Love Hate by Matilda Martel

What do you do when the only person you’ve ever loved is the person you hate the most?
Love doesn’t warm my heart. It doesn’t fill my spirit with joy. It infests me like a plague and try as I might, I can’t find the damn cure.
All my life I’ve loved Gia Jeffries— the head cheerleader, the class president, the prettiest girl in school with a smile and a wave for everyone she meets.
I’ve loved her from afar, admired, fantasized, lurked behind every corner, followed her to college and waited for the day she’d look deep into my eyes and know what I’ve known since the second I saw her beautiful face—we belonged together.
But I’m a fool.
She’s not mine and she never will be.
And for that, I hate her.
I hate her for never noticing me. I loathe her for never loving me.
She consumes my thoughts, my dreams and inspires every work of art I paint, but every day she looks right past me.
Until, one day she doesn’t.
How do I let go of all this hate?
I’m so close to getting everything I’ve ever wanted.
How the hell do I keep from ruining everything?