My Online Boyfriend Mistook Her for Me

Truth or dare landed on me: videocall the boyfriend I'd been dating online for a year. I knocked my glass straight over.

The boy I'd been talking to every night for a year was my best friend's older brother. One year. We had never once seen each other's faces.

Sadie laughed at me. "That was a big reaction. Are you dating someone you're embarrassed about?" I didn't say a word. The door of the private room swung open. "Adrian?

What are you doing here?" "Picking up my girlfriend." He looked straight at me and started walking over. Sadie looked at him, then at me. Her eyes went huge. I froze too.

I almost asked him how long he'd known it was me. Then he walked right past me and took the tray out of the waitress's hands. "Baby. I said I'd cover your tuition.

Why are you sneaking off to work again?" Chapter 1 It took me a second to catch up. Sadie's voice went off right next to my ear. "Adrian! Learn to finish a sentence.

I thought you meant my best friend." "Hold on. When did you get a girlfriend?" "Do I have to file a report with you?" Adrian looked done with her.

Then he reached the girl in the apron, and his whole face changed. His voice went soft. "I've got this. Go take your break." He pushed his sleeves up and started clearing plates.

He was bad at it. Grease splattered across a shirt that had been made for him. He frowned, breathed in through his nose a few times, and kept going.

He didn't let anyone else take over. Sadie rubbed her eyes like she couldn't trust them. "Is that my brother? He won't touch a doorknob without hand sanitizer." She turned to me.

When I didn't react, she pushed. "Why are you so calm? Do you know something?" I dug my nails into my palm. I couldn't shake my head. I couldn't nod either.

Because until tonight, I thought I was the one dating him. We met on an anonymous vent app. It started as messages at two in the morning. It turned into everything.

The night I figured out he was Sadie's brother, I was terrified and thrilled at the same time. Terrified she'd find out.

Thrilled that the boy I'd been quietly in love with for years was somehow mine. Six months in, finals were coming, and my dad locked my phone in the safe. Three months.

No contact at all. I got it back the day I walked out of my last exam. One login later, I found out he'd blocked me. I decided it had to be my fault.

I felt sick about it for weeks and never found the right moment to explain. So in those few seconds tonight, I'd made up my mind.

I was going to say it out loud, in front of everyone. I was the girl on the other end of that app. He could be angry. He could be done with me.

Either way, I was going to be brave once. Now there was nothing left to be brave about. While we were cut off, he'd lined up the next girl without missing a beat. "Nova.

What are you thinking about?" "Nothing." I made myself breathe. "Something came up. I have to head home." "Home?

You're not going to talk to your online boyfriend?" When I stood up, I caught Adrian's eyes by accident. He gave me a polite nod. The kind you give a stranger holding a door.

It went through me like a splinter. I walked faster. Sadie's question followed me out the door. There was no online boyfriend. There wasn't going to be one ever again.

I ran the whole way home. Three minutes left before the enrollment portal closed. Midnight was the deadline. After that it locked, and nothing could be changed for a full year.

With seconds to spare, I switched my confirmation from the school in Boston to one down south in Savannah. A thousand miles away from him. I made it.

When the words CONFIRMATION RECEIVED came up on the screen, I finally let myself think the question. He never recognized me. Not for one second, all night.

So who had I been dating for a year? Chapter 2 I couldn't stand the other version of it.

Four years alone in a cold northern city, for a guy who'd replaced me before the ink was dry. I dropped onto my bed with my shoes still on. Rain woke me up.

I have no idea how much later. I got up to shut the window. The old frame squealed, and two figures walked into view down on the sidewalk. "Slow down.

You're going to fall again." "Nope." Adrian let the girl pull him along. He was looking at her like she was made of glass and gold. They laughed.

Their shadows leaned in until there was nothing between them. He kissed her like he'd been waiting all night to do it. Their breath fogged the clear umbrella from the inside.

I shut the window with clumsy hands. My head went dull. My throat felt like I'd swallowed a razor. My phone buzzed on the nightstand, over and over.

Voice messages from Sadie. "I can't believe my brother finally cracked. Hell actually froze over." "When Mom and Dad were on him about dating, he said he already had a girlfriend.

We all thought it was an excuse. Turns out it was true." "I got it out of him. They've been together a year." It took me a second to get the word out. "A year?" "Yeah.

Kept it underground the whole time. My brother could keep a secret from the FBI." The ache came back up my chest. We started a year ago too. Which meant every night I'd saved.

Every word he typed to talk me down. Every conversation that ran until the sky turned gray. I thought he actually knew me. I was something he did to pass the time. "Anyway.

Why'd you sprint out of here like the place was on fire?" I sniffed and made my voice light. "Nothing. I changed schools. Boston's too far.

Savannah suits me better." "Seriously?!" "You finally came to your senses. So what happens to your online boyfriend?" I stared out the window. Thunder rolled.

On nights like this, Adrian used to call before I could ask. He knew storms scared me. It didn't matter if he had an eight a.m. class. He'd stay on the line until I was asleep.

He'd sing the lullaby his grandma taught him. "Moon's coming up, porch light's still on.

Hush now, baby, sleep till dawn…" With that low voice in my ear, I slept like a person who was safe.

Now there was laughing under my window instead. "You're a terrible kisser." "You barely passed. Next time I'm testing somewhere else." "You're the worst. Not here.

The neighbors." I pulled the covers over my head and typed back with stiff fingers. Me: [We broke up.] I never explained why.

Sadie built a whole tragedy in her head, decided I was gutted, and wouldn't let it go until I agreed to a week at the beach with her. I thought it was a girls' trip.

Then, the morning we left, I opened the car door and heard that cool, familiar voice from the driver's seat. "Seat's taken.

You and Sadie are in the back." I straightened up and found myself looking at that sharp profile.

Sadie appeared with her brandnew sisterinlaw on her arm and stuck her tongue out. "Mom and Dad wouldn't let two girls drive down alone.

My brother's the tax." "You think I want to be here?" Adrian said it like we'd asked him to haul trash. Sadie let it slide. She never held on to anything for more than a minute.

The car got loud and warm. Reagan started telling the story of how they met. She shook the diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist. "He knocked it off running after me. It's expensive.

Six figures. He didn't even blink at the card reader." "The repair was another twenty grand." She lifted her hand again so it caught the light. That was when I saw it.

Right next to the diamonds, a faded handmade hair tie. Exactly like the one I used to have. Chapter 3 Sadie ate it up.

So much PDA she needed a bucket, she said. "Oh, is anyone thirsty?" Reagan dug through her bag for drinks. She handed them out one by one.

When she got to me, she made a small sound. "Sorry.

I only brought three." She pressed the last bottle into Sadie's hands and softened her voice. "Sadie, your friend's been so quiet back there.

She's probably not thirsty." "I mean, she can have half of mine. I really don't mind." Then she pulled her hand back, like she was afraid I'd say yes. Maybe I imagined it.

It just felt like she'd decided to dislike me before I ever opened my mouth. I was about to say it was fine.

A bottle came flying over the front seat. "Sadie's friend can have mine." In the rearview mirror, Adrian glanced at me. One second, maybe less.

My heart went off like it had no selfrespect at all.

Then he said, "Rae and I will share." Reagan's pout finally flattened out. "That's more like it." Sadie made three loud gagging noises. "My eyes.

You're burning my eyes." Adrian laughed before he could stop himself. He had a good laugh. It pulled his whole face into a curve. I stared too long.

All those nights on the phone, I'd heard that laugh through a speaker and tried to picture it. More than once. Now I knew. It was exactly as good as I'd imagined.

It just wasn't mine. The car stopped. I pushed my door open and the ocean air came at me all at once. My mother's ashes are in this stretch of water.

Adrian pulled Reagan toward the sunset for photos. "I'll take them for you!" He blocked Sadie like she was a spill about to happen. "You're terrible at this.

Move." Sadie rolled her eyes. "Fine. Fine." Then something occurred to her and she looked at me. "Have Nova do it. She's good.

She can make a thirtydollar thrifted camera look like a threethousanddollar one." She didn't ask me. She just shoved me forward. My brain went white.

I waved my hands. "I don't know how to use a Polaroid." "It's easy." He set the camera in my palm. He kept a respectful distance.

Even so, when he spoke, his breath moved across my neck. "Like this. Okay?" Every muscle in my body locked. It took me way too long to nod.

He was gone before I looked up, jogging back to Reagan. Through the viewfinder, the two of them fit together with no space left. I thought about that summer.

He asked me where I wanted our first picture together. I said the beach. He laughed at me on the other end of the line, soft and low. "That's it?

Our first photo ever and that's all you've got?" It took me a long time to tell him. My mom died of breast cancer in eighth grade. Her ashes went into the water down south.

I wanted her to see all the parts of my life that mattered. He stopped laughing.

When he spoke again, it sounded like a vow. "I won't let her down." That memory froze right there in front of me. Adrian turned his head and kissed Reagan's cheek. "Stop.

Why are you kissing me out of nowhere?" "Rae. I love you." "That's so corny. Why are you being formal about it?" I tried very hard to be calm about it.

The camera wouldn't cooperate. No matter what I did, it wouldn't focus. For the next month I was the official witness to their love story.

They kicked water at each other along the shoreline. They hid behind the rocks at sunset and kissed like nobody could see them.

Twentythree hours out of every twentyfour, he wanted to be attached to her. He was good to Reagan, and good to the rest of us by association.

So good that once, I almost said it in front of everyone. "Do you remember who you promised to take to the ocean?" I bit it in half and swallowed it.

Chapter 4 Every time he brought Reagan snacks, he brought some back for us too. He looked after us like a big brother. I couldn't make it fit.

This person was supposed to be the guy who ran a girl's heart into the ground online. For a second I even wondered if I'd had the wrong man all along.

Maybe someone had stolen his photos and used them on me. That thought didn't survive the afternoon. We went swimming again.

Reagan pointed at his watch. "Why are you wearing that in the ocean?" Adrian's hand stopped halfway to the towel. He looked at her for a long moment. His eyes went dark and flat.

Reagan had no idea. She was still grinning. "What? Is there something on my face?" He put the towel down.

His wet hair fell across his forehead and made him look older, and worse. "Nothing." He thought about it for a long time. Then he reached up and took the watch off.

Underneath was a scar. Thin, faded, low on the wrist. I hadn't gotten it wrong. That mark belonged to him and to nobody else. Adrian's family was broken in the same way mine was.

In high school, his parents' divorce case made the local news. Someone leaked the courtroom video, cut it into clips, and put it online. The whole city sat down to watch.

Sadie got lucky. Their parents left her back home, out of the mud. He handled all of it alone. After that he turned sharp and closed off.

At his worst, he couldn't stand anything around him. He couldn't stand himself either. Once we started talking every night, the thing he said most was thank you.

He said because of me, the urge to hurt himself hadn't come back in a long time. He said because of me, staying alive seemed like a decent option. Now there was no me.

There were also no new marks on his wrist. Reagan showed up, and he smiled more. Sometimes he even looked like a kid. I watched their hands lace together against the sunset.

I laughed at the sand. So all of that had just been something you say to keep a girl on the line. Something big happened right before the trip ended. Adrian and Reagan had a fight.

Nobody would say what it was about. They stopped speaking to each other. Reagan came to cry to Sadie every day. Sadie and I shared a room.

Every time Reagan showed up, I got sent out to stand in the hall. At first Sadie stuck up for me. Then Reagan kept coming, and Sadie got tired.

Except the person she got tired of was me. "Being in the middle of you two is exhausting." "Next time can you just go on your own?

Please?" After that day, she took Reagan's side on everything, before she even knew what the argument was. Even when I was in the middle of something that mattered.

She'd swerve straight back to Reagan. "Wait.

You don't think my brother's cheating on her, do you?" She'd analyze it for ten minutes, then remember I was standing there. "Sorry, what were you saying?" Whatever I'd been about to say died in my mouth.

I'd wanted to tell her that in six days it would be the anniversary of my mom's death. That my dad was coming to pick me up so we could go see her.

The old Sadie would have gotten loud about it with me for an hour. This one had Reagan in both eyes. There wasn't any room left over. A few days later we went to the water park.

They stopped me at the turnstile. Sadie smacked her own forehead. "I forgot to buy your ticket." "You've got hands, don't you? Just order one.

Rae and I are going to do the drop tower." She led Reagan away and never once looked back at me. Over the loudspeaker, they were calling the group number for the drop tower.

Twenty minutes later, someone was going to fall off that ride. Chapter 5 She seemed to have forgotten the trip was her idea.

She'd thumped her own chest when she pitched it. "Just show up. I'll handle everything else." The hurt turned into something flatter. Tired, mostly. I didn't buy a ticket.

I went back to the beach house alone. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Dad. "Hey, sweetheart.

Are you having fun?" I kept my head down and forced it out. "Dad, I want to come home early." There was a pause on his end. Maybe he understood more than I said.

He didn't ask. "Coming home is fine." We sat in that silence a little longer. I hung up. I turned around and almost walked into someone.

Adrian was in a black Tshirt, hair still wet, water running down his neck. "You're leaving? Did you and Sadie fight?" I hadn't expected him to be there.

I didn't know what to do with my own hands. Luckily, he had no interest in anyone who wasn't Reagan. I gave him some excuse. He let it go.

I turned to leave, and behind me something clicked. Adrian had a slim metal tin in his left hand. His thumb kept flicking the lid open and shut.

My eyebrows pulled together, and the thought came out of my mouth before I could catch it. "Why are you back on your meds?" The clicking stopped. The whole hallway went quiet.

That was the second I knew I'd made a mistake I couldn't take back. That tin was a secret between me and Adrian. He didn't want his parents knowing about the diagnosis.

For years he'd carried his bipolar meds around in an old mint tin. He'd been so normal all month that I'd almost forgotten the other side of him. Clingy. Obsessive.

Territorial in a way that stopped being sweet. The day I got my phone back, my burner account was buried under notifications. The messages nearly filled the screen.

Him: [Where are you?] Him: [Why did you leave me? Was I not enough? I can fix it.] Him: [Please don't go…] Him: [Are you planning to drop me?] Him: [Liar.

I don't care where you are. I'll find you.] I wanted to step back. My feet had glued themselves to the floor. All I could do was let him come closer.

His voice was very soft. "Did I ever tell you there was medication in this?" I swallowed