The Distance between Our Hearts

                   Once upon a time, there was a girl named Mary. She was twelve years old, though her tall height made her look a good one or two years older than she actually was. Mary hated her name and how horrifically basic it was. "Mary" was so common that it had become rare. She saw herself as concrete on the streets of New York City-everybody constantly overlooking the hopeless slab of gray that stretched endlessly everywhere and with different shoes walking through different experiences that constantly slapped her. According to Mary, Mary was a disgrace to Mary and a great example of irony.

                However, there were two important things Mary possessed: beauty and intelligence. Neither was mediocre. Mary was slender with just the right touch of muscle and strength, and her shiny curly brown hair traveled down her back in a beautiful wave.  Her sparkling, hard green eyes penetrated anyone’s, and could force a skilled liar to reveal the most confidential information.

                Mary’s wits were unbelievable. Her mind fed her information, and her brain processed faster than anything could show. Teachers described her academic ability and talent some of the best they had ever seen in their lives. Thus, her parents decided to do something about it instead of let intelligence’s lava erupt. They found an academic camp for her during the summer that had classes for academically gifted and talented students, and Mary picked a writing course that was known for its difficult yet life-changing material. She expected loads and loads of writing, college-level readings, and PhD teachers. Though her friends scoffed and called it a nerd camp, Mary was secretly happy to escape the extraordinary town she survived in for too long.

                What she didn’t expect was a boy.

                This boy wasn’t supposed to happen. The boy wasn’t supposed to make her feel beautiful, and more than Mary. He wasn’t supposed to have those blue, blue eyes that overturned hers, with his strands of blonde hair trailing close above it. He wasn’t supposed to be taller than she was, and look unbelievably graceful at the same time. The boy wasn’t supposed to be acutely unaware of his good looks. He wasn’t supposed to live almost two hundred miles away from her. And the boy certainly wasn’t supposed to be a little in love with her, too. And she wasn’t supposed to hope that she loved him a little more.

                Mary’s days revolved around seeing his name light up her cell phone. For a little while, it did. It seemed like long distance would work; that their love destroyed the miles, that love was too strong. And when the pain got too strong, his face would illuminate her dreams and bring her one step closer to heaven, where he was. Sometimes, though, hell would invade her body. She would spend days kneeling over the toilet, the vomit of misery pouring endlessly out of her sobbing mouth. Missing him became knives stabbing sickness into her body, until he flowed through her veins and mutated her DNA.

                Seven months passed, each day filled with a yearning for him and confused begging from her friends. It wasn’t a cliché little puppy-love crush. They said a crush lasts four months, and beyond that is love. And she was hopelessly in love, and it was too late. Love shot its cupid arrow at her, but didn’t offer a Band-Aid to stop the bleeding.

                One night, it was his turn to text Mary first. She hoped and hoped for those three words and eight letters that would declare infinity and beyond. When she heard the vibration, a hysterical grin lit up her face. Then her eyes read the message: You know what they say about hope. It breeds eternal misery.