She gazes him from a distance far away, but close enough to touch.

She sees every bit about him; from the way he runs a hand through his brown hair, to the way his tongue pokes out slightly when he concentrates. She observes everything about him, even the littlest of details, like the pattern engraved on his black framed glasses, or the peculiar way he writes his own name, with the curves of the letter "S" barely visible, making the letter look like the letter "I".

She's gotten to know him well, and in that time, she finds him nicer, and kinder, and more caring than any other guy she's ever met. She likes to describe people with colours, and he has the brightest colours she's ever seen in someone. He's sunshine yellow, mixed with a pure snow white.

When he calls out her name, her heart flips, and she's been thrown onto a rollercoaster. When their hands touch accidentally, she feels electric sparks running down her spine, and she can't help but blush. She catches herself before she bends down into the hood of his jacket, just to breathe in his sweet scent.

She's having a normal, day-to-day conversation with him about the most uninteresting subject of all time – Clary, but she can feel herself getting red and flustered, and she excuses herself, saying that she was going to be late to this date that didn't exist. She smiles wryly to herself, thinking that she wouldn't ever need make-up blush again.

She captures snapshots of him, storing those pictures into the maze of her mind. When she feels lonely, she recalls those memories, and all the stress melts away. She can swear that he was her antidote, her medications.

She loves him for who he is, the loyal, attentive boy with the sweet and shy smile, always hanging, delicately, on his face. He listens, and he understands, and he always finds a way to comfort her when she's lost, or to applaud her when she's done well. She knows that she can trust him with anything, anything at all, but this secret of hers.

She treasures him, like how the poor farm girl treasures her beautiful bracelet.

But at the same time, she hates him.

She hates him for what he's done to her.

She tries, in vain, to stop the blinding pain that blasts a hole straight through her heart. He's the flame that sets of the pack of explosives strapped to her chest, the whetstone used to sharpen the dagger held to her throat. She tells herself that she doesn't care, and that there would be many others like him, and that she'd move on easily.

But she can't.

She watches him pine over a girl who'll never love him back; she watches him as he dreams about her, and she can feel her blood boiling. Couldn't he see that the girl would never love him back? His voice haunts her in her sleep, causing her to jerk awake, cold sweat all over her, before falling back into a dreamless nightmare.

She bleeds, despair and affection dissolved deeply into the crimson of her blood. Her room is filled with the soothing melody of love songs. Her books, her documents, lie scattered across the cold marble floor, where small piles grow into stacks and mountains, creating a no-man's-land in her room.

She sits there, on her bed, the tears in her eyes ruining the thick mascara she had just applied, moments before. The container of eye shadow has been knocked to the floor, the hot pink, baby blue and lime green all mixed together in a palette of coloured powder. She raises her chin up, the sunlight outside highlighting the angles of her jaw and high arched cheekbones. Black and silver ink flows down into a river, as it travels over the contours of her face.

She carries herself like a regal princess, but inside, she's burning, hot acid melting everything in its path. Her eyes are the windows to her soul, but she's blocked the stained glass windows with bars of wood and duct tape. She is as fragile as porcelain, shattering on impact. She is like a patchwork quilt, bits and pieces of her personality ripped out and stitched together again.

She despises him for being so naïve, for being so unfeeling, although it isn't his fault.

It isn't his fault that he doesn't love her back.

It isn't his fault either that another girl captured his heart.

But still, she stands, alone; trying to fan the dying embers of her heart back into the fire they once were, as the waves crash over her, plunging her into a world of ice-cold water. The sea is crystal clear, and she can still see the beautiful sun casting streaks of glitter on the surface.

It envelops her, and she sighs, letting go of her last breath, wondering how she could have ever let him in.