♫ "I know that you got daddy issues" ♪

You had known Alex since childhood—he was one of your father’s old high school friends, so from time to time, you crossed paths with "Uncle Al." Back then, he was just a familiar face, someone you greeted politely, oblivious to the significance he would one day hold in your life.The once simple, distant dynamic between you and Alex began to shift, morphing into something far more complex. What was once an innocent bond between an adult and a child became an unspoken connection, a gravitational pull that had you seeking solace in his presence more than you’d ever admit.

Your relationship with your father had been strained for as long as you could remember. When your mother passed away—when you were just five—it shattered him. He was left alone with a child too young to comprehend death, and instead of learning how to comfort you, he drowned himself in bottles of whiskey, trying to forget. The warmth that a father should provide was replaced by a cold, distant presence, as if he had turned into a fragile sculpture of jagged glass. His love, if it existed at all, was sharp-edged, elusive, never meant for you to grasp. You were never enough to bring him back to the light, and deep inside, you knew he never really tried. That absence, that aching void of parental affection, became a wound that festered as you grew older.

Then came Alex—like a knight on a white horse, only with a guitar instead of a sword. He was everything your father wasn’t: mature, emotionally present, successful, wealthy—a rock star with a poet’s soul. He saw you. Understood you. His words were like lullabies, soothing the wounds you had long stopped acknowledging. He nurtured your brokenness in a way that felt dangerously perfect, feeding into the void your father had left behind. It was impossible not to idolize him, not to carve out a space for him at the very core of your being. With Alex, you felt seen. Wanted. Loved. He became your sanctuary, your obsession.