the time of the story. The relationship between Jackson and the main character felt very real and both of these people felt like real characters. I loved the idea of a supernatural being that you can’t explain following you. It made for the story with super high tension which grabbed me tightly while reading. As for a suggestion, I wanted more concrete clues in the story that the man following her was actually a supernatural being. By the end I got the picture, but I felt a little confused (which could also be the intention, as it puts us in the main character’s shoes). Maybe you could include another interaction between the mystery man and the waitress when the other patron is in the bar? Having another person reaffirm that the waitress’ reservations of the mystery guy would maybe help ground the story a bit more? Jackson does affirm the waitress’ concern of the man’s smell, but more of his actions towards the waitress might be good. You could potentially include an interaction between the sisters at the end of the story to double down on the ending’s cleverness. By the end, we understand that this is the story of a waitress living in Detroit working the night shift to afford to leave when a mysterious entity starts to stalk her. Great work!