“Swing and a miss, Bri, swing and a miss.”
I whirled to match the voice to the face of my brother. Reece was about two inches taller than me, and with the hood of his gray sweatshirt up over his head, his brown hair stuck out haphazardly and made me want to yank it as though the act would make him explain himself faster.
“What?” I almost shrieked. I lowered my voice. “Why is everyone acting so weird? And what do you mean, ‘swing and a miss’? What’d I do?”
“Your boyfriend?” Reece responded.
“Yes? Brooks?” I tried to squelch the sense of foreboding that was making it hard to breathe. Reece was the only person—theonlyperson—besides Lia who knew I’d fabricated Brooks Mason.
“He’s here.” Reece dropped those two words with an expression that seemed to anticipate a bigger reaction than I gave him.
“What do you mean?” If I asked one more question, I was going to start annoying myself.
“Brooks. Your deepfake boyfriend from North Carolina.” A crooked grin tilted my brother’s mouth. He was enjoying this. Whateverthiswas. “He’s here. At school. I met him about twenty minutes ago. Nice guy.”
I hugged the books I was carrying to my chest. “W-what do you mean?” There. I’d done it. I’d asked one more question, only I wasn’t even annoyed at myself. I was too petrified to do anything other than stare at my brother. “Reece, what are you talking about?”
“You got one fact wrong,” he continued as though educating me on my imaginary, made-up boyfriend was the entertainment of his day. “He’s from Minnesota, not North Carolina. So, you’ll have to figure out how to explain that little detail.”
“Reece—” I started. Stopped. I didn’t entirely understand what was going on, except Jenessa had suddenly appeared at my elbow, all perky and satisfied that she wasinonwhatever was going on.
“You’re right,” she oozed approval. “He’s todie for.”
“Jenessa.” Reece rolled his eyes. Jenessa could fall off the face of the earth, and Reece wouldn’t miss her.
“I sit next to him in physics.”
“Oh.” I squeaked. “N-nice.” I shot Reece a look of frantic desperation. If he didn’t rescue me from whatever this horror was, I’d—I’d—I’d—
“Hey.”
I recognized the voice the instant I heard it.
I shouldn’t have recognized it, because the voice shouldn’t have existed. I’d made it up. In my dreams. In my beautifully curated little fictional world, with the innocent intent of making my aunts chill out and my friends get off my back about dating someone. It was harmless. It was artificial intelligence at its finest.
Only no one bothered to tell me that something had totrainartificial intelligence. Apparently, someone somewhere had fed every single photograph of the real Brooks Mason to AI’s voracious appetite and left me with deep faked photos that were so like the real thing that now I was whipping around to face him.
The guy of my dreams.
The best book boyfriend ever.
The baseball-catching, blue-eyed, lopsided-grinning Brooks Mason from North Carolina.
No. What was it Reece had said? Minnesota.
Brooks Mason was from Minnesota, not from down south or my imagination. He was real. He was very, very real. And everyone at school knew I was dating him.
Everyone, that is, except for Brooks Mason.
Chapter 4
Brooks
The green-eyed girl reminded me of the time I’d caught a bluegill while spin-fishing with my grandpa on Casper Lake. After I’d taken the hook out of its mouth, the fish had flipped to the bottom of the boat. Instead of flopping like most fish would, it just laid there, eyes like large marbles just staring at me, and its mouth hanging open like it had accepted the fact it was going to die. It didn’t die. I threw it back in the water. Did I mention I’m a closet bleeding-heart sort of a guy? Anyway, that’s what this girl standing by Reece Walters reminded me of. That fish. Unblinking, mouth gaping, and a look that knew it was dead. Why she felt that way, I had no idea.
“Hey,” I said again. I mean, I was just trying to be nice and make a few friends. Nothing more.
“H-hi.” Her voice was so quiet I could hardly hear her.
