Sick Like Me (Sick Like #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

MAY 2024

For as long as I could remember, I knew there was something deep inside me, something dark and twisted that begged to be used and abused. And it made me realise that I was never going to be a relationship kind of girl.

At least not the kind of relationship which considered of coffee dates and surprise flowers. The kind of relationship I craved was depraved, one where I was a man’s only obsession as much as he would be mine.

But a part of me wanted a normal relationship. A part of me wanted the coffee dates and late night drives. A part of me wanted little couple holidays to the Greek islands and meeting his co-workers at Christmas work events.

If I could ever have such normalcy was something I had convinced myself was unreachable. An ideal of a situation the normal woman wanted. But I didn’t want just romance and butterflies. I wanted darkness and cruelty as much as I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be wanted .

Everyone around me was falling in love, getting married and having children. And all I did was focus on work and the occasional date with a man from a dating app that I knew I was likely never going to see again, be it because I made him realise he wasn’t ‘ ready for commitment ’, or he made me feel nothing on the date.

I often came home from a date crying. Because he couldn’t be what I wanted. Then they either ghosted me or I would ghost them. I felt like I was destined to never be loved or fall in love, as if I was cursed to be alone or just to be someone men want for a hookup.

My dating life, or lack thereof, had become a vicious cycle.

Download an app; find some men and talk to multiple at a time; accept the odd date offer; date ends and we never talk again; app gets deleted and I ghost all the men I was talking to; get bored with having no man showing me any form of attention on the daily and redownload app.

Most men barely lasted a few weeks at maximum when it came to our texting. Sometimes I would be the one to go ghost, and sometimes they would be the ones to disappear out on me.

Maybe it was for the best. The ones I distanced myself from never knew the true me. They knew my favourite colours and foods, sure. But they didn’t know this depth inside me that I hid for the rare few to find. The ones who disappeared on me, maybe they did so because they could see the darkness and were scared of it.

I couldn’t blame them for that.

But then there came him . We talked some years ago in a certain… manner . Then he disappeared on me. I believed he could tame the darkness inside me, but I thought wrong.

Or so I believed so, until he popped back up on my dating apps once again as of recent. My thumb begged to swipe right on him as I sipped my morning coffee before work.

So I did it, I swiped right on him once again.

New message alert !

Dakota: Hello :)

My heart sank. I was about to be done for once again. He was my undoing all those years ago, and he was about to repeat history.

And I was going to let him.