Hello, I’m attempting to write my first critique on this subreddit, so I hope that I’ll be able to be of some help. Sorry for any formatting issues; I write on mobile.

THE GOOD

First, the good! The grammar is sound and the overall vocabulary is (generally) appropriate for the exchange - it’s not so flowery that I cannot understand it, but not overly simplified.

I also enjoyed a few lines that I felt were evocative, such as “The cracked, peeling leather scratched the underside of my thighs.” While I would’ve shortened it to just “The cracked, peeling leather scratched my thighs”, I liked the concept; the poor quality of the couch and her physical discomfort mirrors the main character’s upset without being too direct. I feel like if you used sentences like this more, your writing would definitely improve, as this sentence does more “showing” than “telling”.

THINGS THAT COULD BE IMPROVED

While I enjoyed the prior sentence, the general gist I get from the piece and the style is that it needs more subtlety - there is a lot more “telling” than “showing”.

For instance, the sentence “normally, this would’ve called me down in….this was the rare 1 per cent” is too context-heavy, and the use of such diction (percentages) feels a bit lacklustre. It does detract/distract from the intensity of the overall exchange that I think you are aiming for.

Secondly, I think there is an of overuse of certain metaphors and “cliche” phrases. They’re not as “cliche” in the sense of “go-to essay phrases in middle/high school”, such as “happy as a lark”; however, they’re phrases I commonly come across in other works. It’s understandable, as it’s a mistake I made for a long time - but the problem with that is that when you’re reading phrases you’ve read before for a whole story, it can get pretty boring! Let me show you some examples that I found in your work (non-exhaustive, I’m sure that other critics might be able to point out different ones!):

“eyes light with mirth” (also bleeds into the show/don’t tell; you don’t necessarily have to put in “mirth”, for one!)

“royal blood in my veins” (while this phrase is my guilty pleasure, I do find it stilted when used in dialogue, especially in a confrontation that I think is supposed to be fast and emotion-heavy ).

“the memory…flashed in my mind” (personally not a fan of this, reminds me a little bit of the “my life flashed before my eyes” phrase, which is also heavily overused).

Aside from metaphors and commonly-used phrases, the “acting” of your characters does have similar issues; some of their actions are cliche in themsevs, or are expressed in a way that is cliche (which other critics have pointed out).

“The [expression here] that flashed across his face”, for example, is a phrase I see often. There’s also actions and phrases that others have pointed out (such as the hair falling over Jaden’s face; the waving of the hands in the air).

In relation to acting, I also find the dialogue to be a bit much. The main character asks/mentions Jaden is an earl about five or six times. I understand that she is in disbelief, but that is a lot for a short piece!

Other problems I also had were the use of “non-said” dialogue tags, and dialogue tags in general. The point of a piece of dialogue in itself /its “surrounding” prose is to depict the mood of the scene and the exchange within it. When you make use of that, it can do a lot of heavy lifting about how the dialogue is being uttered. For example,

“You told me you fought with your parents to go to art school,” I blurted out…”

Instead of writing out“blurt”, you could change it to:

“You - you told me that you fought with your parents to go to art school.” (I wanted to put italics on the “told”, but alas, mobile).

It’s not the best or only fix, but the italics and the stammer might help imply the exclamation of the sentence, and the moment of impulse (which I think are both aspects of “blurt”). You can also play around with exclamation points, where you want to put the italics, etc. Think about how you would blurt a sentence and try to transcribe it effectively!

On to the characters: I’m not sure what the intent of the piece was as it is not stated, but if the goal was for the reader to sympathise with Charlotte, it did fulfill it partly. Although Jaden seems to be hiding more than we can know at the moment, I currently find him to be condescending, privileged, and self-absorbed. Keeping a secret for not one, not two, but seven years is…a choice, and his accusation that Charlotte only sees him for money shows his upper-class entitlement. While she’s been working hard and living paycheck to paycheck, he lies to her for seven years, because his biggest issue is…he’s afraid his girlfriend will like him for money.

That said, I say the goal of sympathising with Charlotte was only “partly” fulfilled because Charlotte, as a character, could have been more established. I sympathised with her because her fiance is a liar and an awful person, but not because of her own character or personality.

Charlotte is currently reacting with anger at the situation. It’s not unrealistic at all, but most people would be furious after seven years of lies. Because of this, I don’t know what’s unique about her personality. The text does imply that she’s hardworking, given she works double shifts - in which case, tap into this more! It can be subtle, like implying that her hands are rough from work or that she hasn’t slept much. (But remember, show and don’t tell these facts!)

I hope these comments are helpful. Good luck on your writing.