A Fictional Love Story

Prologue : How It Started

"Lia! Finish this paper tonight, or else, I'll hide all your books!" My brother's, Jake, voice rang from the kitchen, his threat playful but only half-serious. He'd never actually take away my books, but the idea of it was enough to send a shiver down my spine. My pile of assignments lay scattered across the desk, ignored in favor of the dog-eared novel in my hand.

I sighed, flipping the page, pretending I hadn't heard him. He didn't get it. No one really did.

They called me delulu. It was their way of teasing, I knew that. Friends, family—even strangers sometimes, if they knew how often I buried my nose in a book. But I didn't care. What was so wrong with preferring daydreams to reality, anyway?

Reality was fine, sure, but fiction... fiction was perfect. You could control it, twist it, live inside it.

Reality didn't offer me that escape, that sense of freedom that came from immersing myself in someone else's world. In fiction, I could fall in love a thousand times, lose myself in places that didn't exist, and forget—just for a while—that the real world was still waiting for me to catch up.

"Liaaaa!" My best friend, Jenna, called through the screen of my phone, FaceTiming me with the camera angle awkwardly close to her face. "I'm serious! You promised me you'd help with our report!"

"I know, I know," I mumbled, barely glancing at the screen as I flicked through the pages. "I'll get to it. In a minute."

Jenna sighed dramatically, her face filling up the screen as if she could lean through it and shake me. "No, you won't. You're reading that book again, aren't you? The one with the guy you're obsessed with? What's his name again?"

"Ten," I said, my voice quiet as I trailed a finger over the edge of the book. Just saying his name made my heart flutter a little. "His name is Ten."

Jenna's groan echoed through the call. "Ten. Ten. Of course. God, Lia, how many book boyfriends do you have now? Like... thirty? Forty?"

I didn't answer, mostly because I couldn't deny it. "More like a hundred," I muttered under my breath. My eyes lingered on the paragraph in front of me. Ten's description. The way the author wrote him, so meticulously, with a little bit of mystery. Dark hair that always fell perfectly messy, piercing eyes that seemed to hide a lifetime of secrets. He was the kind of character you couldn't help but fall in love with. Dark, mysterious, the brooding type who never revealed too much but felt everything deeply.

Jenna rolled her eyes, though I couldn't see her, only hearing the exasperation in her voice. "You need to get out more. Like, seriously. A real guy, Lia. Have you heard of those?"

"I have." I smiled, pretending to think. "But none of them are like Ten."

"He's fictional, Lia." Jenna's tone was deadpan, and I could almost imagine her shaking her head at me. "Fic. Tion. Al."

"I know that," I whispered, but in my mind, Ten was real. He had to be. He was too perfect not to exist somewhere in the universe. Flawed, sure, like everyone else, but in a way that made you want to understand him, to know all the broken pieces beneath his tough exterior. Just like every male character a woman wrote. Just... chef's kiss.

"He's like... if Mr. Darcy and Edward Cullen had a baby," I said, mostly to myself, as I turned the page. "Brooding but sensitive. Tough but tortured. Perfectly imperfect."

Jenna laughed on the other end, pulling me out of my reverie. "Yeah, and totally unattainable. You know, for someone who lives in your head."

I sighed dramatically, finally closing the book and leaning back in my chair. "You just don't get it."

"You're right, I don't," she said. "But it's okay. I'll let you have your fun as long as you finish that report. We're counting on you."

I nodded, half-listening as I reached for a cup of cold tea sitting next to my desk, my thoughts still lingering on Ten. I couldn't help it. He was like an itch in my mind that I couldn't scratch, a character so vividly alive in my imagination that sometimes... sometimes I almost believed I'd see him if I looked hard enough.

"Lia," Jenna's voice cut through my thoughts. "You're not even paying attention, are you?"

"I am! I swear," I said, although the book on my lap said otherwise. I could almost hear her sigh.

"Fine, fine. Just... finish the paper, okay? Before your brother goes through with his threat."

I let out a small laugh. "Yeah, okay."

But the moment the call ended, I was back in The Story of Ten. I couldn't help it. Ten was unlike anyone I'd ever known. He was flawed, sure, like everyone else, but in a way that made you want to understand him, to know all the broken pieces beneath his tough exterior. He was the kind of man you could spend your whole life unraveling and never get to the core of.

If only he were real...