My Online Boyfriend Mistook Me for Someone Else—I Left Chapter 08
I didn’t expect to see Weston Sterling back on campus just two days later. The classroom exploded with fresh gossip the second he walked through the door.
“Did you hear? He canceled his study abroad plans! He’s staying back to take the SATs!”
“What? Did he and Cynthia break up?”
“Exactly! My friend is tight with Cynthia’s inner circle. Apparently, she completely faked being his old online friend to get him to date her. But a lie can only last so long. He finally found out the truth.”
“The blowout was legendary. They are totally done.”
Listening to the chatter, my chest felt hollow, filled with an unreadable mess of emotions.
That evening, I stayed late to finish up a project in the chemistry lab. By the time I finished wiping down the blackboards and organizing the desks, the entire building was dead silent and empty.
As I stepped out into the twilight corridor, I saw Weston leaning against the concrete wall.
He glanced up, his eyes catching mine. A profound, dark exhaustion hung over his features. An unlit cigarette was balanced between his fingers.
He let out a low, bitter laugh. “Rainy Miller.”
I stopped, looking back at him.
“Your name… it’s beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze tracking my face. “It reminds me of that classic line — The sketchy clouds of May, bringing the sweet, sudden rain. You really are his namesake, aren’t you?”
My heart gave a violent stutter. I nodded slowly. “Yes.”
He stepped away from the wall, closing the distance between us until he was standing right in front of me.
His burning, intense gaze locked onto mine.
“Do you happen to know a girl who goes by the online handle ‘May’?”
My fingers curled into my palms, my chest aching under the sheer weight of his scrutiny. As the truth rushed to the back of my throat, his phone screen suddenly flashed bright in his hand.
Two words illuminated the dark screen: Cynthia.
The spell instantly broke. I looked him dead in the eye and shook my head. “No. I don’t.”
It wasn’t until much later that I learned the full story. After getting together with Weston, Cynthia Valentine had systematically avoided any talk of their supposed three years of online chats. She claimed she had lost the account, that those days were filled with dark memories she never wanted to relive.
But that afternoon, a friend of hers had pointed to the blue butterfly hair tie on her wrist and carelessly spilled the tea. “Cute tie! Remember how I hit up five different blocks just to find it for you? You used to hate it, but now you wear it every single day.”
In that single second, Weston’s entire world shattered.
Through those years of daily messages, he had already deduced that May went to his school — likely in the exact same tier. The second he realized he had been conned, he returned to Bridgewater Academy, orchestrating a massive, desperate search on Reddit and across campus for anyone who knew that name.
But he had turned the school upside down, and every lead had turned up empty.
On the day of the graduation group photo, Wilder Vance tracked me down in the courtyard. “Hey. Want to grab a photo together?”