Disclaimer: Ghost Hunt is not mine.

Idiocy At Its Best

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Dedicated to my idiot cousin, who fell head over heels way too soon.

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It started with a bang.

Okay, not really.

Everything started actually with school. Whoopee.

School is… school, obviously. School being fun and all. Complete with acads and grouchy teachers.

Add the fact that the school I'm going to is college.

And in college, once you're late, you were never here.

With that, I skip my first class ever for the second term of my first year. For an hour and thirty minutes, I wandered the halls, bumped fists with fellow indolent students, and ate French fries. What can I say? I'm a teenager. Teenagers love fries.

For the hour and a half after the first one, I was faced with a predicament every student is thrown into; the predicament that is 'interacting with new classmates'.

Inside the room lies a whiteboard in front, several uncomfortable looking chairs in the middle, and a lonesome trashcan at the back. Inside the room lies strange faces, not a single one I recognize. Great.

It went on like that for weeks. Strange faces stayed strange, until one fateful day.

On that day, the damn professor for that class picked twelve students for an event associated with dancing and humiliation. Guess what. I was picked first.

The experience wasn't that bad, I guess. Because of it, strange faces weren't so strange anymore. With time, I got to know those faces. The faces in that group had a mix of kind, intelligent, childish, stoic, moronic… well, you get the point. Each face had its own unique quirk.

One particular face definitely stood out.

He wasn't overly handsome or anything. He certainly wasn't one of the hot models (with six-pack abs) I swooned over. He didn't even have that sexy DJ voice!

I don't know what the hell came over me. Maybe it was his charming personality. Maybe it was the fact that he managed to somehow yank laughs out of my tiny, bitter heart.

Maybe he has some kind of voodoo control over me or something.

I think he was testing his voodoo skills when he texted me out of the blue. I didn't even know how he got my number. I bet he has magic.

Sadly, my theory was wrong. He admitted to somehow weaseling my phone number out of one of my friends.

Did you know what it was he texted me about? Homework. What about homework? Copy. He wanted to copy my homework. No, not "Please help me with the homework." It was "Yo Imma copy your homework. Give it to me."

Well… he didn't really say that. But he did text me about letting him copy my homework. You know what the biggest problem is? The homework was for a Math subject. Math. Damn. I can't even be bothered to look for x and y. Why would I let him copy my homework when it didn't even exist in the first place?

Then he said that he was just joking. A joke. A joke that wasn't even close to a joke.

But, hey, I laughed. I laughed because he thought I was good at Math.

I laughed because I couldn't believe he was talking to me.

And so it ensued. A text about homework became a text about goofy stories. Stories became jokes. Random jokes became teasing. Good-natured teasing became flirting. Awkward flirting became overt.

Those texts became calls.

Hey, I'm a girl. There's some kind of unspoken girl code that instructs me to be 'hard-to-get' to some extent, so I never called. He was the one who kept calling me.

The calls took place every night, the time when both of us were bored. Or maybe we both were just craving for someone to talk to.

It was obvious that we got along. Face-to-face though… now that was another story.

Sure, we talk at school. But, it's just that. Talking. Talking like we were acquaintances meeting again after thirty years of not speaking with each other.

It was frustrating.

"Hi," he said.

"Hello," I replied.

After that: nothing. It's like all those late night conversations never happened.

The worst part of it was after the usual awkward encounter at school, we just continue on throwing witty texts back and forth later that night. Then we meet again at school and crickets and tumbleweeds seemed to emerge out of nowhere.

The situation was even more so infuriating because we both knew that there was something between us.

And then, there was nothing.

Nada.

Nil.

Zilch.

Zip.

I don't know what the heck happened. Just last night we were talking about what kind of child Hitler would have, and then 'Poof!' Everything was gone.

We didn't talk for at least a month.

And for that month I see him flirting with different girls.

And I know that he knows that I too flirt with other boys.

Maybe it was a sign, but it was a sign I chose to ignore when the new term approached. I don't remember exactly when, but I do remember that he texted me again when I was still ecstatic with the idea that I was finally a sophomore.

With that text, the cycle started again. Text, call, flirt. This time though, he replaced the 'flirt with other people' phase with the 'courting' phase.

That was so… well, sweet of him. I didn't know that there were still some guys born in this century who had the mind to court. I thought that in this generation a girl and a boy instantly became a couple when one frankly asks "Will you go out with me?" I thought that couples were united with a simple (but obnoxious) 'Boy is in a relationship with Girl' or 'Bitch is now married to Bastard' status update in a social networking website.

Courtship was definitely a refreshing breeze.

Hey, it wasn't like I wasn't courted before. I for one had many suitors. (Ahem.) But despite my abundance (ahem) of potential lovers, not one of them stuck around that long. They either got bored of my beauty—but seriously, I don't think that was ever a reason—or they find a practically half naked trollop who had no reservations, and thus would be the instagirlfriend of their dreams.

This one though, he stayed long enough to make me say yes.

He was a perfect gentleman throughout the whole courting thing. He was the gentleman grandmas had when they were young. He bought me flowers and chocolate and stuffed toys (cliché I know), he said sweet things (nothing poetic though), he walked me home (which was in the opposite direction of his home), and he always brought me my favorite food.

The last one was definitely what made me say yes. I'm sure of it.

The moment I said yes, I swear a choir sang a chorus. The moment I said yes, I swear the clouds cleared to make way for the sun and multiple rainbows.

The moment I said yes, I swear I started to see things brighter.

Hearts and flowers were everywhere.

We were happy together.

But happiness comes with a price. My happiness with him cost me everything else.

I was so wrapped up in his arms that my vision narrowed. All I saw was him.

My priorities were screwed. Academics seemed to matter so little. Friends and family mattered even less so.

I tried to set it straight, but still, I squeezed him in. We had study dates together, group dates with my friends, though I never introduced him to my family. That would be outright torture.

Regardless of my efforts, the plan did not work. He was very distracting whenever I was up for studying (it wasn't the good kind of distracting either), my friends seemed to think that I was pushing them farther since I only talk to him during our group outings (he wasn't very comfortable with my circle of friends), and my family thought I was going through a rebellion since I was never home.

These efforts sprouted one thing though.

Clinginess.

I was too clingy, he said.

Is it bad that I tried?

We should cool off, he said.

I guess I tried too hard. I tried to have everything, but in the end I get nothing.

Surely boys like it when they are monopolized. He did it to me and I only followed his lead. When we started our relationship, all he wanted was that we be wrapped around each other's arms. Always.

During classes, he talked to me. Throughout breaks, he was with me. After school, he would take me to a restaurant. On weekends, we would have movie marathons.

I was only returning the favor; although I had my friends with me. Maybe that was the problem.

Being the idiot I am, I try again. Only this time, I snoop around first.

Couples nowadays switch phones, which is basically a teenager's whole life. When there are phones, there are passwords. With one password, I gain access to his social networking profile.

And there, there, I see it. He's been talking to another girl. A trollop.

It wasn't even 'just a friendly chat', as he so fondly called it. It was the kind of chat that started our relationship. Heck, it was the kind of chat long-term couples had.

They even exchanged phone numbers.

He gave a phone number that wasn't the one I've been calling or texting.

I confronted him about it. Do you know what he said?

"You're so childish. Be mature for a change."

I know that I am childish. Who isn't? I love chocolate milk and candies. I like the feeling of pajamas on me the whole day. I enjoy spending time with my family.

But for him to say that me being childish was the reason why he was clearly two-timing me...

That bastard.

Sure enough, a few days after my outburst, I see the status update 'Bitch is now married to Bastard'.

I'd say that I don't care, but it hurt. It hurt so badly. For him to throw away everything we had just because I was 'childish' was the end of my existence.

For a whole week, I lock myself in my room with only a gigantic tub of dark chocolate ice cream, my laptop, and several boxes of tissues to keep me company. For the whole week, I immersed myself into different Korean dramas.

I cut all the classes I have with him. Because of that action, my grades predictably plummeted to hell.

My parents almost disowned me. For me to sink this low when he was holding hands with his minx while running into the sunset...

Look what he did to me.

"No," my best friend said. "Look what you did to yourself."

She was right. I did this.

I was the one who chose to be weak.

I was the one who chose to suffer.

I was the one who chose to run away.

I was the idiot.

With that revelation, a wave of vigor rushed through me.

"I will not let this continue. Self deterioration was never on my agenda."

I am a female specimen after all. I am a woman; a damn independent woman at that. I can take care of myself. I don't need anyone to make me happy because I can do that on my own. I don't need anyone to support me when I already am. (Although, a little help from my friends and family would be nice.)

They say love conquers everything. They are wrong. I don't know who they are. I don't care who they are. They are wrong. Love does not conquer everything.

Love did not conquer me.

I conquered love.

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A/N: Guess who the characters are.