My Online Boyfriend Mistook Me for Someone Else—I Left Chapter 13
Following that confrontation on the campus path, Weston Sterling only showed up twice more.
On his second visit, he accidentally left his signature pocket watch sitting on the main desk of my design studio. I fired a call to his cell, but it rang through to voicemail.
With no other choice, I took the subway down to his luxury high-rise apartment complex. But as I rounded the corner of the pristine courtyard, I froze.
Cynthia Valentine was standing by the entrance, a sleek designer suitcase parked at her side. She was sobbing hysterically, throwing herself entirely into Weston’s arms.
“I know you loathe me for what I did, Weston! But I only did it because I was completely, utterly consumed by you!”
“Do you think it was easy for me? Living a stolen life every single day, terrified out of my mind? I had nightmares every night that the second you found out the truth, you’d look at me like I was garbage!”
“I’m only back in the country for a few days. Just walk around the city with me, please? After this week, I swear on my life I will never cross your path again.”
Through the distance, I watched Weston’s hand instinctively rise, his fingers hovering in the air as if to wipe away her tears. But midway through the gesture, he froze. As if a sudden, chilling memory had struck him, his hand dropped back to his side.
He gently but firmly pushed her away, creating a hard boundary between them. “I’ve already found her, Cynthia.”
The words hit her like a physical blow. Cynthia snapped her head up, her flawless face completely wrecked by tears. “Is she… is she really that much better than me?”
Before Weston could formulate an answer, his eyes tracked past her shoulder and locked onto me.
I didn’t cause a scene. I simply walked up, offered him a polite, neutral nod, and set the pocket watch down on the concrete bench next to them. Then, I turned on my heel and walked away without looking back.
The second I slid into the back of a hailed cab, my phone exploded with missed calls from his number. I finally tapped the screen and called him back.
His breath came through the line in ragged, desperate gasps. “Rainy… I’ll handle her. I’ll make sure she understands it’s completely over.”
I looked out the window as the city lights blurred past. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Weston.”
“But honestly… I never got to say it back then. Regarding that fifty grand from high school… thank you. It really helped me out.”
On the other end of the line, a heavy, agonizing silence stretched out. It took him a long moment to even recalibrate his memory to connect with the mention of the high school bounty.
When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with an unbearable, suffocating grief. “But… the fact that you were the one who picked up that watch… that was supposed to be our destiny, wasn’t it?”
I rolled down the cab window, letting the biting winter air rush over my face. “But it was a stolen script from the very beginning. It never belonged to me.”
“And look at you today. Even after everything… you still can’t bring yourself to be entirely ruthless to Cynthia Valentine.”
That winter, my design studio locked down a massive corporate contract, clearing a phenomenal profit margin.
I pulled up my chat with Wilder Vance, successfully requested Weston’s private bank routing number, and transferred exactly fifty grand back into his account.
As the transaction confirmation flashed green on my screen, the remaining fragments of my teenage insecurity, the suffocating shadows of my unrequited high school heartbreak, and the ghosts of Bridgewater Academy finally dissolved into nothing.
Outside, the midnight sky violently erupted into a breathtaking display of New Year’s fireworks.
I snapped a quick photo of the vibrant colors bleeding across the dark sky and fired it over to Wilder.
[Beautiful, isn’t it? Want to watch them together next year?]
His reply flashed back within a literal second — a photo taken from an angle that looked mirror-matched to mine.
[We can watch them together tonight. Look down.]