It began with a glance. But really, it began long before that. Before they ever walked into the room. Before you even knew their name. That look—the one that made your chest tighten, your breath stutter, your brain scramble for logic—it was only the match. The fire was already there.

You think you fell in love in that moment. You didn't. You recognized something. Something sickeningly familiar. That unbearable craving to be wanted. To be chosen. To be seen so deeply that the sharp edges of your loneliness finally dulled.

And so, you named it love. Because love is easier to admit than addiction.

But let's not lie to each other. Not here. Not in this book where you came to bleed a little. You weren't in love with them. You were in love with how they made you feel—those first few moments of electricity, of false hope, of imagined safety. You didn't want them. You wanted what you became in their presence: significant.

You assigned them meaning. You carved it into them like graffiti on a church wall. They didn't ask for it. They didn't offer it. But you gave it anyway. And once you did, they became sacred.

Every vague smile they gave you became scripture. Every delayed text, a test. Every silence, an invitation to dream harder. You turned absence into mystery. Rejection into depth. You crafted a whole myth out of a person who maybe—let's be honest—never even liked you all that much.

But your hunger was louder than their indifference.

This isn't about them. It never was. This is about you, and your willingness to fall in love with ghosts. You want to call it fate because that sounds better than compulsion. You want to say it was uncontrollable. But it wasn't. It was a choice, repeated. You fed the fantasy. You brushed its hair and gave it your pillow and let it keep your spine warm at night.

And now you want to kill it. You want to strangle the thing that lives in your chest, whispering their name like a curse. But first, you have to admit something that will hurt more than all the rejection combined:

You created this.
Not them. You.

You summoned the phantom. You gave it your face. You gave it your time. You kept answering its calls long after it stopped calling.

And that, my friend, is where the story really begins.