Chapter 1

Move-in day. Hugh Matthews, the guy I'd been dating online for three months, came to meet me at the station.

Three roommates trailed behind him.

The first one took my bags.

"Jess, is your grandmother out of the hospital?"

The second handed me a bottle of room-temperature water.

"You get carsick. Don't gulp anything cold."

The third one looked me in the eyes and smiled.

"First time away from home, crying till two in the morning last night. Can't tell today, though."

I'd only ever told Hugh those things.

I stopped walking.

"How do you all know that?"

Hugh slung an arm around his roommate's shoulder.

"We're close. I don't hide our chats from them."

The third guy blurted out,

"Hugh went to sleep at eleven last night. After that it was obviously me who—"

Hugh shoved him hard.

"You've had too much. Shut up."

The whole group cracked up.

I took out my phone and pulled up the messages.

After eleven, Hugh hadn't sent a single voice note.

But that account had stayed with me until two in the morning.

Calling me baby, over and over.

I looked up at Hugh.

"After you fell asleep, who was on your phone keeping me company?"

...

The smile faded off his face.

Horace Donaldson rubbed his nose.

"I was just talking. Didn't mean anything."

"Who was it last night?"

Nobody answered.

Bernard Fox, standing at the back, dropped his head.

Hugh grabbed my hand.

"Jessica, you just got here. Don't make a scene at the station."

I pulled my hand back.

"I ask one question and that's making a scene?"

His face went dark.

"I was too tired last night. Bernard saw you crying and typed a few things back for me."

"He just didn't want you to feel bad."

Bernard nodded.

"Just a few lines. Nothing else."

I scrolled through the messages.

After eleven, that person had talked with me for three hours.

Asked about my grandmother, coaxed me to sleep, said once the term started he'd never leave me on my own again.

A few lines?

I held the phone out to him.

"Which lines did you type?"

Bernard didn't take it.

Horace laughed.

"His wife, come on, we all share a dorm. Does it matter who typed it?"

"Hugh calls you baby all day long. Our ears have gone numb from hearing it."

Bob Norris joined in.

"Relax, we're not laughing at you."

My stomach twisted.

Over three months I'd told him how scared I was checking my SAT scores, how helpless I felt when my grandmother was in the hospital, how much I couldn't stand leaving my parents the first time.

I thought Hugh was the only one who knew.

But they knew everything, right down to what time I'd stopped crying.

"Those were things I said to my boyfriend."

"Not entertainment for your dorm."

The laughing stopped.

Hugh shoved my bags into the trunk.

"Fine. From now on they don't touch it. Today's your move-in day. Don't get worked up over something this small."

I stood where I was.

He turned and looked at me.

"Weren't you the one who couldn't wait to see me?"

People were coming and going all around us.

Pushing it further would only draw a bigger crowd.

I got into the car.

The whole ride, Bob held up his phone, the lens swinging onto my face more than once.

I put a hand up.

"Don't film me."

Hugh laughed.

"Bob runs a campus account. He's just recording the welcome for new students."

"If you don't want your face in it, he'll blur it later."

At the school, a few students recognized Hugh.

"Hugh, new girlfriend?"

He pulled me in by the shoulder.

"Three months online. Met in person for the first time today."

Someone beside us instantly raised a phone.

I pulled away from him.

"I'm going to check in first."

Bob followed me all the way to the registration desk.

"Hey, freshman, did you apply to our school just for Hugh?"

"No."

I handed my acceptance letter to the staff member.

"This was my first choice before I ever met him."

Bob lowered the phone.

"That part's no good. Say it again."

I looked at him.

"What do you mean, no good?"

Hugh tugged at Bob.

"She just got here, she's shy. Quit teasing her."

He said it like he was rescuing me.

Everyone around us laughed anyway.

I finished the paperwork and went to the dorm alone.

My new roommate, Jemima Hughes, was making her bed.

When she saw me, she froze for a couple of seconds.

"You're Jessica Henson?"

"Yeah."

She picked up her phone.

"The campus gossip page just posted a video. That's you in it, right?"

I took the phone.

【Small-town freshman crosses the miles just to meet her campus heartthrob in person.】

In the video, Hugh wheeled my bags for me while three roommates crowded around me, grinning.

My line, "This was my first choice all along," had been cut clean out.

Bob had promised to blur my face.

Instead it was on full display from start to finish.

The comments were already in the hundreds.

【Chasing a guy the second she moves in. Total love-brain.】

【Hugh sure goes through girlfriends fast.】

【She looks so meek, but she's got some nerve.】

I gripped the phone and opened the second half.

The screen suddenly went black.

My crying came through it.

"Hugh, my grandmother's still in surgery."

"I'm really scared. Can you stay with me?"

That was a call from a month ago.

I'd never agreed to let him record it.

At the end, four phones appeared on screen.

On every one of them was that line I'd sent:

【Baby, good night.】

A line of text had been added below:

【The same sweet nothing. Why is it sitting in four different guys' phones?】

The comment section turned in an instant.

【Two-timing four guys at once?】

【Worked her way through the whole dorm. Talk about knowing how to play.】

【Looks so innocent, but she's this wild behind closed doors.】