A Tale Without Fairies

A tale with no fairies.  

Once upon a time there was a boy.  He smelled of laundry detergent and cigarettes, and he had joy in his eyes unlike anyone else, I cross my heart he did.  Because there was a boy, there was of course a girl.  A girl who chuckled instead of laughed and always wore her hair in a bun.  They did boy and girl things together.  The girl tickled the boy's stomach and the boy held the girl's hand as she told him stories, stories filled with "ums" and "likes" and run-on sentences (because truth be told, the boy made her too nervous, too excited to keep her points on track).  

But remember this is a tale with no fairies. 

The girl lived here and the boy lived there and between them there was a car, a shuttle, two trains, two subways, and too many unspoken words.  Too many opportunities to not tell one another things and not enough time to enjoy blushing cheeks and sideways glances.  So that's the way it went.  What became of them?  They see each other sometimes.  That's all. But if they were together, this wouldn't be a tale with no fairies