Today is beautiful and I want to — I need to — ruin it. The sun isn’t close enough to make me sweat and the wind isn’t strong enough to make me shiver. Between seasons, the world is so placid. It’s the perfect weather for a walk, so I guess I’ll just have to take one. Another case of adolescent ennui, but I’m not the type to sit around and sulk about it. My hands rise up before me and make their own decisions. They grip my bootlaces like piano wire and get to tightening.

I have nowhere that I need to be and nowhere to even go. All I can think of is the gas station up the street. I don’t smoke, but maybe I can pick up some cigarettes and give it a shot. I think what they say about “gateway drugs” is total bullshit. Boredom is the real point of entry for any dedicated substance abuser. How long can you be dull, quiet, and glassy eyed until your body revolts, overriding self-restraint to gain some much needed stimulation? That’s the breaking point that I’m at.

When I arrive, I walk slowly through the automatic doors. The temperature controlled gush of AC that blows up my skirt feels no different than the idyllic breeze that accompanied me here. The lights, too, don’t offer much of a change in scenery. A chime goes off as chirpy as the birds that were shitting all over the sidewalk outside. I' am trapped in a world constructed to facilitate a militant sense of optimism.

The large screen displaying security camera footage only mocks my disposition.

Smile, you’re on TV!

I roll my eyes. Then I fix my hair.

I walk further in and start to look through the isles. I could have gone right up to the counter to get my cigarettes, but I am craving something else. Sweet? Maybe salty? I only feel unspecified desire, and nothing that I imagine seems like it can satisfy me.

While I contemplate it, I decide to get myself a slushie. I never get this right, and as usual, a sticky, cherry red mess overflows from the lid and drips down the paper cup and onto my hand. I lick it up, then suck more from the straw. A hundred tiny pieces of ice flit roughly over my hot tongue and dissolve. It feels good.

Looking around at the rest of the store, my drink in hand, I begin to feel that maybe this was all the stimulation that I needed. My eyes keep struggling to take in all of my options, glancing over them, back and forth, over rows and rows of snacks, bags of chips, and strips of dried meat, hot crunch buns, spicy corn nuts, bugle cake cookie chips. Each combination is a guaranteed stomachache. I am almost ready to settle with just my frozen treat, when the end of the shelf gives way to the profile of a boy. He’s really cute. I have never seen anyone like him around here.

He doesn’t see me stare. He is busy staring at nothing. How many hours a day does he stand there like this? I can’t help myself from wanting to project my own dissatisfaction upon him. From what I can see of his face, beneath his dark curls, his expression bore a resigned sadness. Detached, like nothing could make him happy.

I get closer. He still doesn’t react.

I put my hand in the pocket of my jacket.

I pull out my lip gloss. It’s one that has a small flower suspended in the clear gel. I rub it over my pink lips.

I start to feel a little drunk. Warm blood circulates in my thighs. I can feel my muscles tensing and contracting of their own volition. My hand tightens its grip around the ice cold cup, forcing more liquid to spill from the top and get me all sticky again.

My other hand puts the lip gloss back into my pocket, and wraps itself around the gun that was weighing it down as I perused the aisles.

Did you think that I was being melodramatic earlier? I came here for excitement.

I remember the security cameras that greeted me and I imagine my mugshot.

There really is such a thing as being cute enough to get away with murder. I’ve seen it happen before, and it’s only the law that disagrees. I can’t help but think that my pixelated face will be striking enough, amplified by the details of my crime, to find its way across social media sites and downloaded onto hard drives. I’m sure it would even be plastered onto bedroom walls before the night is over. Like so many criminals and murderers before me, people would scroll through their feeds unable to escape the endless reproductions of my unrepentant digital smile. My hair would be a bit messy, but my eyes would be focused. My gaze would demand recognition.

Beauty is a brute fact. It’s uncontainable. It leaks out around the margins of words, drips through social contracts, and dissolves any sense of meaning besides whatever it hides inside of raw aesthetic experience. Even the most horrific terrorist acts are underlined by sublimity, a subtext that no report can write out.

I bet you think you know what I want. To be known as beautiful. To be famous, to be a star.

No.

Now, when I look at this boy, I know exactly what I want.

It has nothing to do with anyone but the two of us.

I stand in front of the counter, right across from him. I put down my cup and put both hands on the gun.

He doesn’t say a thing.

I hold the gun right up to his face. His eyes widen, then relax into a similar faraway look as before. This time, they are lost in a dream, rather than some bad memory.

I had expected him to scream. My actual plan was to shoot myself in front of him.

He only leans closer to the gun, his eyes half-lidded. Gently, he brushes his lips against the cold metal. His tongue licks the side, the tip, and then he takes it all in his mouth.

I watch as his face crumples and blood sprays out from the back of his head. He doubles over. A mass of black curls sprawls over the counter. They start to clump together as the wetness spreads and it looks like some yet undiscovered marine animal.