She never saw me.
Not once. Not really.
Not when we passed in the hallways back at university, not when I sat two rows behind her in our shared economics class, not when she laughed too loudly at something her friend said in the cafeteria — and definitely not when I picked up the book she dropped and placed it where she'd find it.
Luna Adair.
The name alone still tastes like obsession on my tongue. Even now.
I don't remember the moment I first noticed her. Maybe it was the way her skin glowed like it absorbed the sun. Or the way she walked — quiet, graceful, completely unaware of the world worshipping her in secret. She had no idea she was beautiful. That made her dangerous.
She didn't seek attention. She commanded it by pretending she didn't care.
I watched. Always from the shadows. And when she left the university, I thought I'd forget her.
I didn't.
She haunted everything. Every woman became a failed imitation. Every interaction felt hollow. I kept trying to replicate the feeling she gave me — that burn in my chest, that ache that never fully went away. But they weren't her.
They were just shadows. And I was tired of chasing ghosts.
So I stopped waiting.
It started slowly — inquiries, data pulls, cameras in places she'd never think to look. I bought the building across from her apartment. I paid for silence where I needed it. I made friends of strangers. Enemies of walls. I memorized her routines — when she left, when she returned, how long she paused at the café window wondering if she had enough to buy the croissant.
When I found out about her medical scare, I knew it was the universe handing her to me.
I paid the right hands, replaced the right files, adjusted every result. And then I gave her a choice:
Live — but only if you accept help from the one man you've never seen.
Me.
It would be so easy to make her fall now. Vulnerability is a key, after all. And no one locks their doors when death is knocking.
But I don't just want her to need me.
I want her to choose me. To look at me the way I've looked at her for years — like I'm the only constant in a crumbling world.
Soon, Luna will understand.
She may hate me. She may curse me.
But she'll belong to me.
Because I've already rewritten the ending of her story.
And I am every page she never meant to write.
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