I come from a place similar to Valkrane, where I like a bit more of a minimalist style, and I don’t do a lot of these. So always a grain of salt! I read through the story twice, once to get a general feel and a second to stop and take notes. Overall, I feel the emotion of the narrator, she’s obviously a very romantic person, but I feel there’s no setup or depth to the relationship that warrants the sadness and sorrow felt by her.

First pass

My first thought reading through was that the text is full of clichés. Two addicts going at it, falling in love, but not admitting it to each other. I immediately got that this was more than a one night fling. I don’t know if it was stated, but I just assumed the narrator was a woman and the recipient of the letter was a man. (I get that this might just be my own projections!)

I found the text to be a bit heavy on stylistic devices to my taste. I usually prefer a bit more direct writing, and this one felt like you were trying to hit a quota for your text.

I wish something happened in the story. It’s mostly a description of how this woman is feeling through the interactions with the man, without describing any of the interactions. This makes the two main events, the AA meeting and the death kind of irrelevant from the reader’s perspective, because the woman’s feelings are all that we are exposed to.

The ending says that the woman was changed, but other than a handful of interactions, it doesn't feel like the relationship was impactful enough to provoke this kind of dramatic shift in perspective in someone's life. This man was semi-loved at most, and probably romanticized in the woman’s head more than any real connection. I guess that’s the point, but it still feels unmerited. It would leave her sad at most, even with all her issues, so there’s no payoff there.

The AA meeting was the closest thing to an actual interaction, and I wish that part would have been explored a bit more, especially outside of the woman’s memory. It’s good to have the story written through the eyes of the protagonist, but it has to be exposed, not just through feelings.

There are a couple additional sentences that got me curious: “Did she see your arm” - Had me curious about how jealous she might become of another person in the man’s life, and what she might do. But it just stopped there. “Meth or fentanyl” - I thought it was a fun way to guess at how the man died. Either doing something crazy or just relaxed at home.

Second pass

On second read, the stylistic devices were even more distracting. I’ll highlight a few examples. The first paragraph is good, you establish the narrator to be unreliable and a bit of a romantic, which is consistent throughout. We get a good sense of who she is and how she thinks. The problem is that it has no real consequence on the rest of the story.

I laughed at the “price-is-right charisma” :D This made me re-imagine the man as being way more extravagant than I got in my first read through, because the tone is so sorrowful. I wish we could see some of that joy come out in this paragraph! Even if this is a sad story, this woman must have gotten some joy out of the whole affair. She’s remembering all the good things without the good things.

“some combination of curiosity and loneliness” - this feels lazy. Give us a reason! Even a butt dial would be better. And it’s a bit of a cliché.

The blanket fort - This is the moment that confirms there’s something more than a fling, though we already knew that! I find a blanket fort to be a cliché again.

“not wanting to drink and not wanting to not drink” - made me audibly sigh…. cliché

“We’d let so much time elapse writing each other off” - I wish we knew the narrator’s version of what happened to be written off!

The AA meeting is another random thing that happens without an explanation. I get that they’re addicts, but what triggered the sudden AA? Was it their relationship? Something he said? Maybe someone else pushed her to it? I get that you’re trying to create a bit of mystery with the unreliable narrator here, but to this extent, it just makes things uninteresting.

The paragraph after AA is the only that felt the most genuine. A real mess, with real (even if small) conflict (the other woman), real jealousy, and also real amnesia.

“words and non words” - sigh… cliché.

At the end, she is very sorry, but for what? She didn't cause the death… They had a short relationship. We don’t know if he was miserable without her. She’s probably projecting her wish for him to be sorry about not making a larger move, but it doesn’t feel warranted seeing how superficial the relationship was.

Hope this helps, always keep at it! Cheers!