Aaron’s reply is so quiet the mic barely picks it up: “You aren’t her.”
Natalie laughs, fake and brittle. “Guess I should have gone heavier on the perfume.”
Aaron’s voice again, lower. “I know what Jessica felt like. Smelled like. This isn’t funny.”
He stands up. The video cuts to a photo of him outside, hands in his pockets, staring into space like he’s waiting for the rest of his life to start.
I close the window, nausea rising.
But the story isn’t finished. That night, the campus social feeds blow up, every post more savage than the last. There’s aside-by-side of Aaron and the fake Jessica: “When you order your soulmate on Wish dot com.” There’s a hashtag, #GotHim, trending in three group chats by midnight. Someone makes a meme of Aaron’s face on a milk carton: MISSING—LAST SEEN IN THE CLOSET.
I try to ignore it, but the posts multiply faster than I can delete them.
Sara texts:He didn’t deserve that.
Sara again, a minute later:Neither did you.
By midnight, I’m in my room, lights off, staring at the ceiling while my phone flickers with notifications. I picture Aaron alone, scrolling through the carnage, replaying every second in high-def. I wonder if he’s angry or just numb.
I wonder what it would feel like to be the one to make it right.
I pick up my phone, thumb hovering over Aaron’s contact. I start to type: “I’m sorry.” I delete it. I try again: “You don’t know me, but—” Delete. My hands sweat and shake. The cursor blinks at me, judgmental.
Finally, I set the phone on my chest and close my eyes.
The last thing I see is Aaron’s blank face, stuck behind the glass, waiting for someone to let him out.
—ΠΩ—
Hunter’s in the lounge when I get back, propped on the ancient futon with his feet on the coffee table and his phone at maximum brightness. There’s a box of knockoff Oreos on the cushion beside him, already half-empty. The TV’s on mute, rerunning highlights from a game nobody watched.
He doesn’t look up when I walk in, just starts narrating over the soundtrack of his own scrolling. “Dude, you gotta see this one. Someone cropped Aaron’s head onto the Titanic, onlythe iceberg is, like, a giant lipstick tube.” He wheezes, shoves an Oreo in his mouth, and keeps going. “Oh, and here’s the one where he’s holding a ‘lost dog’ poster but the missing pet is you. Classic.”
I drop my bag at the end of the couch and try to look amused, but it’s a bad impression. I can’t stop seeing Aaron’s face in the grainy screenshot from earlier—how blank it was, like he’d been hollowed out and left running on auto.
Hunter nudges my knee with his socked foot. “Lighten up, Montgomery. Dude’s got an ego the size of Pluto, he’ll bounce back.”
I pick at the seam on the couch, lips pressed together. “He looked wrecked.”
Hunter shrugs, sliding his phone onto the table. “That’s how it works. Survival of the memeable.” He pours out three more cookies and lines them up in a row. “Honestly, he deserved it. Remember what he said about Natalie? If you ask me, he got off light.”
I can’t argue, not really. But there’s something about the look on Aaron’s face in that photo—some unfinished edge that feels more familiar than I want to admit.
Hunter’s already moved on, watching a TikTok of a dog playing Jenga. “You wanna hit the rec center after dinner? I heard they’re doing a dodgeball thing.”
I shake my head, watching the light flicker on the TV. “Nah. Think I’ll chill here tonight.”
He doesn’t press. Hunter never cares enough to press.
I sit there for a while after he leaves, staring at the crumbs on the table, the muted game running endless replays. The air in the lounge is stale, heavy with the ghost of microwave popcorn and burned pizza rolls. The longer I sit, the louder the memory gets—the low thrum of Aaron’s voice in the closet, the way his hands fit so perfectly around my waist.
Eventually, I go to my room. I shut the door and turn off the overhead light, letting the blue of my laptop screen paint the walls. I open my phone, scroll past the images and the endless commentary, and stop at Aaron’s post from yesterday. It’s still there, unsolved, already buried by the next wave of drama.
I start to type. “Hey.” Delete. “You don’t know me, but—” Delete. “It was me.” Delete.
Every time I get close, my chest locks up. I see his face in my head, waiting, hopeful, then see it again after today—flattened, arms out, bracing for the punchline. My stomach twists.
I close my phone, then open it, then close it again.
