Fetish

Episode 2: It's a Match

"Some people walk into your life without knocking. Others quietly rewrite it before you realize they've arrived."

Trust.

It was such a strange question. I stared at Dominic's message while the noise of the airport faded into the background.

Do you trust me?

The truth was... I didn't know. I'd never met him. I'd never heard the sound of his footsteps or seen the way he carried himself in a room. Everything I knew about him fit inside a six-inch phone screen.

And yet... He somehow knew me better than people I'd spent years around. I sighed and locked my phone without replying. Because if I was being honest with myself... I wasn't just boarding a plane. I was putting my faith in a man I'd met three months ago.

Three months earlier...

Rain tapped softly against my bedroom window while I stared at my laptop screen.

Application Unsuccessful.

Again. I laughed bitterly. It wasn't even funny anymore. I'd stopped counting rejection emails after the twentieth one. Every company wanted experience.

How was I supposed to gain experience if no one was willing to give me a chance? I closed my laptop a little harder than necessary and rubbed my tired eyes. The room suddenly felt smaller. The silence louder. Outside, life carried on as though nothing had happened. Cars drove past. Children laughed somewhere down the street. A neighbor's dog barked without pause.Meanwhile, I felt as though my life had been paused while everyone else's kept moving. I reached for my phone out of habit, scrolling aimlessly through social media.

Engagement photos.Graduation pictures. Friends celebrating new jobs. It seemed everyone had found the next chapter of their lives. Everyone except me.I tossed my phone onto the bed.

"This is depressing," I muttered to myself.

Five minutes later...

I picked it up again. This time, my thumb hovered over an app I'd downloaded days earlier but never opened.A dating app. I almost laughed. As if finding a boyfriend is going to fix your life. I wasn't looking for love. Honestly... I wasn't even looking for a relationship. I just wanted someone who didn't know me as "the girl still trying to figure life out." Someone who didn't ask me what my plans were every time we spoke. I created my profile in less than ten minutes.

Name. Age. A few pictures.

A short bio. Nothing fancy. Nothing dramatic. Then I started swiping.

Left.

Left.

Left.

Most conversations in my head had already ended before they'd begun. Too many gym selfies. Too many forced smiles. Too many bios that said absolutely nothing.

Then... I stopped. There was something different about the next profile.

No expensive cars.

No shirtless mirror photos.

No flashy captions.

Just one picture.

A man in a black shirt with his sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms. His expression wasn't cold. It was... composed. His dark eyes looked directly into the camera, almost as though he were studying whoever happened to look back. His bio contained only four words.

Curiosity changes everything.

That was it. No favorite movies. No height. No list of hobbies.

Nothing. I should've swiped left.

Instead... My thumb moved right.

A second later, my phone vibrated.

It's a Match.

Before I could even process it, a message appeared.

Dominic: Tell me one thing about yourself that's completely true.

I blinked.

No "Hi."

No "You're beautiful."

No awkward pickup line.

Just...A question.

A smile slowly spread across my face.

For reasons I couldn't explain... I wanted to answer.