Chapter 4: Guilt, Rumors, and a Viral Meltdown

That little episode with the boy faded into the background of my everyday life.

Between group projects, part-time shifts at the campus coffee shop, and trying not to flunk statistics, I barely had time to sleep, let alone dwell on the world’s weirdest meetup.

He kept inviting me to play games, and I found excuses to turn him down every time.

Too busy, no time.

I even muted notifications, blaming "bad Wi-Fi" or "essay deadlines" anytime he pinged. Lying to a kid shouldn’t have been this hard.

One dark, windy night, I logged into the game as usual.

The little boy instantly sent a team invite.

LetLetPushTheWave: [Babe, have you been busy lately?]

LetLetPushTheWave: [You’ve turned me down for a week now /crying /crying]

That one "babe" instantly brought back memories of our infamous offline meetup.

I remembered his big, watery eyes, and all the sweet moments from the past three months.

Guilt gnawed at me.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, sweating like I was about to defuse a bomb. I closed my eyes, steeled myself, and typed:

CrispyFriedLittleLobster: [Let’s break up.]

Then I quickly left the room, deleted him from my friends list, and pressed my palms together in apology in front of the game interface, bowing deeply.

Sorry, little guy. I just can’t get past this psychological hurdle.

Afterward, I felt a little down. After all, I’d put real feelings into those three months.

All week, I kept thinking: If only the person I’d fallen for online wasn’t the little boy, but Caleb Jennings—how perfect would that be?

But then I remembered his iceberg face, always keeping people at arm’s length.

The campus heartthrob, in an online romance? No way. Absolutely impossible.

I even tried to imagine it—Caleb hunched over a keyboard, blushing at cheesy chat stickers. Yeah, and maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow with Taylor Swift’s hair. The guy barely cracked a smile in person, let alone on Discord.