It was something always on her mind. Haylie couldn't stop thinking about it. About him.

There was no specific person. It was, to her, a ghost that haunted her. Somewhere out there, there had to be someone just right for her. She wanted so badly to believe in soul mates, true love, puzzle pieces that fit no other. Yet, she found it hard. How could she believe in something she had never experienced, or even seen?

She had seen love, yes, but not true love. Her mother had loves her father, but her father had never cared back. Her grandparents loved each other, but were certainly not soul mates. She began to lose faith in what she had always believed true.

Everywhere she went, she saw him. Or, rather, she imagined him. It wasn't a conscious decision. It was something that she wished away every moment of every day to no avail. And every day, it became harder to send him away. He was so right for her. He was so perfect.

She wasn't looking for someone perfect, though, and he really wasn't flawless. He had faults, but she didn't care. She even likes some of them. But then, how could she like someone who never existed in the first place? He was a dream, a figment of her imagination that haunted her. He was her ghost.

It was three long and troubling years after her first hallucination (as much as she hated that word) and still, she saw him. He appeared to comfort her when she was upset. He came to give her a shoulder to cry on. But when she tried to hug him, hold him tight and never let him go, he was a vapor. A dust that floated off into reality. And always she would come back to her senses feeling a little worse than before.

It was getting so hard for her. Even as a girl who rarely cried, she began to let tears soundlessly lull her to sleep. And the scariest part was that she was afraid to tell anyone. She had learned long ago not to trust. Whenever she opened herself up to someone, they let her down. And that was why she began to believe that she would never find her one love.

She just didn't know how. She didn't know where to look. She didn't know if she was even meant to love. Maybe she was just an unlucky person, not quite good enough to find love.

After time, she began to see herself through what she thought others would see: annoying, loud, immature, unpretty. Every flaw in herself she found.

And she couldn't escape.