Cycle II · “The Hidden Life” · 05

She’s always known how to want things too hard.

When she was younger, it was harmless stuff:

A show no one else watched.
One album on loop until others begged her to change it.
A crush on a fictional character she could monologue about for hours.

She didn’t call it obsession.

She called it having “favorites.”

Her home screen has never been normal. Folders inside folders. Playlists with names that only make sense to her. Tier lists nobody will ever see. Tiny universes she builds just to feel that click of yes, this belongs with this.

So when she scrolls through that endlessly long movie list for the first time, she doesn’t care about any of the titles.

She cares that someone did what she’s always done in her own head:

Drew a circle around a feeling.
Gave it rules.
Curated it until it felt like a little world.

“Scope & Rules of this Curated Collection.”

She snorts at the phrase. It sounds like a museum plaque.

But it also makes something low in her chest sit up.

Because she knows exactly what it takes to write a paragraph like that:

Weeks of tunnel vision nobody asked for.
Standards nobody else is policing.
Arguments with yourself about what “counts” that no one will ever hear.

She has her own versions:

Shows that “don’t count” because they ruin the vibe.
Songs that “don’t belong” on this playlist because they pull the mood sideways.
People she unfollows quietly because they clash with the feeling she’s trying to keep.

She’s never written any of that down as rules.

But she lives by them, anyway.

When the post starts talking about obsession as infrastructure, she goes back and reads that line twice:

“It doesn’t just hoard. It curates. It builds universes.”

She thinks about:

The way she reread old messages from a long-dead dynamic, having whole conversations in her head that never happened. the way a single “proud of you” could fuel her for days. the way she mentally shelves people into categories: safe, unsafe, fantasy-only, don’t trust yourself around this one.

She realizes her brain has been building private collections of people the same way it builds collections of media.

There’s the “If They DM’d Me I’d Answer Immediately” shelf.

The “They Could Ruin Me By Accident” folder.

The “They Never Notice Me But I Still Stalk Their Posts” category.

No one gave her those categories.

She invented them to survive the feeling of wanting people who might never belong to her.

The thing that stings is the part where the focus flips:

“You stop categorizing films.

You start collecting moments.”

She knows that shift.

First it was about:

Knowing every lyric.
Every behind-the-scenes fact.
Every release date.

Then one day it wasn’t about media anymore.

It was:

Knowing the exact time they usually come online.
Knowing what kind of praise makes their voice go soft.
Knowing how long it takes them to respond if they’re in a good mood.

She tells herself she’s just “observant.”

If she called it obsession, she’d have to admit how much of her day it eats.

She doesn’t have a meticulously tagged movie archive.

She has:

A notes app list of usernames and one-line impressions.
“If they ever asked X, would you say yes?” written next to some of them like a joke.
Old voice messages saved “just in case I want to hear this again.”.

She has her own “curated collection” of people who have no idea they’re in it.

Reading this post makes her feel exposed and weirdly… gifted.

Like someone just turned a light on in a room she thought only she knew how to access.

She’s never stood in front of anyone and said, “I am obsessed with you.”

She’s not stupid.

She wraps it in language people accept:

“You’re so inspiring,”.
“I really respect you,”.
“I like the way you think.”.

All true.

None of it is wide enough to hold the way her stomach quietly drops every time their name appears.

She’s been careful to never let it leak out at full strength.

But the part of the post that won’t let go is this:

“Obsession doesn’t care if its object is

a faceless ‘Master’ or

a stack of weird beach sex-comedies.

It just wants something to burn for.”

She realizes it’s not just who she picks.

It’s how she attaches.

The wiring would do this with almost anything that feels big enough.

Movies.

Music.

A Dom.

A dynamic.

The river is the same; the banks just change.

When the post lands on:

“Imagine what I could do if I poured that kind of obsession into you.”

she feels the predictable little shiver.

The one that says:

Yes. Pick me. Curate me. Memorize me. Build a whole internal encyclopedia around my reactions and moods. I want that.

But deeper than that, there’s another thought forming, slower:

If she’s going to hand someone that kind of access again, it can’t be by accident.

Not just because her brain got bored and needed a new folder to fill.

Not just because some part of her doesn’t want to think about her own ending, so she builds altars to other people instead.

This time, if she chooses to be someone’s favorite subject, someone’s carefully organized universe, she wants it to be:

Mutual.
Named.
And carried with the same kind of ruthless care she used to build her own worlds.

She doesn’t know yet who, or how, or when.

She only knows that the way her focus burns is not something she wants to waste on people who treat her like a casual watchlist.

For the first time, it occurs to her:

Maybe the point isn’t to stop being obsessive.

Maybe the point is to finally become just as picky about who gets to live in her private canon as she is about which items make the cut.

She closes the tab.

Her brain is still humming.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the question starts looping, soft but insistent:

If I’m going to burn like this anyway… who actually deserves the fire?

Cycle II · “The Hidden Life” · 05

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