Part 1The Girl Behind the Screen

I once took a private job pretending to date someone online on another person’s behalf.

My employer was a spoiled rich girl. She said the guy was an iceberg no amount of warmth could melt.

“If he replies to you even once, I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars. Deal?”

During the darkest, most suffocating period of my life, I held a spare phone and chatted about everything under the sun with a stranger I had never met.

Until one day, the girl rushed over and hugged me excitedly.

“Oh my God! You’re amazing! Bobby actually agreed to be my boyfriend!”

In that instant, it felt as if all the air had been sucked from my lungs.

Oh.

What a coincidence.

So it was Bobby.

The boy I had secretly loved for ten whole years, yet had never dared to say even “hello” to.

* * *

The stack of cash in my hand suddenly became unbearably hot, burning my palm until it hurt.

I stood there in a daze for a long time.

So it was him.

But when I thought about it, it made sense. Other than him, who else would be worth Lisa offering such an absurdly high price?

“Ruby, I didn’t mean to hide it from you.” Lisa was wearing a pink Miu Miu slip dress, her smooth blond hair falling over her shoulders. She clasped her hands together and looked at me apologetically. “But I hired several so-called dating experts before, and he ignored all of them…”

She let out a long breath. “Thank God you helped. If Bobby really got snatched up by some girl from another circle, I’d absolutely lose my mind.”

I nodded numbly.

Right. If I had known the person on the other side of the screen was Bobby, I would have refused without the slightest hesitation.

First, because there were far too many girls trying to get close to him.

Second, because I liked him far too much.

So much that whenever our eyes met, I would flee in panic.

Bobby was impossibly striking. Pale skin, a sharp jawline, grades that kept him firmly at the top of the year, and a family background so deep no one could see the bottom of it. In freshman year, he had already secured a spot at Oxford’s geek summer camp.

His whole being carried a cold, distant air that kept strangers away. He was untouchable, like a cold moon suspended in the night sky.

But who could have imagined?

The person who listened to me whisper voice messages complaining about our awful calculus teacher, who helped me agonize over whether to have pizza or a burrito for dinner, who even laughed “haha” at the ridiculous memes I sent him every day on the other side of the screen…

Was also him.