Parasite.
You’re feeding your best years to a man who is already full.
The screen of my phone is the only window in this room that stays open all night.
He was laughing in a clip from an interview three years ago. I know the way his voice drops when he’s being serious, and the specific way he tilts his head when he’s trying to be polite to a journalist he doesn’t like. I know his favorite book, the city he grew up in, and the scar on his left thumb from a kitchen accident he mentioned once in a podcast.
I know everything about him. He doesn’t even know I’m breathing.
It feels ridiculous to explain this to the “real” world. People call it a crush. They call it a parasocial obsession. They tell me to “get out more.” But they don’t understand that in the world where I live—where I have to be quiet, where I have to play a role—this stranger is the only person who feels like home.
I’ve spent tonight watching his movies again. It’s a strange kind of intimacy, isn’t it? To let a man’s voice fill your bedroom while you fold laundry or cry or stare at the ceiling, knowing he is thousands of miles away, perhaps sleeping, perhaps laughing with someone who actually gets to touch his hand.
I am a woman living a double life. In one life, I am the girl who does her job and answers when she’s called. In the other, I am a ghost following a star.
Sometimes, I imagine what I would say if we actually met. I practice the “cool” version of myself. I tell myself I wouldn’t stutter. But the truth is, I wouldn’t say anything at all. How do you tell a stranger that he saved you? How do you tell someone that his face is the last thing you see before you fall asleep because the real world is too heavy to carry?
He is the most important person in my life. And I am just a “view” on his metric count. A decimal point. A ghost in the gallery.
I turned off the phone. The room went black. The silence was louder than his voice had been.
He is happy, I think. And I am here, writing to a screen, loving a man who is made of pixels and light
. It’s a one-sided love story where the other side doesn’t even know the story has started.
The Decimal Point
Sometimes I wonder if he feels the weight of a million eyes on him, or if we are all just a collective hum in the background of his life—like the sound of the ocean you eventually stop hearing.
I was scrolling through his latest photos tonight. He was at a premiere, or a gala, or just walking down a street in a city I’ll probably never visit. He looked tired. Not the kind of tired you get from work, but the kind you get from being watched. I wanted to reach through the glass of my phone and tell him it’s okay to turn it off. I wanted to tell him I’m not just another person wanting a piece of him.
But of course, I am.
I am just another girl in a bedroom somewhere, projectng my own loneliness onto his face.
It’s a strange grief, mourning a relationship that never existed. I’ve gone through “breakups” with him when he’s seen with someone else. I’ve felt a rush of pride when he wins an award, as if I had something to do with it. I’ve spent more time thinking about his happiness than my own.
The people in my “real” life talk about marriage, and rent, and the weather. They ask me why I’m so quiet. They don’t know that I’m currently living in a penthouse in London, or a cottage in the hills, or a backstage dressing room—all places I’ve only seen through a lens.
I am a woman living in a world that feels like a prison, and he is the only one who has the key. The irony is that he doesn’t even know the door is locked. He doesn’t know he’s my hero. He’s just a man eating breakfast, or arguing with his agent, or losing his keys.
I am in love with a version of him that I created. A version that understands the parts of me I can’t share here. I’ve turned a human being into a sanctuary.
One day, I’ll probably grow out of this. The posters will come down, the tabs will be closed, and I’ll find a way to live in the “real” world without needing to hide in his. But for tonight, the screen is warm, his voice is playing on a loop, and for a few minutes, I’m not the girl who has to stay quiet.
I’m the girl he’s singing to. Even if he’s singing to everyone else, too.
The Wedding I wasn’t Invited To
Then comes the morning when the notification hits differently.
A grainy photo on a gossip site. A blurry hand held in a parking lot. Or worse—the official announcement. The “happy news.” The white dress, the suit, the smile he saves for the person who actually gets to see him wake up in the morning.
The world celebrates. I just feel the air leave the room.
It’s a ridiculous kind of grief. How can you be “heartbroken” over a man who doesn’t know your name? How do you explain to the people at work why your eyes are red, when the reason is a stranger’s engagement 5,000 miles away?
I sat on the edge of my bed today and looked at the screen. She is beautiful, of course. She is real. She is made of skin and bone, not pixels and light. She knows what he smells like when he’s just out of the shower. She knows what he sounds like when he’s grumpy at 6:00 AM. She gets the version of him that I’ve spent years trying to imagine.
I am a woman in love with a ghost, and he just found a living person to replace me.
The reality of being a fan—of using a celebrity to escape your own life—is that eventually, the exit door slams shut. You realize that while you were building a cathedral for him in your mind, he was building a real home with someone else. You were the “anonymous view” while she was the “only one.”
I closed the tab. I deleted the photo. I tried to go back to my “real” life—the one where I have to be the daughter, the worker, the polite woman who doesn’t have “silly” obsessions.
But the silence in my room felt heavier than usual.
He belongs to someone now. The “we” I invented in my head has been evicted. I am back to being just me, in this small room, in this quiet town, with no one to tell my secrets to.
I hope he’s happy. I truly do. But tonight, I am mourning the only version of “us” that ever existed—the one that lived entirely in the space between my heart and a glowing screen.
The play is over. The lights are up. And I am still sitting in the front row, alone.
"It’s a different kind of death, watching him give the version of himself I prayed for to a woman who doesn't have to imagine him."