“No ... it’s not like that, Samaya. They just saw how stressful it was for me to be with you.”
“Stressful because I’m not Indian enough. Also, Hana’s not Indian, either. She’sPakistani! I can’t believe you actually agreed with your parents about this.”
“I didn’t. I mean ...” Devin ran his hand through his hair. “Honestly, forget I said the Indian part—that’s not what was stressing me out about our relationship.”
“So, what was so stressful?” I asked. And why hadn’t he ever told me about it?
He stared at me, then sighed. “Fine. It’s because you’re smarter than me. My parents could see how stressed I was that you’re smarter than me. That’s why they called the camp and had you transferred.”
For the love of god.“What the hell, Devin? You and I are both smart. We’re the top students in our grade! Both of us! Why would they ruin my summer job because I’m smarter than their precious boy? To sabotage my success?”
“No,youare the top. I’m second best. Last year after the Math Olympics, they saw how hard I studied, and I still scored lower than you. They knew it would stress me out to be in that math camp with you all summer. After breaking up with you.”
I shook my head. Poor fragile masculinity. “So your parents convinced you to dump me because I’m smarter than you, but also a little bit because I was a double migrant who was about to lose her virginity. Nice, Devin. You’re painting you and your family in a lovely light here. No wonder you were too embarrassed to tell me this.”
He sighed, running his hand through his hair. It was a stupid habit. That’s why his hair was probably so shiny—it was greasy. “It sounds horrible when you say it.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I had been in love with him. So much time—and so many feelings—wasted. I loved his ambition, I loved his focus, and I loved the way he made me feel ... worthy. But ... I was starting to see now what went wrong. There’d been plenty of cracks in our seemingly perfect relationship.
Things had changed in the last months before we broke up. We didn’t spend as much time together. We didn’t playDragon Arenajust the two of us anymore. I hadn’t thought we were growing apart; I’d thought we were just ... growing. Finding new interests. Making choices for what we wanted to do after high school. There was no question in my mind that I wanted to stay with Devin, and it was fine that we were going through a phase.
But I also remembered how detached he was when we were alone. I remembered working hard to get him to open up to me. I remembered how worried he was about the Math Olympics results. I’d even heldoff on telling him my results because I thought he’d feel bad about me scoring higher than him.
Now I was furious at myself for doing that. I’d hidden my own accomplishments—minimized my success because I’d worried he’d feel bad about himself instead of happy for me. I’d supported him much more than he’d ever supported me. How had I not noticed it before?
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, as if he knew what I was thinking. “I was under a lot of pressure.”
I sighed. “I understand pressure.” Iwasmad at him—he was too fragile to be with someone smarter than him? Ridiculous. But I sympathized, too. Devin’s parents were extremely ambitious. Only the best schools. Only the top grades. My parents could be intense, but Devin’s had the force of a pressure cooker.
But just because I sympathized ...understood... didn’t mean I was letting him off the hook for being a terrible boyfriend. Or for catfishing me, for that matter. I took a breath. It was time to find out if my ex-boyfriend was LostAxis.
“Devin, I’m glad you told me all this, and that we’re finally talking about why you broke up with me. But that’s not why I’m here. I had three mysteries to solve these last few weeks. First, who was Earl’s Whispers. Two, who kept giving them gossip about me.”
When I didn’t go on to identify the third mystery, he blinked a few times. I knew this guy. I knew him very, very well. And I could tell from his reaction he knew what I was talking about. He didn’t say anything, though. Just stared at me.
“Log in toDragon Arena,” I said, gesturing at his laptop.
He sighed and pulled the computer toward him. After a few moments, he turned it so I could see the character on the screen.
A level-fifty Dark Mage wearing a high-level black cloak and carrying an Obsidian Staff in front of him.
LostAxis.
I came here because I was sure Devin was LostAxis, but seeing the character on the screen felt like a punch to my gut. LostAxis. My old gaming buddy. My friend. “Why ... why did you do this? Create a whole fake character ... just to play with me? I don’t understand, Devin.”
He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t know. It just kind of happened. I started the character secretly so I could play anonymously. Like, without everyone from school, to get away from it all sometimes. Then on that message board, I saw your character, and you were looking for a Dark Mage for a duo ... and I wanted to play with you. No pressure. No parents’ influence, no friends. Just you and me, having fun together.” He looked up at me, eyes glistening. “I know I should have told you who I was a long time ago. It snowballed.”
“You shouldn’t have lied to me in the first place,” I spat out. “We were dating then. I would have been thrilled to play with my boyfriend as a Dark Mage. If you didn’t want to play with anyone from the school, then why did you play with me?” He’d been pulling away from me then in real life.
He shrugged. “I always loved playing with you. You’re an amazing player. And it was just ... fun without all the real-life crap getting in the way.”
“The real-life crap being the fact that I’m better at math than you.”
He blinked, saying nothing.
I shook my head. “Why did you send me a picture of Daniel, though?”
He shrugged. “I saw him volunteering at the shelter that day we went to build a playground. There was this chef man yelling at anyone with their camera out, so Jayden, Omar, and I started secretly taking pictures.”
