Non-Playable Characters in Grand Theft Auto V, by Aleksia Silverman

I wear thigh-high boots and a skirt that doesn't cover my ass. You wear huge pants and a backward hat. Our faces are all angles—all cheekbone and chin. We are smooth and poreless, just like the ocean, like the road, like the bark of the palm trees. Our world is not one of textures.

I know when I see you and your huge pants and your backward hat: you are the most beautiful thing in Vespucci Beach. 

I don't know how to say anything other than: Hey!

You don't know how to say anything other than: Watch it! 

We meet at the trashcan between J's T-Shirts and T's Sports Gear, Sweaters, and Caps. It is daytime. Sunny and bright. There is a song playing that makes me dance, pelvis swinging as though it has a mind of its own. I don't know the song's name, but I would recognize it if I heard it again.

I wonder how our bodies can crash against each other in a way that feels good. We try multiple positions, and pleasure doesn't come. I want to ask: did you feel anything? What comes out is: Hey! 

Every once in a while, a man in a suit runs through the beach. We know he is different because he can say many things, like: Gimme the fucking bike! Oh, you're psycho, you know that! What's up, amigo? How you doing, jumbo? YOU SHIT! YOU SUCK!

Once he runs by me, so close our arms touch.  

. Hey! I yell.

From across the street, I hear you say: Watch it! The sound of your voice is so sweet. 

The man in the suit runs faster than us, he gallops. He steals cars while we watch. He doesn't stop at red lights, he drives up on the sidewalk. We know when we see him: this is his story. 

It is raining when you get hit by a car.

Hey! I say, meaning: Are you okay?

You are spread-eagled on the asphalt. The car was blue, and so fast we did not see it coming. Of course, the man in the suit was driving. Your body looked so light, sailing through the sky, that I wanted to cry. There is blood on your shirt and the road. Police sirens wail.

The day ends. When it begins again, you are whole and unbloodied, and I am happy. 

You get hit again and again. The other girls and I are good at dodging. We leap into bushes quickly, even though we are wearing heels. We cover our stiff cleavage. I never can get used to seeing your blood.

We watch the sunset on the beach. We stand side by side outside Sideway Market. We sit on a bench. We look at the SALE sign. We walk down to the Ferris wheel and stare at its smooth, metal rigging. 

Watch it! Watch it! Watchitwatchitwatchit, you say. My chest feels hot. 

There is a long period where the man in the suit doesn't come to Vespucci Beach. You and I dance in the heat, gyrating to song after song after song. We run into each other. Heyheyhey. These are good days. 

The man in the suit comes back. He drives through the beach and hits a girl wearing a bikini top and leaves the road scorched.

He says: You forget a thousand things a day, pal. Make sure this is one of them.

He says: What are you waiting for? Move! 

Did he think we were waiting for him? That we spent all this time waiting for him? 

One day, I get hit. The car is black, and the chrome bumper is hot against my shins. I think it won't hurt, but it does. It hurts so bad. I feel pain in my heels, in my ponytail. I am hit with so much force, and my body is so light that I fly. For a moment, writhing in mid-air, I see the beach from above—horizon glittering white. I see the man in the suit driving away. I see some buildings have a second floor, a third floor. I see roofs. A woman at the Sideway Market is waving her hands above her head. She is watching me. And, from below: I can hear you calling.

Aleksia Silverman is an MFA Candidate in fiction at UC-Davis. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Electric Literature, The Longleaf Review, No Contact, and Nimrod International Journal. She is an alum of the Kenyon Review Writers' Workshop and the Tin House Summer Workshop.