Feedback for a slow burn story
Can you guys give an honest feedback on this? It's my first time writing and id like to know if y'all would keep reading this.
Kate
California 2018
Mary pushed open the tall white front doors, and the moment I stepped inside, I felt like I'd wandered into a California summer postcard.
The house was one of those charming old waterfront properties painted crisp white, with wraparound porches stretching toward the bay as if they were still waiting for a ship that never came home.
The salty scent of seaweed drifted in on the breeze, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the hollow clatter of shells tumbling with the tide. Right then, I knew coming here with her had been one of the best decisions I'd made in a long time.
"My brother gets here next week. He’s always hated this place," Mary said as she gave me a tour.
"Everything with my parents and all that."
She said it with the weary tone of someone who'd told the story too many times.
"You mentioned it before. I'm sorry their marriage fell apart."
Mary stopped in front of the last window. For a moment, she just stood there, staring at the horizon.
"It was probably for the best," she said eventually. "But Chris was the one who paid for it the most."
She flicked her hand through the air, like she could swat away the memory the way you'd brush off an annoying fly.
"Why?" I asked. "Did he want them to stay together?"
Mary let out a short laugh that held no amusement.
"No."
She turned toward me.
"He was the one who found out Dad was having an affair."
The silence that followed was swallowed by the sound of waves breaking outside.
"With one of his employees," she added.
I blinked.
"He was seventeen," Mary continued, her voice quieter now. "Picked up Dad's phone by accident. Saw the messages. Then carried that around for weeks before finally telling Mom."
I had no idea what to say.
Mary shrugged as if she were setting down a weight she'd carried for years.
"That's why he hates this place. This is where everything happened. This is where he keeps all the guilt."
She started walking again, her footsteps echoing across the wooden floorboards.
"But he still comes every summer."
"Why?"
"Because Mom asks him to."
I followed her in silence, trying to process the story.
Christopher.
"He won't mind me crashing your family vacation?"
"Of course not," Mary said quickly.
But there was something in her voice that made me pay attention.
"Although I already warned him to stay away from you."
I laughed.
"What does that even mean?"
She hesitated, her fingers tapping against the banister.
"Chris is... complicated. Intense. And he never really dates anyone."
She gave me a look I couldn't quite decipher.
"So I told him not to mess with your head."
"Mary..."
"It's just..." She sighed. "I honestly think you two would be ridiculously good together if he weren't such an asshole."
She laughed, but it sounded forced.
"Come on. Let me show you the bedrooms."
She led me upstairs.
By then, I was already curious about her brother, though I'd never admit it out loud.
Mary talked about her family all the time. One thing had always been clear to me: they were close.
There was her mother, a brilliant psychiatrist and one of the kindest women I'd ever met. I'd met her once when she visited Mary at college.
There was Christopher, the complicated older brother.
And Theodore, the youngest, who was still in high school.
"When does your mom get here?" I asked as Mary opened one of the bedroom doors.
"She isn't coming this year."
Mary shrugged, but a flicker of sadness crossed her face.
"She has a few complicated patients and doesn't want to be too far away if they need her."
The room was spacious, its windows overlooking the ocean.
"This one's yours," Mary said.
"Chris gets the room in the back. It's the only one he can stand."
After a week there, I noticed that every night the lights from the boats anchored in the bay shimmered across the water like fireflies trapped in liquid amber.
I fell in love with the way the wind whistled through the cracks in the windows after dark. There was something comforting about it. It helped me sleep.
And sleep had never come easily to me.
Maybe that was why I was such a good student. If I couldn't sleep, I studied.
I would do anything to keep my thoughts from wandering back to the pain. To the absence of my parents. To the nightmare of living with Uncle Victor for a while.
But that summer, everything changed.
Because of him.
Christopher arrived three days later than expected.
Mary introduced me as "a friend from college who needed company for the summer."
I was wearing a linen dress the color of wet sand—the kind of dress that seemed designed to dance with the wind.
When he looked at me with those dark brown eyes, it felt like he could see straight through me.
Like every layer I'd spent years building—the brilliant student, the strong girl, the survivor—had dissolved in seconds.
His hair was hazel-brown, lighter at the ends as though the sun had spent too much time kissing it.
When he stepped closer, I caught the scent of something warm and intoxicating.
Amber.
Black pepper.
Something darker underneath.
It wasn't cologne.
It was presence.
Something I wouldn't fully recognize until weeks later, when I was already standing too close to walk away.
The scent of a man who never asked permission.
"Do you always stare at people like that, or am I special?" I asked as I brushed past him in the kitchen holding a glass of red wine.
I never drank.
But Mary insisted.
And after a single glass, I already felt slightly weightless and definitely more talkative than I should've been.
He studied me for a moment, those brown eyes taking in every word I'd just said.
"I don't know."
His gaze lingered.
"Are you?"
His voice was rougher than I'd expected.
Like he was fighting something.
I laughed.
Low and soft.
As though he'd said something far funnier than he actually had.
"Everyone's special until proven otherwise."
I drummed my fingers against the marble countertop, mimicking the gesture he'd made minutes earlier.
"Your reputation around here already proved otherwise, Christopher Zalk."
Then I turned and headed upstairs without looking back.
But on the last step, I heard his voice.
Low.
Almost a murmur.
Like he was talking to himself.
"This one's going to be harder to resist."
A pause.
"Mary's gonna kill me."
I didn't sleep much that night.
Not because of the wind rattling the windows.
Because of him.
Because of the way he looked at me.
And because of how it made me feel.
Seen.
Exposed.
Alive.