The Wrong Girl in His DMs

[Baby, you're so cute. I can't wait to see you this weekend.] That was my online boyfriend.

My roommate had doctored a photo of me until I looked hideous, then sent it to him from my phone. He wasn't put off at all. He was laughing, telling me I was cute.

I was about to explain that it had been a test when my phone pushed a trending post to the top of my screen.

The guy who wrote it said he'd paid six thousand dollars for his crush's Snapchat.

Six months of a real, sincere online relationship, and right before they were supposed to meet, he found out the girl on the other end wasn't the same person at all.

And that she was ugly. The last line of his post was this: [At this point even seeing her chat thread makes my skin physically crawl a little.

I want out.] Chapter 1 Something made me tap into that post. I still don't know what. I scrolled down.

The top comment jumped out at me right away. [Bro, this is a pigbutchering scam.

Get your money back off her first, then dump her.] OP replied: [No point chasing it, I don't need the money. And every time it comes up I flinch, it makes me feel sick. Six months.

I was in a relationship with a con artist for six months!] The drama radar on that thread lit up fast. [Hold on, don't tell me the ugly girl IS the one who sold you your crush's account?] OP answered that one directly. [Yeah.

She's my crush's roommate, I'm pretty sure. Taking my money, fine, I don't care.

What I can't accept is that she impersonated someone else and played with my feelings.] Someone came back at him fast: [How do you even know?

What if you've got it wrong?] He replied in seconds. [My crush and I fed the same colony of strays. She doesn't know who I am, but I saw her once.

I'm not wrong.] [Six months ago, by pure chance, I tracked down her roommate and bought "her" Snapchat off that roommate.

I never imagined she'd take my money and my feelings both.] The further I read, the more familiar it all felt.

The way he told it… was weirdly close to how I'd met my own online boyfriend. We'd fed the same colony of strays too.

The difference was that my boyfriend had gotten my contact information from the animal hospital, as far as I knew, and he'd added me to send back the money for the cat's surgery.

I sat there, a little lost in it.

By the time I looked back, the comments had split into two camps, half of them roasting him, half telling him to settle for what he had. [Seriously, though.

You can lock out a burglar, you can't lock out a roommate. She's probably been watching your crush for ages. How else would she know that many details?

You never once suspected her.] [I can't do it, this ugly chick is genuinely disgusting, I'm gonna be sick.

If you hadn't already known what your dream girl looked like, she'd have gotten away with it!] [I don't think this was about feelings at all.

She saw that you had money, one hundred percent, so she pushed her own alt account on you.

That's a straightup gold digger.] [Honestly, if your online girlfriend had turned out to be gorgeous, even after you found out she wasn't your crush, you'd have pretended you didn't know you'd been played and kept dating her.

Am I wrong?] [Bro, your own writing is telling me you still love her.

You've brought up her playing with your feelings three separate times.] [Yeah, your heart really isn't in this breakup.

Just roll with it and stay with her.] [Looks aside, what's she actually like?] OP really did answer that one: [Being fair about it. Apart from not being goodlooking, she's fine.

Sweet voice, cute personality, gentle with people.] The thread cracked up. [Bro, do NOT tell me you still like this con artist.] [Sweet voice, great personality, and what good is any of that?

She's ugly. Could you actually sleep with her? Obviously you go after the pretty one!] Chapter 2 [Here's a move for you. Go back and chase your crush for real.

Once you land her, send the ugly girl a selfie and cut her off cold, then take her whole suite out to dinner.] [Holy shit, you are genuinely evil!] OP left a reply under that piece of strategy.

Before I could open it, the page refreshed and the reply was gone. All that was left was one line of gray text: [Comment deleted.] It never showed up in the thread again.

I sat with that for two seconds, then opened his profile. His profile was a list of posts, each one showing only a title and the sub it had been posted in. He'd made exactly two.

The second one was in r/CopelandU. Our school's sub. My heart missed a beat. I opened it. My stomach dropped, and kept dropping. The title was [My Cupid Kitty God].

The picture attached was, unmistakably, the oddeyed calico I had taken to the animal hospital six months ago. My head was a tangle. Could it just be a coincidence?

But I compared them again and again, and there was no mistake. Then what was all that in the other post about impersonating someone and buying an account?

I was still staring at the photo with my lips pressed together when Ultraviolet, my online boyfriend, happened to message me. [Baby, something came up for this weekend.

Let's push our meetup back a little.] My breath caught. I opened the message slowly and asked him, deflated and lost: [Why are we pushing it back?

I've been looking forward to meeting you for so long~] He didn't answer. After hesitating a long time, I bit down lightly on my lip and started typing again.

Better to explain first, then work my way around to asking him about the post. [Oh yeah!

That selfie just now was me messing with you~ this is the real one.] [Image] [bunnypeeking.jpg] But Ultraviolet, who had always answered me within seconds, didn't say anything at all.

I thought about the day Ultraviolet and I first added each other. Maybe he was worried I'd misunderstand, or that it would seem out of nowhere.

He sent me a few photos of the strays first, along with a picture of Hoover recovering after the surgery I'd taken him in for. Then he started explaining why he'd reached out. [Hi.

This stray is a friend of mine, I've been feeding him for a long time. His name is Hoover. The animal hospital told me you were the one who brought him in for treatment. Thank you.

Thank you so much for saving him.] [You fronted fourteen hundred dollars for the surgery.

I've had the hospital refund it straight back to your card.] A second later, a notification popped up from my payment app. [Ultraviolet sent you $2,000.] [I heard you were running a high fever at the time, and that you passed out afterward and your roommate took you to the hospital.

Are you feeling better now?] [Showing up to check on you might be too forward, so I hope you'll accept this. It's how I feel about what you did.

Thank you again for your help.] [kittyprayinghands.jpg] I was a little surprised, and a little embarrassed. I sent it straight back. [Hi! You really don't have to do all that.

Hoover's a kitty I've been feeding too, he's my friend too, so it's just what I should do~] [Oh! And that little Hoover tag on his collar?

I made that~] I made a point of replying directly to the message asking about my health. [Thank you for checking on me, I'm all better now~] Ultraviolet replied to the message about the tag. [So we'd already crossed paths that long ago without ever being in the same place.

That little Perlerbead tag of Hoover's is adorable. Adorable enough that at one point I wanted to steal it and keep it for myself.] That deadpan complimenting technique of his.

It made me want to laugh. A lot of the awkwardness went out of it right then. So we started talking, back and forth like that.

We both loved cats, and it turned out we had plenty else in common. The more we talked, the better we knew each other, and the more charged it got.

Chapter 3 So once I found out he went to the same school I did, I agonized over it for a long time before deciding to float the idea of taking him out to dinner.

The plan was to meet him and feel out where he stood, and see whether there was any chance of this going further.

What I didn't expect was for Ultraviolet to confess to me out of nowhere.

And he was thoughtful about how he did it: [Peaches, I know you've been studying for that certification exam, and you've got the tutoring job on top of it.

I don't want to get in the way of that, and I won't.] [Don't feel any pressure.

We can keep this online for now, and when you feel ready, we'll meet.] [I also know you're an INFP and your social battery drains the second it charges. Don't worry.

Until you're ready, I won't ask about your life offline, and I won't push you into video calls or anything else that puts that kind of weight on you.] Maybe it really was the INFP thing.

I've never been good with people in real life.

When my roommate Marley found out I was meeting my online boyfriend that weekend, she started to say something several times and stopped herself.

In the end she leveled with me. "Cecily, it's not that I'm against meeting people online. It's just, you said the two of you have never even traded photos.

What if he turns out to be hideous?" I said, "Marls, I'm not that hung up on looks…" She sighed, and there was real weight behind it. "But you're so pretty.

I'm scared someone's going to take advantage of you." And with that she just took a picture of me on her phone.

Then she ran it through a photo editor, turned it into something hideous, and sent it to me. "Here. Test your online boyfriend.

If he doesn't pass, then don't go meet him, break it off right away." "And if he still doesn't care after seeing that, then when you do meet him you'll give him the shock of his life." I looked at what she'd done to my face.

I bit my lip and tried to put it gently. "Isn't it kind of mean to mess with him like this?" Something flickered in Marley's eyes, and she snatched my phone out of my hand and sent it herself. "Oh, come on, Cecily, you've never dated anyone, you don't know how this works.

I've been there. Trust me." My eyelid twitched, hard. I couldn't shake the feeling that this was headed somewhere I couldn't control.

But by the time I got my phone back from Marley, he'd already opened it. Still, it turned out fine. Half an hour later Ultraviolet answered me.

And after seeing that hideous photo, he laughed and complimented me instead. [Baby, you're so cute. I can't wait to see you this weekend.] My ears burned.

He'd looked straight at that photo and called me cute anyway, and it left me a little embarrassed. [I can't wait either.] Thinking it through now.

No wonder it took Ultraviolet half an hour to reply. The first thing he did after seeing the "ugly photo" was go post about it in disgust. Was that it? I woke up the next morning.

Only then did Ultraviolet's reply come in. He didn't answer the message about why he was pushing the meetup back.

Instead he replied to the selfie I'd resent. [Are you testing me with a photo you pulled off the internet, baby?] [I'm not shallow about looks.

I don't care that much about a face.] I understood what he was implying. But the picture I'd sent him was a barefaced selfie I'd taken the day before without thinking about it.

I hadn't even edited it. I explained, feeling a little wronged. [No… if you don't believe me, we can video chat.] Ultraviolet's typing indicator flickered for more than a minute.

Then the new message came through. [.] [I really don't like being lied to.

I kept waiting for you to tell me the truth, and you're still lying to me.] Chapter 4 [And the person who fed that colony of strays with me at Hollow Rise wasn't you either.

When you pulled some gorgeous picture off the internet to fool me with, I don't think you counted on me having seen her in person once.] [Peaches, have you told me one true thing?] My eyes went red all at once.

I took a deep breath.

I forced my hands steady enough to type back. [I don't know what you think you've got wrong, but that photo is me, and I'm the one who fed Hoover.] Ultraviolet answered fast, like it came out of him without a thought. [OK] [Then let's break up.] My nose stung and the tears came all at once.

So annoying. Whenever I'm upset I can never hold them back. It took several deep breaths before I had myself under control.

Ultraviolet was my first love, and I'd put real care into this relationship. Losing it to a misunderstanding, just like that, wasn't something I could accept.

I was about to start a video call to him. Then a message from the suite group chat popped up. My thumb slipped and opened it.

It was from Marley. [@Violet omg, Your Highness, Eric Sloane spent last night going around asking people for your class schedule.] [Image] [Is he chasing you or what!] Violet answered right away. [Maybe.

No wonder he added me a minute ago, I haven't added him back yet.] [Looked up a picture of him, he's pretty hot actually.] [But it's not like I'm short on guys.

We'll see what he does.] I froze. The picture was a small group chat from the physics department. And one of the profile pictures in it was very familiar to me.

It was Ultraviolet, the one using a photo of Hoover.

Around eight the night before, he'd sent a message asking: [Does anyone have tomorrow's class schedule for Violet Coventry in CS?] Someone in the group answered fast. [I do.] [His Highness Sloane, what's this about, you going after Violet?] [Violet's not easy to land, you know.

She's a little princess with her nose in the air, family money, pretty, and she knows how to dress.] [With His Highness Sloane's face and family, you really think he can't close?] [Wait, Eric, don't you have an online girlfriend you're about to meet up with?] Ultraviolet replied to that one directly: [Broke it off.

She was catfishing me with a picture off the internet.] [Damn, so you got pigbutchered.] [Oh.

And here I thought you were a player, lining up one in real life and one online.] [You're actually breaking up? Didn't you say she was the one?

Your boy told us you get this dumb grin every time you're talking to her, that you take your phone into the shower so you can answer her the second she writes.] [Jesus, Eric, that's a fast turnaround.

Don't tell me you fell for Violet at first sight.] Ultraviolet answered again: [Yeah. The one I always wanted to go after was Violet. I got played.] Reading