This is a story about love lost and love never attained and ends with a quote suggesting any love is better than not loving at all. The boys are friends, although one is gay and reads more into the friendship meanwhile the family of the other boy mysteriously lose their daughter, the father sinks into alcoholism and the marriage into trouble. Along the way, a sweet girl living across the road secretly has a crush on the gay boy only later to find out, in tears, they are "just friends" while the same fate awaits, at the end, the gay boy who also ends in tears. However, the love between the other boys' parents appears the only love that was real, appearing to recover despite the father's continued drinking after serious liver disease.—mikemcdo