I was turning eighteen in less than twenty-four hours, and everyone kept telling me it was supposed to feel special.
A milestone.
A celebration.
A new chapter.
They had no idea.
Eighteen wasn't a beginning for me, it was permission.
Permission to finally go looking for what I'd been craving for years without anyone trying to fold me back into their paper-thin idea of "normal."
I wasn't made for normal.
I'd always known that.
Other girls my age wanted boyfriends, flowers, soft hands holding theirs.
I couldn't think of anything more suffocating.
I didn't need someone to adore me.
I needed someone who could stand in front of me without flinching. Someone whose intensity didn't dim mine but sharpened it. Someone as dangerous as the thoughts I kept locked behind my smile.
Not to tame me.
Not to save me.
Just to match me.
No one had come close.
Not yet.
I walked through the town square, watching people laugh, shop, exist. All of it looked like a world built for someone else. A world that never quite fit around my edges.
My mother liked to say I'd meet "the right boy" eventually.
As if I were waiting for a boy.
I wasn't.
I was waiting for a man.
A very specific kind of man.
One most people wouldn't choose.
One most people would run from.
Danger wasn't a warning to me — it was an invitation.
And tomorrow, when I finally turned eighteen, I'd start looking for someone who could answer it.
Somewhere out there, someone like me existed.
Someone intense enough, sharp enough, dark enough.
I didn't know his name.
I didn't know his face.
I didn't even know that he had already started moving toward me in ways I couldn't see.
All I knew was that I wanted him.
Or maybe, I needed him.
Not for love.
Not for safety.
But for the kind of thrill that made the world feel alive again.
One day soon, I would find him.
Or he would find me.
Either way, the moment we collided…
everything would change.