Rose-Like Eyes

The strange thing about trying to forget someone is that reminders of them start appearing everywhere.

Not actual reminders.

Just ordinary things.

A hallway.

A laugh that sounded similar.

A certain color.

A certain look.

None of them had anything to do with her.

Yet somehow, they always led back to her.

The worst were her eyes.

I don't know when I started noticing them.

Maybe it was at the basement door.

Maybe it was long before that.

I honestly couldn't tell.

All I knew was that every time our eyes met, I remembered it afterward.

Longer than I should have.

There was nothing unusual about them.

Nothing that made people stop and stare.

Yet somehow, they stayed with me.

Whenever I thought about her, they were one of the first things I remembered.

I could never explain why.

The closest thing I could compare them to was a rose.

Not because of their color.

Not because they actually looked like one.

Just because they gave me the same feeling.

Soft.

Quiet.

Impossible to ignore.

The same thing happened with her hair.

Dark.

Smooth.

Resting gently around her face.

Sometimes it fell over her shoulders.

Sometimes it moved when she turned.

Sometimes she tied it back, revealing her whole face.

I never meant to notice any of it.

That was the part that bothered me.

Nobody decides to memorize someone's hair.

Nobody chooses to remember someone's eyes.

It just happens.

And once it does...

You can't decide to forget.

That was what frustrated me the most.

The more I tried to ignore her, the more details stayed behind.

Her smile.

Her voice.

Her eyes.

Her hair.

Little pieces of her remained somewhere in the back of my mind.

Quietly waiting.

Sometimes days would pass without me thinking about her.

Then I'd catch a glimpse of her in the hallway.

Just for a second.

And suddenly everything came rushing back.

The basement.

The game.

The pink dress.

The way she said my name.

It was like my mind had been waiting for an excuse to remember.

I wanted it to stop.

I wanted things to go back to the way they were before I met her.

Back when she was just another student walking through the halls.

But they never did.

Every time I thought I was finally moving on...

Another small moment pulled me back.

A smile.

A glance.

A passing shadow in the hallway.

None of those things should have mattered.

Yet they always did.

And somewhere deep inside me, a thought had quietly begun to grow.

Maybe the reason I kept calling it hate...

was because I was afraid of what the other answer might be.