Silence Kills

     "What are we?" She asked after minutes of silence-- broken only momentarily by the crashing of waves and the aching in her heart. 
      She looked over and saw the thoughts scrambling in in his mind. They had known each other since grade school. They had hooked up sporadically over the years. They had been doing so more frequently, intertwined with date nights and romantic walks under the moonlight and sand creeping in between their toes. She was quite aware that their relationship has always been complicated. It has never quite been purely platonic, yet it has never truly reached a point of a relationship-- regardless of how intimate they have become. 
      "I don't know," he finally mutters only slightly louder than the crashing waves and her deepening breaths. He is more than aware of the love that flows in his veins for this girl. He dreams about her nightly and thoughts of her often distract him from his everyday life. He cannot imagine his life without her eyes, her smile, her laugh, her soul, or her mind. But that right there, that dependency, is exactly what keeps him so unsure of what they are. He has seen friendships birth, breath, and die in the fire so often referred to as a relationship. He couldn't live with himself if he let what they were, whatever the hell it is that they were, die. He needed her in his life, and he was terrified that his self destructive soul would ruin it if he allowed their friendship to take a step towards anything more than what they already were. 
      "I just-" she couldn't finish the sentence, but they both knew exactly what she meant. But that's just the issue, they knew in their minds that both of them loved one another. That both of them wanted one another. That both of them wanted to jump off the pier of friendship and into the sea of possibilities, but without either one them stating it plainly, they both allowed the uncertainty that wasn't even truly uncertainty to strangle anything that could have ever been. They aborted their love before it could ever take its first breath.
        Silence once more peeked out its disgusting head. It looked them both up and down as their hearts shattered and their destiny was brutally murdered by its hands. The waves continued to crash onto the sand. The sand continued to creep in between their toes. And their toes continued to be filled with love and desire and passion. But the silence killed all three. ​​