To the boy who fell in love with the girl with pink nails, they’re not red. I once found myself with feelings unknown to  my sheltered heart. I was young, naive, oblivious take your pick really. So when he said my name with one ‘s’ not two, I heard the difference. You might wonder how I was able to tell, but I was, and it made me believe we’d been saying it wrong all my life. There was a boy who fell in love with the girl with pink nails who thought her smile was lovely and her eyes sparkled. My nails might have been the last thing he noticed, but every time after that he checked. My nails were never red or blue or gold, just always pink. It reminded him of hope he said, although I was never sure why I said, me too. Our first date we went walking by a river near the city. He grabbed my hand inside his shaky one and examined my pink glossy nails. Hopeful he told me. I remember being nervous, not really knowing what to say so he didn’t say anything. But he still held my hand while he drove and every second in between. Touching my nails and whispering, hopeful, because it was the only thought he could think. Well, after date one there was a two and a three. A four and a five and a seventy six at nine. Nine was so late to start a date on a school night and all I could think is, I have an essay to write and a chapter to study. Does George Washington really cut down a cherry tree? So Hester Prynne really is an adulteress whore who hooked up with a minister in the forest? I have a ton of math homework and I don’t even know how to calculate the tangent side on an isosceles triangle! I thought about all that work from about 6- when instead of telling my english teacher how I felt about Hester’s ungodly sin, I curled my hair and painted my nails pink. You knocked on my door and I fell down the stairs trying to answer it. It was date seventy six, six and a half months in. Your hands didn’t shake when they touched mine anymore and you ALWAYS had something to say, but still I could feel my heart latch in my throat and all the butterflies taking flight in my stomach whenever I heard your name, or your voice, or saw the color pink, because pink, well pink was hopeful. It was date seventeen when you kissed me the first time, we were dancing in the rain and you just, well, you kissed me but to me it was a promise. A promise to kiss me again, to be my hopeful, my hope and serenity. My hair was wet, my nails were pink, and you kissed me. Date number three your hands were still shaking but you had more to say. You told me you liked my shirt and that I looked beautiful. I had intentionally worn my pink shirt that had a pocket on the front, it matched my nails. It was hopeful. I remember date eighty nine when we went stargazing. You laid next to me, hands clasped resting on your leg because I had an erratic fear of people touching mine. you rolled on your side and whispered, ‘I love you’, and although you’d said it a million times something was different and I couldn’t figure it out. Your eyes were dull, the sky was dark, and hopeful seemed like a word that didn’t fit into my vocabulary, like a word that had never rolled off your lips but still i was HOPEFUL that one day it would fit again. I whispered it to myself as you were driving away but even on my lips it felt... stuck. It still tasted sweet but was sticky and messy like honey dripping out the sides of your sandwich and you're not sure if it’s even worth cleaning up and it keeps dripping until it drips off the side of your sandwich and onto your leg and it’s a sweet sticky mess that you are so frustrated with but you know you made it. And that’s how I was with you. What tasted so sweet now had trouble sliding off my lips and seemed latched in my throat like my heart on date seventy six. I clamped my hands between my legs that night as I layed down to sleep and I cried and I tried to say hopeful like I was still hopeful. Two a.m. came around and I woke up to hazed whisperings of hope and my phone buzzing on my nightstand. To the boy who fell in love with the girl with pink nails... Why? I had two days to write a eulogy but instead I wrote about George Washington cutting down an apple tree and Hester Prynne being an adulteress whore and instead of writing your eulogy I curled my hair and painted my nails black because I was supposed to be hopeful... Not hopeless. I’m sorry that hopeful started to taste bitter and that my nail polish started to chip. And I’m sorry that between date one and eighty nine I didn’t see you drowning and gasping for air, yelling for help! I am a lifeguard and I forgot how to swim when I jumped in to save you, and what was I supposed to tell your mother? I went to your furner with nothing to show but a research paper. I wrote eulogy on the front to try and convince everyone that I WASN’T falling apart and I could handle my life without you. That I could live a life in red or maybe blue or gold. I stood outside the chapel doors wringing my hands together trying to to cry, but I cried and I was scared to look at your face underneath the casket but I did and I could see the rope marks and how they spelled our hopeless as you hung there willingly helpless, and when it’s my turn to read my eulogy I cry and unfold my research paper. To the boy I fell in love with, somehow I knew you’d  have red roses at your funeral.