Chapter 2 – THE VOICE BEHIND THE SCREEN
I didn’t realise then how quickly someone could become a daily ritual.Some people take years to feel familiar.Marc took four days.By the end of the first week, our conversations filled the quiet gaps in my life.By the end of the second, they filled the loud ones too.He became a constant presence — a comforting hum beneath the noise of everything else.I didn’t question it.I didn’t think about how unusual it was for someone to slip into my world so easily.I was too busy enjoying the feeling.
The Late-Night GravityIt started with a message at 2:41 a.m.Marc:> You awake?I was.Insomnia had curled itself around my ribs again, squeezing tight, leaving me restless and wired.Pheonix:> Sadly, yes.You?Marc:> Same.Wanna call?I hesitated.Voice calls feel intimate in ways people underestimate. The spaces between words, the breaths, the pauses—they reveal more about a person than text ever will.But I typed:Pheonix:> Okay.The call connected instantly.“Hey,” he said softly.Like he had been waiting for the sound of my voice.I didn’t speak at first.Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because hearing him breathe in real time sent a strange, warm ache through my chest.His voice held a kind of softness I didn’t hear often in men.A gentleness reserved for the moments before dawn.Or the moments before the truth.“What’s keeping you up?” he asked quietly.I could have lied.Said I was just restless.Said anything but the truth.Instead, the real answer slipped out:“Everything.”There was a pause—one of those delicate ones where the wrong response shatters something fragile.He didn’t shatter it.“Tell me,” he murmured.So I did.About the loneliness, the past hurt, the trust that cracked easily, the ache of wanting connection but being afraid of wanting it.The weight of expectations I could never seem to meet.The way I was tired of being tired.I didn’t cry.Not then.But my voice thinned, stretched, wavered.“Pheonix,” he said, soft and certain, “you’re not too much. You’ve just never had someone who held you properly.”The words landed like a hand around my heart — gentle but secure.I closed my eyes, holding the phone closer, as if proximity might make the ache smaller.“Thank you,” I whispered.“For what?”“For seeing me.”He exhaled — a slow, steady release of air — like he’d been waiting for me to say something like that.“I want to understand you,” he said quietly. “All of you.”It was terrifying how badly I wanted that to be true
The Flood of ConnectionAfter that night, something changed.We didn’t just talk.We unraveled to each other.He told me things I never expected:His fear of dying young like his girlfriend hadHis guilt for surviving the accident that killed herHis belief that he was cursed — that everyone he loved eventually shattered“I’m scared you’ll regret knowing me,” he said once.“I won’t,” I whispered.And I meant it.I shared things too—things I had kept buried under layers of self-protection:The ache of abandonmentThe way betrayal warps your sense of selfThe fear that everyone eventually leavesThe way I never felt like enough, no matter how much I gaveHe absorbed every word like it was precious.“You and I understand each other,” he said one night.“More than anyone else ever has.”And I believed him.Completely.Because it felt true.
The Softness of His VoiceMarc had a way of speaking that unnerved me—not because it was manipulative, but because it didn’t sound like someone trying to be impressive.It sounded like someone trying to be honest.He stumbled sometimes.Laughed nervously.Paused mid-sentence to rethink his words.Sang quietly when he didn’t know how to express something.He didn’t speak like a liar.He spoke like someone shaped by loss, starving for connection, tentative but hopeful.It was the hope that got me.Hope is a dangerous thing for someone who’s been hurt.It sneaks past defenses you spent years building.Marc became hope in human form.Or so I thought.
The Photo That Shifted SomethingOne morning, he sent a picture—a candid shot of him outdoors, sunlight on his face. His hair was messy, his eyes strikingly blue, his smile crooked.A tree-lined path stretched behind him.The caption read:> Thought of you.I stared at it far too long.I told myself it wasn’t special.People send selfies.People flirt.But something about it felt intimate.Like he took it with purpose.Like he wanted me to see him in a certain light.Like he wanted to be real.I saved the picture without thinking.
The “Good Morning” RitualIt became a routine:He messaged first every daySent a song recommendationAsked if I sleptCalled me “angel” or “beautiful” without ironyIt was addictive, the consistency.Someone who checked in.Someone who remembered.Someone who cared.Except he didn’t call it caring.He called it connection.“It’s scary how much I think about you,” he said once.My breath caught.“Is that bad?” I asked.“No,” he said. “It just feels… big.”I knew exactly what he meant.
The Emotional DependencyAt some point — I couldn’t pinpoint when — I began to need him.Not in the toxic way I feared.Not yet.But in the quiet, subtle way you need someone who makes life less heavy.I’d hear the vibration of a notification and feel relief.His presence softened the world.Without meaning to, he became the person I wanted to tell things to — the good, the bad, the mundane.He became my first thought in the morningand my last thought at night.I didn’t plan it.It just happened.Love doesn’t always walk in loudly.Sometimes it seeps in through the cracks.
The First Red Flag I IgnoredHe didn’t call it a red flag.Neither did I, at first.But one night, during a long voice call, I heard something behind him — a faint sound, like a child’s cry or a woman speaking softly.Before I could process it, Marc reached forward and muted himself.When he unmuted, he laughed nervously.“Sorry. Neighbours arguing,” he said quickly.“Walls here are paper thin.”I accepted the explanation.Men who lie usually forget to sound afraid of being caught.Marc sounded nervous.Embarrassed.Convincing.I didn’t push it.Now, looking back, that single moment was the first fracture line — a tiny crack in the illusion that would later split open into a wound I couldn’t close.
The Tattoo ConversationWe were lying in bed — separately, miles apart but emotionally tangled — when he asked about my tattoo.“Infinity, right?” he murmured, voice low with sleep.“Yeah,” I whispered.“What does it mean to you?”I hesitated, then answered truthfully.“That I survived things I didn’t think I would.”A long silence followed.Then he said:“I want something like that.”“For yourself?” I asked.“For us.”I froze.Us.I shouldn’t have let the word mean so much.But it did.It filled me with a warmth I hadn’t felt in years.“Marc…”“I’m serious,” he said. “I want to remember this. You.”I blushed into my pillow, grateful he couldn’t see my face.“You don’t even have tattoos,” I whispered.“I will now.”I laughed weakly, unsure if he was joking.He wasn’t.
The Moment I FellI didn’t choose to fall in love with Marc.It happened slowly, then all at once, like stepping into the ocean and realising too late that the tide had swept you out farther than you meant to go.It was the late-night calls.It was the soft singing.It was the gentle language.It was the vulnerability he showed me.It was the way he said my name.It was the way he listened.It was the way he made me feel like the safest place he could land.It was everything.And when he whispered,“I think I’m falling for you,”I didn’t hesitate.“Me too,” I breathed.The truth wasI already had.
