It creeps in slowly, almost imperceptible at first—a flicker of interest, then fixation. They lodge beneath the skin like a splinter, impossible to ignore. You replay their words long after they’ve left the room, dissecting tone, gesture, absence. Every silence becomes a puzzle. You’re no longer your own—your thoughts rewire around them, your attention hijacked by the possibility of their attention. It’s not love, not really. It’s hunger with a velvet face. A kind of beautiful rot that softens the edges of reason. You know the imbalance, the desperation it breeds. But still, you linger in the waiting. Still, you ache to be seen by them in the way you’ve already imagined.