Chapter 1 - Chapter 1 – The Voice Online

The first time their voices tangled through the crackling phone line, I felt a warmth seep into the hollow of my chest, slow and sweet like honey melting on a winter afternoon. She was a stranger I'd stumbled upon in a cluttered online forum, a username buried under a flood of trivial posts, yet her reply to my half-hearted question about a book had been so earnest, so vivid, that I'd lingered, typing and deleting, before finally mustering the courage to send a friend request. When she picked up the call later that week, her tone was soft, laced with a laugh that sounded like wind chimes tinkling in a summer breeze, and in that instant, all the noise of the world faded into the background. She talked about the way sunlight filtered through her bedroom window at dawn, about the stray cat that visited her balcony every evening, about the little joys that made her days glow, and I found myself hanging on every word, my fingers curled around the phone like it was a lifeline. Her smile was audible in every syllable, a kind of warmth that made me feel seen, truly seen, in a way no one else ever had. She was bright, she was witty, she was the kind of person who could light up a room with just a glance, even through a screen, and I was instantly, irrevocably drawn to her. It didn't matter that we were miles apart, that we knew nothing of each other's real lives beyond the snippets we chose to share; in that moment, with her voice wrapping around me like a blanket, I knew I wanted to hold onto this feeling, to hold onto her, for as long as I could. I didn't know then that this was the start of a story that would unravel me, thread by thread, until there was nothing left but a hollow shell of the person I used to be. All I knew was that for the first time in a long while, my heart felt light, and for the first time ever, I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd found someone who could make it stay that way.