SPECTRAL.

† S E V E N †

     I SURPOSE IF THERE IS ANYTHING I'VE LEARNED IN THIS LIFE OF MINE, it is that attraction itself is never as innocent as it appears. We are all conditioned to think of it as something light, almost charming—a pull of one soul toward another, a spark, a magnetic thread weaving two people together. But I would ask you, as I often ask myself: what if attraction is not always benevolent? What if attraction is a predator in disguise, a net spun by something unseen, drawing us into its hold not because it desires our company, but because it seeks to destroy us?

     Tell me, have you ever wondered why sometimes we find ourselves gravitating toward the very thing that could ruin us? Why the moth dances so desperately toward the flame, even though it has wings so fragile that fire will only consume them? Attraction, in my eyes, is not always an ally. Sometimes it is an omen.

     I had to learn this truth the hardest way imaginable. I am not speaking metaphorically, nor am I exaggerating. I mean it in its raw, bleeding, merciless sense. Relationships, at least those involving me, are dangerous. Not dangerous to my own body or my own spirit, but to anyone foolish enough to feel something toward me. The universe has proven that.

     Back in high school, there was a boy. His name was Michael. And if you could have seen him then, you might understand why his death left a wound not just in me, but in the very structure of that school. He was the kind of boy people painted in yearbooks and whispered about with fondness. Teachers loved him because he was polite and reliable, classmates admired him because he was kind without being condescending. He was, to put it simply, the school's sweetheart. The boy who carried everyone's hopes in his smile.

     And yet, for all of his charisma, for all of the attention he drew, he never seemed interested in anyone romantically. He kept himself in this delicate bubble, untouched by drama, unattached, as though he was waiting for something—or someone. I had a crush on him for months, but it was the kind of silent crush you bury in notebooks, the sort that burns quietly so no one else can see the flame. He was unattainable, I thought. Someone beyond my reach. And then one afternoon, he wasn't.

     It was after school, in the parking lot. The sun was sinking behind the gymnasium, bleeding orange across the lot's cracked pavement. I still remember the way his shadow stretched long, almost fragile, as though it too knew what was about to come. He walked up to me—me, of all people—and his voice carried that nervous tremor of someone about to leap off a cliff. He confessed. Just like that. He told me he liked me. Told me he'd been waiting to say it for weeks.

     Do you know what it feels like when the universe suddenly shifts under your feet? I felt it then. My heart didn't just skip—it stumbled, faltered. For a moment, I thought maybe, just maybe, attraction wasn't a curse. Maybe life was allowing me one pure thing. But no sooner had the words left his lips than fate answered in its cruel way.

     A car came rushing through the lot—too fast, too careless. And before I could even scream his name, before his smile could finish forming on his lips, the car struck him. The sound is something I will never forget. The dull, horrific thud of body meeting steel, the screech of tires trying to stop too late, the silence afterward that felt like the entire world holding its breath.

     He was gone. Just like that.

     Tragedy is one word, but it feels too small, too brittle, to hold what that moment was. Michael wasn't just another student, he was the golden thread that stitched so many people together. His death unraveled everything. His parents' grief was unbearable; they asked questions I couldn't answer. Why was he near me? Why had he been with me? Why did this happen the very moment he opened his heart? The police questioned me too, not because I was suspected of anything, but because I was the last person to hear his voice. I had to recount every word, every second, as though speaking them again might undo the horror. But it didn't.