This Joseph Carlyle seemed to have come out of nowhere, I had no idea who he was when you introduced him. I would move the paragraph that began "I met Joseph Carlyle..." to AFTER the initial dialogue of “Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find Joseph Carlyle’s ward?”

I'd search for some better adjectives throughout this story, you have used quite a few painfully generic ones.

"I turn around and for a split second I forget why I am here. As I stare up at Jordan I realize..." you just got done explaining how important this "Joseph Carlyle" is to Aundrea, but now you bring an element of shallowness by suggesting that the only reason she's at this hospital is to see her ex-boyfriend. When she's following Jordan to the hospital room, I immediately disliked Aundrea as she was admiring Jordan when she should be thinking about the man that was (possibly) dying.

In the beginning of this story, I had the impression that Joseph Carlyle had an accident, and Jordan had called Aundrea immediately after he was notified. If that's the case, why is Jordan lounging around the hospital room while Aundrea does all the talking? It makes it seem like Jordan doesn't care about his own father.

You mention Nigel is 15, but (during the chess game) you're giving him the personality and dialogue of a 7 year old. I'd work on that.

Aundrea seems to have a mental illness that is becoming more apparent as this story moves on. I would ease up on how obsessed she is with Jordan. You mentioned that they had been apart for years, yet she vomits at the news of him being wed.

These characters are supposed to be in their early twenties, yet the dialogue and thoughts suggest that they're barely 18. Lines such as "You know he's using you right?" don't help this cause.

Final Thought: Imagery and description is lacking throughout this story (the only read description I had on Jordan was that he was 6'1 and in decent shape, I had even less description on Aundrea). I would find a thesaurus and make it your best friend, a topic that is supposed to be emotionally powerful needs a powerful vocabulary. I found the entire topic of this story to be cliche- a romance story about ex-couples getting back together needs to be extremely unique for it to stand apart from the others. I found the characters in this story to be extremely unlikeable (with the exception of Joseph). Aundrea strikes me as shallow and self-centered (like I said before, she was feasting her eyes on Jordan's "powerful shoulders" while she was walking to a possibly dying man's hospital room. Jordan cheated on his finance, which (in my mind) makes him equally unlikeable. This story needs quite a bit of polish, but keep working on it- and most importantly, keep writing.

- Eric

It's very well written. I enjoyed reading it even at the awkward and unenjoyable moments because I still felt like I was there. The only thing I can find to point out is the tense is not always the same and it gets a bit confusing. When the dialogue is going on it seems to be present tense, but as for the action it seems to be in past tense as a memory. I don't know which one you were going for, but just watch out for that. Thanks for sharing! <3