Page 32 of A Smile Full of Lies
It was relief. Warm. Quiet. Dangerous. Because now I wasn’t just seen. I wasunderstood.
My fingers hovered for a moment.
Then I typed another reply.
GraveyardGirl93
Who made you like this?
The cursor blinked once. Twice.
My chest felt tight.
I wasn’t even sure what I meant. Like this?Like what?Disarming? Gentle? Seductive in a way that wrapped around my bones and whispered truths I’d never said out loud?
Another notification pinged and my heart stuttered.
StrayDog777
I’m not sure I know, honestly. All I know is I like helping you figure these things out. I like listening, helping you work through it all. I could listen to you all day, every day, Graveyard Girl.
I stared at it.
A weird little chill rolled down my spine, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It felt like curiosity curling in on itself. Like being held in the dark by something vast and faceless.
GraveyardGirl93
You’re good at this. Scary good.
The response was slower this time.
StrayDog777
I’ve been told I’m unusually adaptive.
I exhaled through my nose, trying to ignore the goosebumps rising along my arms. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’tthat.
There was something almost… intimate about the way StrayDog777 responded. Not in a dirty way. Justpresent.Focused. Like heknewme. Like he could see straight through all my carefully managed walls and straight into the soft, trembling parts underneath.
It was stupid. It was a random guy on an anonymous forum. And I wasn’t even sure he was really a man at all. He could be anyone behind that screen, for all I knew. But still…
A weird little ache opened in my chest.
Who the hell was this guy?
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss him or punch him in the throat for making me feel this exposed, this terrifyingly seen. It left me feeling exposed and raw.
Or maybe just ask him why he made everything feel so goddamn personal.
I stared at the screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard, but not typing anything. Not yet. Just sitting with the silence and the twist of something too strange to name.
I could have sworn he was watching my every move somehow, but of course he wasn’t… not really.
Of course no one was watching me. That would be insane. That was just the paranoid part of me, the part who’d watched one too many true crime documentaries, piping up.
But what if hewas… Some stubborn part of my brain couldn’t let the idea go.
If StrayDog777wassomehow watching me… what would I do if that were true?
