Sleep. It’s the only remedy when it comes to unrequited love. You just want to put your head down and sleep through all of this, this feeling of the pebble dropping in a well and the echo resounding for seconds afterwards, hitting each corner of the well, demanding to be heard. But then you put your head down and that pebble drops even slower and you shut your eyes and tell yourself it’s not going to work and that he won’t ever like you back, but at that point the line between dreams and reality is so faded that that pebble sound echoes within all the crevices of your heart and you begin to see all the ways you could be with this boy and all the ways you could love him and he could love you back and all the what-ifs are dangerously loud. But then you open your eyes again and the pebble has consumed an apathetic point of view and you’re right back where you started.

When I had been younger, I’d watch the love stories unfold before me in movies and books and I’d watch the girl fall in love hopelessly with a boy who’d never love her back and I’d wonder why she wouldn’t just tell the boy—and if he rejected her, she could just pick up the pieces that fell and move on. I’d whisper fervently to the silly girl move on, move on and I swore that if I was never loved back then, well, his loss, right? What I didn’t realize then and what I’m still trying to understand now is that the heart is not so easily convinced or persuaded when it comes to matters of love. Logic is nonexistent and self-respect fades drastically. The idea of telling him—the idea of rejection is so hideous that it can never happen. Seeing him, speaking to him, although painful, keeps that pebble at night gleaming with hope. And even though you’re 90 percent sure that nothing will ever come out of this, that pebble keeps you going. Telling him could stop all connections with him and then you’d no longer have a pebble in a well. You’d be an empty well.

I wonder, sometimes, if I’m wearing tinted glasses when I think of him. But then that question is left unanswered, and my self-esteem lying on the floor wonders why such a guy like him even talks to a girl like me. I look in the mirror and I wince and look away quickly and wishes of being prettier, smarter, funnier devour me and I’m groaning and gritting my teeth as the craving for an eternal sleep comes back and I lay my head down on the pillow and I hear that pebble in the back of my head and I close my eyes and although I know it’s wrong, I allow myself this moment of fantasy to damage me some more before the cycle begins once again.