For a long time, I didn’t post anything.
I only read other people’s stories.
Until one day, I dared to post a much more modest version of that photograph.
The next morning, a man had messaged me.
His name was Adam.
“You have no idea how beautiful you are.”
I didn’t answer.
He wrote again.
“I know you probably get messages from a lot of people. But I didn’t look at your age. I simply saw a woman with life in her eyes.”
I read that sentence three times.
“There is life in your eyes.”
I don’t know why, but that day I answered him.
And that was how everything began.
Adam and I started talking every day.
At first, he was never crude.
He asked about Robert.
He listened when I talked about my loneliness.
He wrote things no one had said to me in twelve years.
“You have every right to feel desirable again.”
“Your age changes nothing.”
“You’re still a passionate woman. You’ve simply forgotten that.”
Those words melted something inside me.
A few weeks later, he asked,
“Would you take another picture for me?”
I thought about it for a long time.
A very long time.
But eventually, I did.
That one photograph became a second.
Then a third.
Soon he started suggesting different outfits.
“Wear red this time.”
The next day,
“Take one in front of the mirror.”
Another day,
“Take this one in the kitchen. The light is softer there.”
And I did it.
At first, I enjoyed it.
Every time Adam wrote, “You look incredible,” I felt ten years younger.
But after a few months, something began to change.
If I didn’t send a picture, he became cold.
“Why not today?”
“Adam, I’m just not in the mood.”
“Okay… I guess I’m not as important to you as you are to me.”
And immediately, I would feel guilty.
So I would take another picture.
One evening, he asked for something that genuinely made me uncomfortable.
I refused.
He didn’t write to me for the entire night.
The next morning, I received a message.
“Margaret, if you don’t trust me, at least be honest about it.”
That was the first time I stopped and thought,
“Is this really love… or am I simply doing everything he asks because I’m afraid he’ll disappear?”
