Anonymous

So you’ve decided to do what everyone else is doing and buy a longboard to cruise around town. But why are you not getting respect from real skaters, or what you call, “fellow boarders” you wonder?

I will meet him somewhere neutral: a coffee shop, a bar, a bookstore.

I used to cut myself as a punishment. Now I eat stuff that I’m allergic to knowing that it hurts me.

With all our talking, imagining, pretending, and google searching, my partner started to get intrigued.

I did not acknowledge or believe anything I am about to write until I saw it myself, after the doctors had pronounced me dead.

What is also striking is that I have physical or emotional reactions to things that I would associate with having suffered from, but I can’t remember them. I’m not conscious of it, but my subconscious most definitely is.

The next morning, I woke up early and gathered all my stuff before he woke up. I took the bus home smelling like Jack Daniels and cigarettes, and avoided everyone’s eyes. I took a long, hot shower, scrubbed every bit of myself, and fell asleep for the rest of the morning.

Months past, letters were sent, presents traversed oceans to get to her, and then eventually the Facebook messaging slowed, boyfriends and girlfriends came and went, and I was content, maybe even happy, once again.

I should have stopped when I saw the pain in her eyes.

And it’s thrilling. It’s the kind of thing that makes you leap out of bed for work every morning, eager for the moment when you’ll be able to steal an overly long glance or brush hands just lightly enough that no one will know it was intentional.

I will not be disclosing my name or where I wrote it, for obvious reasons… so please don’t ask.

When it came to the hard details of my financial situation, he never made me feel weird about it. I told him I was in debt, he gave me a blank check. I told him I had tuition, books, rent, whatever — he gave me his card.

I’ve been doing this for so many years. The scary part is realizing that I never thought I’d ever have to stop.

The thing about really pretty girls — and I’m talking about the kind of girls who go on vacation to Miami together and get accosted by every single event photographer in the city — is that they are hyper-aware of prettiness.

The person that was cheated on is showered with cards and nail polish and cookie dough from her friends, friends that were once yours as well, but now will turn on you with that terrifying mob mentality.

From the start of the summer, he vented to me about the growing tension in his year-and-a-half long relationship with his girlfriend.

It was never something I obsessed over, or even let myself think about more than once. But my boyfriend’s dad’s best friend was different.

I knew I loved him pretty young. We would always be the two kids at the event who would go off and play by themselves, and when we hit our pre-teen/teenage years, the bond that we had formed playing in the backyard at a family gathering turned into something much more profound.