Okay, essentially what the title says. If you opened a book and read this first section (let’s say you are in the bookshop and the cover looks interesting, but you don’t read the blurb), would you keep reading, or would you go ‘meh’ or ‘heck no’ and put it back down? I am quite far into the story, and I am just wondering if the opening does it justice or if I should reconsider. Please be super super honest. If you hate it, let me know- I have a thick skin, and I just want to make the story better. It’s not polished at all yet (first draft), but here it is:
[name_u]Robbie[/name_u] Durshamp watched as [name_f]Millie[/name_f] left the house, baby on her hip, suitcase packed. Running away to chase the dawn. He could have gone after her, but it would have hurt too much, and not done any good. He’d seen what would happen if he tried to stop her. He’d seen it so many times before. So he let her go, watching from the windowsill, angry tears pooling in his eyes. She never looked back. That was what hurt the most.
He sat in the sun on the front porch, curiously empty. The house felt lonely without her sitting next to him, hand bumping his as they watched the baby crawl around in the dirt. He often thought we did good, hun, but [name_f]Millie[/name_f] didn’t feel the same. She felt empty. It wasn’t enough for her to have a house and a babe and a husband who loved her as best he could. They both knew it wasn’t enough, but they never said it. [name_u]Robbie[/name_u] always hoped he could make her love him in a way that was beyond duty, a way that was love because she couldn’t help it, and it pleased her that she couldn’t help it. He always hoped he could make her feel the same way as he did about her, with her unhappy smile and tired grey eyes.
The days passed in a dull drawl. He watched the driveway, hoping he would see the little figure tramp back, ashamed and crushed, tiny baby oblivious, dirty, muck down its front. They wouldn’t say anything, and it would all fit back together, their little mosaic life on the hilltop overlooking the pear trees. But he knew she wouldn’t come back, that she would never come back, whether because she didn’t know how or because she didn’t want to, he didn’t know. He missed her, the idea of her, the little way she had smiled with crooked lips when they woke side by side. The way the baby would cry and she would be exhausted, sallow, dark bags cutting her thin face. That was what had made him happy.
[name_u]Robbie[/name_u] worked the farm, milking the cows and slashing the fields. People asked him about [name_f]Millie[/name_f], but he didn’t say anything. He would have said that she was good, and that the baby was well, but he didn’t know. Sometimes, when the night was velvet black and terrifying, and the mirrors reflected his face back in half light, he would wonder if they were rotting at the bottom of a culvert somewhere, the sweet death smell rising off them in plumes.
Those thoughts always seemed ridiculous in the morning light, but the midnight hours brought their own monsters.
So that’s pretty much the opening. Yay or nay? Be honest- I won’t get upset, promise. Any suggestions are welcome too. Thanks.