**_From my point of view_******

**I’m Mara, a part-time librarian in a sleepy coastal town where the most exciting thing is the annual crab festival. My life is quiet—books, tea, and long walks along the cliffs with my headphones, lost in music. That’s how I liked it until ****_he_**** showed up. Torin Blaze, the rock star whose gritty voice and haunted lyrics have topped charts for a decade, walked into my library one rainy afternoon. And now, three months later, I’m starting to think my life isn’t mine anymore.**

**It started small. Torin, all leather jacket and smudged eyeliner, came in looking for poetry books. I helped him find some Rumi and Plath, thinking nothing of it. Famous people drift through town sometimes, chasing a break from the spotlight. But his eyes lingered on me, sharp and searching, like he was trying to read something I didn’t know was written. He thanked me, his voice low, and left. I figured that was it.**

**It wasn’t. He came back the next day, then the next. Always asking for me, always with questions that felt too personal—What did I think of Neruda’s love poems? Did I ever feel like I was waiting for something I couldn’t name? I’d answer politely, brushing it off, but his intensity unnerved me. By the second week, he was waiting outside the library at closing, leaning against a lamppost, smoking a cigarette. “Mara,” he said, my name sounding like a lyric in his mouth, “you’re not like anyone else here.”**

**I didn’t know what to say. I’m just a 27-year-old with glasses and a knack for organizing bookshelves. But Torin acted like I was some kind of muse. He started showing up everywhere—my favorite coffee shop, the cliffside trail where I walk, even the grocery store. He’d be there, casual but deliberate, like he’d mapped my routine. People noticed. My coworker Jen started teasing me, saying I’d caught a rock star’s eye, but it didn’t feel like a joke. My phone lit up with notifications—fan accounts on X posting grainy photos of Torin near me, speculating about “his new obsession.” I wanted to scream that I didn’t ask for this.**

**Then the gifts started. A vinyl of his latest album appeared on my doorstep, signed with “For Mara, who gets it.” A notebook filled with handwritten lyrics, some about a “girl with cliffside eyes.” Once, a bouquet of wildflowers—my favorite, though I’d never told him that. It was too much. I confronted him one evening outside the library, rain soaking us both. “Torin, why are you doing this? I’m nobody. You need to stop.”**

**He looked at me, rain dripping from his hair, and said, “You’re not nobody. You’re the only one who makes the world quiet.” His voice was raw, like he was confessing a sin. I didn’t understand—still don’t—but it shook me. He didn’t apologize, just walked away, leaving me with the weight of his words.**

**Now, I’m jumpy, always looking over my shoulder. His music’s everywhere—radios, my playlists, even my dreams. Last week, I heard his new single, and the lyrics were about a girl who “carries stars in her silence.” It’s me, I know it is. I don’t know why he’s fixated on me, but it’s like he’s rewriting my life into his songs, and I’m trapped in the melody. I just want my quiet back, but Torin Blaze’s shadow is everywhere, and I’m not sure how to escape a star that burns this bright.**