Simplicity.

A/N: I was looking through some old stuff last night, and I found this. It was written sometime in eighth grade about something that was deeply personal to me, so I've never showed it to anyone. Now, since I am over it completely, I've decided to share it with the world. Read, review, and enjoy.

It was supposed to be so simple.

Really, it was. All you had to do was ignore him. Pretend he didn't exist. If you happened to glance at him accidentally as you turned a corner or something, that was all right. Those things happen.

The plan was to forget him. Literally. You wanted to erase him from your memory forever, so you wouldn't draw those pictures of him, so images of him wouldn't appear in front of your eyes while you were trying to sleep. So you wouldn't think about him at random moments. So you wouldn't think about him at all.

The first day went fine. You felt a heightened sense of power when you ignored him. You were finally taking control of something. He would pass you by, and you wouldn't even spare a glance. You felt good. You felt clean.

However, later that night, all you could think about was him. You tried to suppress the thoughts, but every time you did, they'd resurface, more powerful than before. You resolved to ignore him even more the next day.

Things were going okay—you had gone a whole day with only seeing the back of his head—when in your last period class you looked up from your work and saw him waving a piece of paper in front of the projector, staring at you. Your eyes locked into his for a split second, and you felt the old butterflies come back. You looked down at your work, but then glanced up again for some reason. He was still waving the stupid paper. You shook your head, laughing softly, and stared down at your paper once more.

And now, as you write this, his name is written on your desk with a heart around it. And it reminds you. You don't want to be reminded, yet at the same time you do.

You hate him.

You love him.

You want to cry, but you can't.

Maybe it wasn't as simple as you thought.