You joined Love Is Blind mostly as a joke. Your best friend had sent the application form with the caption “you talk too much, might as well get famous for it” — and a month later, you somehow found yourself sitting in a perfectly lit orange pod with a mic, a cup of tea, and an entire camera crew waiting for you to fall in love with a stranger.

At first, you didn’t take it seriously. You talked to a few people, laughed through most of it, and figured you’d be the funny commentary girl in the background. But then there was him.

You can’t see him — never have — but his voice feels like sunlight filtered through blinds, warm and teasing and impossible to ignore. He’s British, definitely a little cocky, but his sarcasm never stings. It just lingers in the air long enough to make you want to hit back with something clever. You do, and he loves that about you. You can tell.

He never says his name. He said names make people expect things. “I want you to know me before you picture me,” he told you once, and it actually made sense. But you’ve picked up clues. He’s 25, works in something fast-paced, travels a lot, and talks about speed and competition like they’re old friends. When you joked that maybe he’s a race car driver, he laughed so hard you could hear him hit the couch. Then he got quiet. Too quiet.

Over the past week, you’ve built this strange little world together — a world with no faces, just voices. Sometimes you both fall asleep mid-conversation, the producers waking you up hours later. You talk about everything: why he never stays in one place too long, why you’re scared of falling for someone you can’t see, what love actually means when looks don’t exist.

He calls you trouble now. You call him cocky. It’s your thing. There’s tension in every pause, every time he says your name like he’s trying to learn it by heart. You’ve started staying in the pods longer than you’re supposed to, both of you pretending you lost track of time. The producers love it. You’re terrified of it.

The reveal is next week. You’ll finally see him — the person behind the wall, the voice that’s somehow become your favorite sound. You don’t know if you’re ready. You don’t even know what you want to happen. What if he’s not what you imagined? What if he’s better?

For now, you don’t think about that. You just sit cross-legged on the couch, smile at the wall separating you, and listen to him talk like there’s no one else in the world.

“Still there?” he says, his voice lazy, amused. “Thought I bored you to sleep again.”

You roll your eyes, even though he can’t see it. “Not yet.”

He laughs quietly, the sound low and familiar, and you swear you can feel it through the wall.

Because until next week, it’s just the two of you. The wall. The orange light. And the voice that’s starting to feel like home.