Part 2Beating My Catfisher At His Game

I expected him to blow up right then and there, but he just slammed his bag onto his chair and started typing furiously on his phone.

My phone buzzed incessantly. I took my time picking it up.

“Did you do that on purpose?!”

I played the confused lover. “What happened, Babe?”

“The data you gave me! It was all wrong! It was a mess! Do you have any idea how much of a fool I looked like today?!”

I let a faint smile touch my lips before typing a frantic apology.

“I’m so sorry. I must have been so tired... the pressure lately has been getting to me. Are you mad? Please don’t be mad.”

“Babe? Why aren't you answering?”

“Maybe we aren't right for each other... I’m so sorry. Maybe we should just end this.”

I set the phone down. It didn't take three seconds for the notification to pop up. I waited five minutes, letting him sweat. He was desperate now; he couldn't lose his "ghostwriter" yet.

“I’m not mad. I was just stressed. I shouldn't have snapped at you.”

“You should rest. I shouldn't have pressured you.”

“This was just really important to me, and I trust you more than anyone. We’re perfect together, right? Let's not talk about breaking up.”

I watched his expression shift from fury to calculated manipulation. “Of course,” I replied.

He sent another message: “Since you messed up, don’t you think you owe me a little something to make it up to me?”

My eyes narrowed. “What kind of compensation?”

He sent a smirking emoji. “I want to see a shirtless photo. You know, show off those gym gains you’re always talking about.”

I froze for a second. In the last life, he only ever asked for selfies—never anything like this. I had clearly bruised his ego more than I realized.

I opened an AI image generator on my laptop. Within seconds, I had a perfectly rendered, headless shot of a torso that looked vaguely like mine, but better. I sent it over.

“Babe, you’re hot!”

“I knew you weren't as innocent as you look.”

I sat on my bed, watching him sit at his desk, staring at his phone and smirking. Suddenly, he looked up and met my eyes. There was a glimmer in his gaze—the look of a man who thought he’d just secured the ultimate blackmail.

A few days later, a package arrived for me.

“Babe, I bought you a suit!” he messaged. It was in a box with a high-end designer logo.

“Your department’s 30th Anniversary Gala is coming up, right? You’re the star student, you’re giving a speech. You need to look the part. I’ve seen all the guys talking about this brand. If other guys have it, my boyfriend should too.”

In my previous life, I had been so moved I nearly cried. That brand was thousands of dollars. How long had a student like Tyler saved for that? I wore it to the gala, feeling like the luckiest man alive.

The mockery started before I even reached the stage. By midnight, the campus forums were ablaze. “Star Student Wears Fake Couture.” The "designer" suit was a cheap knockoff, and I was the laughingstock of the elite university circle.

When I got back to the dorm, Tyler had led the charge. “Wearing a fake to a black-tie event? How embarrassing can you get?”

The whole floor laughed. They called me a social climber, a fraud. I was so humiliated I couldn't leave my room for a week. When I confronted "her" via text, "she" turned it on me: “Are you accusing me? I’m just a girl, I don’t know about brands! I just wanted to do something nice for you, and you’re being so ungrateful!”

This time, I replied: “Thank you, Babe. I love it.”

The night of the gala arrived. I stepped onto the stage under the burning spotlights. The auditorium was packed. Tyler was in the front row, his eyes fixed on me like a hawk. He was waiting for the first whisper of "fake," waiting for the forums to explode, waiting for my public execution.

But as the minutes ticked by, nothing happened. No one pointed. No one laughed.

Finally, he couldn't help himself. He leaned over to the people next to him, his voice just loud enough to carry. “Hey, does Emmett’s suit look a bit... off to you? Like a knockoff?”

He stood up slightly. “The cut is weird, right? And the color? No student can afford a ten-thousand-dollar suit. It’s got to be a fake.”

Murmurs started to ripple through the crowd. People pulled out their phones.

During the intermission, Tyler and a few of his cronies blocked my path. “Emmett, where’d you get the threads? Amazon? Looks like a two-hundred-dollar special.”

They roared with laughter.

I calmly pulled out my phone and sent a message to "her."

“Babe, everyone is saying the suit you gave me is a fake. My roommates are laughing at me.”

He replied instantly: “Don’t listen to them! They’re just jealous! It’s real! Don’t you trust me?!”

I looked at him standing right in front of me, staring at his phone, playing his part with Oscar-worthy dedication.

Back in the hall, the Q&A session began. A guy in the back raised his hand. “Emmett, there’s a rumor going around that you’re wearing a counterfeit suit tonight. Is your academic integrity as fake as your clothes?”

The room went dead silent. Tyler and his friends were wearing shit-eating grins.

I stood on the stage, unhurried. I turned around, letting the back of the jacket catch the light, revealing the gold-threaded logo.

“Who told you it was a fake?”