The boy you love does not love you back but that’s not what this story is about. Imagine you are sitting on the beach when the sun is rising. There are people around you and you know their names and you know their stories but you don’t know how to speak because the sun keeps rising and taking the words away. Say there are gulls in the surf. Say there aren’t. The story isn’t about them, and they’re not important, but the gulls keep picking at dead fish in the surf and you can’t stop watching them.

Now imagine you are somewhere else, lying on the floor with the boy beside you. He keeps touching you and you keep letting him. You don’t ruin the motion with your words but the story isn’t about the boy and it isn’t about you. There are stories all around us and not all of them involve us. This is a story about the dead fish on the beach, but I can make it about you and the boy.

You are lying in the surf. The boy is not here. You don’t think about him moving inside of another person but to be safe you assume that he is. You don’t think about it. You’re as still and silent and rotting as a dead fish, but the gulls haven’t come to pick you off yet. You wish they would.

Now imagine the sky is bleeding. The sun keeps rising and keeps bleeding bloody red all over the sky and no one says anything because no one else understands. You do. You wonder if the sun ever gets tired of bleeding. Sometimes you are tired of bleeding. Sometimes you are tired of reading stories that don’t involve you. You want to be the kind of person in stories, but your life is not special. I am only writing about you because you asked.

Would you like to hear it? I can tell it quite well. The boy does not love you back and you still let him touch you because you like feeling this way. You hate him for it but you can’t hate him so you love him for it instead. There’s a thin line between hate and love and you keep walking it.

This story was about the dead fish in the surf. You’re not a fish but you wish you were dead. The gulls keep picking off the flesh and cracking the bones between their beaks and the sun keeps bleeding and no one notices.

So the familiar ending, unrequited love and suicide. You think the two go together quite poetically. You like playing with words. You like to think you can go through with it.

There are stories everywhere and this one was never about you. We’ve all heard it before. He kisses you and makes you feel anything, everything. Imagine you are a dead fish in the surf. It’s not so much of a bad ending. The people around you have stopped speaking and they keep watching the blood fill the sky but they’re just caught up in the beauty of it all. The boy still doesn’t love you back but you are dead, and it doesn't even matter anymore.

I'm sorry for the tragic ending. You always wanted to be in one of those stories. You always wanted to die at the end.