Sweet Romance13 min read
He Was My Crush and My Gamer — I Said Yes Without Knowing
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I hugged the small cloth doll until the seam tore.
"Don't squeeze it to death," Juliana said from the bunk above me.
"I won't," I said, but I kept my thumb on the tiny faded ribbon anyway.
"Gracie," Katrina called, "Cade Reyes is at the gym. You going or you fainting at the thought?"
I dropped the doll into my bag and stood up fast enough to make my knees tingle.
"Why would I faint?" I said.
"Because you stare at him like he is a snow globe," Ayla said, and she laughed as if she had said the funniest thing in the world.
"He's not a—" I stopped. I was a liar if I said he was only pretty.
I knew him before anyone else did.
He gave me a huge lollipop when we were kids. He smiled and my thirteen-year-old heart wrote his name in a notebook. He moved away the next year. He came back years later, taller and harder, but once — once — he bent and nudged my head with his palm like it was something precious.
"You're blushing," Juliana said.
"I am not," I said.
"You are." Katrina poked my cheek. "You have to tell me. Who is he?"
I almost told them everything. Instead I told a smaller truth.
"He's just... someone," I said.
They didn't believe me. None of them saw the dolls of the small boy I had kept in a box. None of them had read the notes where I wrote his laugh. None of them knew I had an account name, 'PetalGraces', and a game friend who had been in my life through late-night runs and bad days for months.
"Text him," Juliana said.
"I can't," I said.
"You've been texting Dylan Bray for over a year," Ayla said, because she knew everything except that Dylan and Cade were the same person.
"I know," I said. "He's just my gamer friend."
"Then ask him what to wear when you bump into your crush." Katrina's grin was wide.
I thumbed the screen. Dylan's messages had a style: one line, quick, a sticker or two. He always knew when I was sad. He sent me skins in game. He once wrote, "Spring comes and you make things soft," and I kept the line like a secret.
"Are you still looking at him?" Dylan messaged now.
"Yeah," I typed. "He looks like he owns the sky."
"Stop being poetic. Buy a sweater. Bring a scarf. Wear something soft."
"You sound like my sister," I said.
His reply came fast: "I'll be your very calm and useful online boyfriend."
I laughed. I sent a sticker of a squid. I walked down the campus path and the winter sun cut the air in clean pieces. Cade was there with his team, high and long, his jaw set as if it was made of stone.
"Gracie?" A voice — his voice — touched my name and my cheeks ran hot.
My friends shoved me closer to the concrete steps. I pretended to trip and Cade reached out, steady and quiet.
"You're ridiculous," he said.
"Am I?" I answered.
He smiled, the small, private smile that used to melt behind a lollipop. He put a hand on my head like he had when we were children. My lungs forgot how to work.
"Will you stop saying weird things about me?" he said.
"I wasn't—" I tried to explain but my mouth got heavy. He only tapped my head once and walked away.
After that, things happened like they were playing on fast-forward.
I added him on the school's app. He accepted. I felt like I had found a secret window open into a room I'd been afraid to enter.
"Do you know your crush knows you?" Juliana asked, one night at dinner.
"No," I said.
"Because your eyes do that when you see him," Katrina said.
"Stop," I said. "It's fine."
It wasn't. At the next game night, Dylan — my online friend — teased me.
"You're in love," he typed.
I hit send before I could change my mind. "Maybe."
He answered: "Then forget him."
"Why?"
"Because he's not what you need right now. Date me in pixels. Try it."
I didn't plan to say yes. But I wanted to be brave in some small way. Dylan had always been there when I sat too late over a drawing and felt stupid. He once stayed on a call while I cried. He sent me silly songs at 3 a.m. It felt safe to try.
"Okay," I typed.
He sent one word back: "Yes."
We made rules. A month trial. No pressure. If I hated it, we'd stop. If I liked it, maybe we'd keep going.
"I feel like I'm dating a ghost," I told Katrina.
"Better than nothing," she said. "And you can keep being dramatic about Cade while dating Dylan. Win-win."
I thought it would be separate, two lives. Real and game. But life is a poor organizer.
One afternoon, Lennie — the dance major Evelynn Stevens — lost her temper on the school's forum. She painted me mean words: "Not pretty enough for him," she wrote. "Trying to get in with his family. Gross." Comments popped like sores. Screenshots flew. People I didn't know called me names.
"Someone posted this about you," Juliana said, voice like she had swallowed gravel. "It's everywhere."
I opened Cade's profile to send him a dumb emoji. His feed moved like an island. I found his post and then I didn't know how to breathe.
"Are you OK?" Katrina touched my arm.
"No," I said. "I want to hide."
Cade logged into the forum. The posts under my photos turned into hot coals. He wrote one line on my thread.
"Whoever posted this, do you want to say it to her face?"
It was the most polite threat. The post exploded: people picked sides. Then, worst of all, Evelynn Stevens' face spread across the campus — an accusation, a rude thread that she claimed was a mistake. She said she didn't write it; someone had used her account. But the damage was done.
A week later, Evelynn had bruises on her face. Photos circulated. Her story changed and then changed again. There was a video of her in front of a crowd, crying, while people recorded. My name kept getting pulled into it like a thread through clothes.
"Did you hit her?" I asked Cade, my voice small.
"No," he said. "I sent a message. I wanted her to stop. I wanted her to apologize."
"You wanted her to hurt?" I said. "People hurt."
He looked at me then, and I saw him break a little. For the first time I saw something brittle under the armor.
"I didn't mean that," he said. "But she started a rumor about you. I couldn't stand it."
He walked to the school's main forum live stage. I had been afraid to see him in crowds. He climbed the steps like he owned the whole place.
"Why are you doing this?" I whispered.
"Because I like you," he said, and the world tilted and then righted.
I thought the hard part would be the public. But the hard part came in a hundred quiet moments, too.
Dylan — the online Dylan Bray — kept sending me little photos of his hands, of his food, of the way light sat on his desk. He sent more, sometimes, than Cade did. I started to notice a rhythm: Dylan messaged when I was sad at midnight. Cade sat with me when I was too brave to talk. I learned to live in both.
One night, after the forum storm had softened, Dylan asked me on call. I put my headphones in and saw the pixel name flashing.
"Do you still want to be my girlfriend?" he asked.
There was the sweet, cocky tone I'd come to know. There was the voice that stayed awake for me when I couldn't sleep.
"Yes," I said.
His laugh spilled into my ear. "Good."
Days later, I messaged him, "Tell me something real."
He answered: "I'll meet you. Next week. Don't tell anyone."
"Where?" I asked.
"Don't worry. You'll know."
The week came and my stomach had turned to rope knots. I dressed in the soft outfit Katrina had picked: pastel sweater, white skirt, the scarf Dylan liked me to wear. I rubbed the doll in my bag with my thumb to feel less like I might faint.
Cade pulled up in a car and walked to the curb, his coat broad across his shoulders. He opened the door and my chest moved up.
"We're going," he said.
We went into the mall and sat by a long bench. I watched him while he looked at his phone. His messages blinked: Dylan Bray — and then he tapped, thumb moving fast.
"He's one of the guys I game with," I said, uselessly.
"I know," he replied, looking up. "I know everything."
I thought he meant the games. I didn't understand yet.
"Who is Dylan Bray?" I asked.
He swallowed. "Me."
The word hit like a slap, and then like a hand easing down my spine.
"What?" I said, because my brain had packed up.
Cade — who had been Cade Reyes in gym halls and on sidewalks, the boy who had touched my head like it was a fragile thing — had been the stranger with the gamer tag. He had been the voice that stayed while I cried. He had been the one who sent skins and silly gifs. He had been Dylan.
"You're Dylan?" I whispered.
He nodded. "I used another name online. Easier at first. Safer. I could be softer."
"You were the one who told me to forget him," I said, and the shame of it flamed hot.
"I didn't know how to tell you," he said. "I wanted you to have someone stable if I didn't get brave enough. I wanted to guard you both ways. I'm sorry."
"Why didn't you tell me?" my voice was smaller than I expected.
"Because I was scared you'd not like me for all my parts," he said. "Because I thought being two things at once would help me keep you."
"Two things?" I laughed, then choked on it. "You lied to me."
"I didn't lie to hurt you," he said. "I lied because I didn't know how to be myself with you yet."
I had a thousand things to say. I had kept him in a locker of longing so long that now he had come back with an extra pocket. I was furious and tired and dizzy.
"If you wanted me safe as Dylan, you should have told me. If you wanted me as Cade you should have asked." I pushed my hair behind my ear. "You can't make me choose without telling me the whole truth."
He reached for my hand and I let him take it. His fingers were warm and big and made my palm small in the best way.
"When I saw that post about you," he said quietly, "I wanted to break something."
"Did you?" I asked.
"No." He exhaled. "I wished I could. But I used words instead. I shouted at the forum to get them to stop, and then I found out who started it. Evelynn used her account—but her roommate logged in. She didn't even own what was written at first. But the damage was done, and the way she handled it made people angry."
"People got violent," I said.
Cade's jaw hardened. "Someone shoved her. People recorded it. She looked terrified." He swallowed. "I didn't start that. But when I saw her on the ground and the crowd around her filming, I felt sick. I went to the heads of school. I showed evidence she lied. I made sure the record showed she had lied and that the account was used by other people. The school investigated."
He said it like a list of tasks. I heard the care in his voice.
Later, the school called a meeting. Students packed the auditorium. Evelynn tried to tell the story two ways and then three. Cara Williamson, a public figure connected to her family, posted a statement that started polite and became furious. The crowd watched.
"You're safe?" I whispered.
"Not until I know," he said. "But I want you to know the truth."
They called Evelynn to the center of the stage. Her face had a bruise and a red tear line. Cameras rolled.
"You posted those words," I heard him say, standing up, his voice a blade and a blanket at once. "You don't get the right to say it was someone else after you let it spread."
"She didn't—" Evelynn cried. "I didn't—"
The crowd's eyes sharpened. People reached for their phones. Someone said, "She lied."
"Who recorded this?" the head of student affairs asked. Hands shot up and videos played in quick cuts: wild comments, the forum post signed 'LiangShu', then the login time, then a clip of Evelynn laughing at a party where she said, "Someone log in as Liang, it's funny." She'd laughed as a joke, and then someone used it to hurt a girl.
The air felt thick. A hundred phones pointed at her. Students whispered. Faces changed from curious to furious.
"I didn't mean for—" Evelynn cried, and the sound peeled from her throat.
"Meaning or not," the head said, "you used someone's ease with a name to hurt a peer. That is harassment. It is measured by harm."
At that point, people stopped being gentle.
A group of dancers who had lost friends to the forum posts stood up. One of them — a girl I'd seen rehearse till midnight — walked up to Evelynn, took her shoulders, and shook her gently. "You made her cry," she said. "You made a whole school messy."
Cameras cut. People filmed. Evelynn — who had once posted cruel words and now begged — sagged. She pressed her palms to her face and sobbed into them.
"Apologize," someone shouted.
"I will!" she said. "I will apologize! Please, I will—"
She tried to stand but the pressure of the room made her stumble. Her phone slid from her hand and clattered on the floor.
"There are consequences," the head of student affairs said. "A formal apology on the front page is the least. We will remove your forum privileges. The art department will review your scholarship. This is not a small prank."
Evelynn's face changed from shock to panic. "No!" she cried. "Please, my scholarship!"
"Wrong is wrong," the head said. "We will also require a public apology and community service."
People clapped, some sat down, some filmed. A few students chanted my name like a shield. I felt both exposed and strangely safe. Cade's hand was around mine, not letting go.
Later, the social feeds ate Evelynn alive. The videos of her crying were everywhere. Her followers fell away by the thousands. She tried to post an apology and people commented with screenshots of her earlier posts. Her art sponsors dropped her. Cara Williamson's statement was sharp: "Hurt looks like this," she wrote. "We will not support people who hurt other young artists with lies."
I did not enjoy seeing anyone suffer. But the truth had to be known, and she caused the storm. The book of people who believed in her closed.
After that day, the school was quieter. People seemed kinder for a week.
Cade and I sat on the back steps while the crowd scattered.
"I didn't want her hurt," he said. "I wanted to fix it. But it spun. People did things I couldn't control."
"I know," I said. "But you did something. You didn't let it keep going."
He threaded his fingers with mine. "I didn't want you alone."
That night, Dylan, his gamer self, sent me a voice clip. It was him, his voice softer than a pillow. "So?" he asked.
"So?" I replied.
"So — are you blushing because of now or because of me?" he teased.
I laughed, and the laugh sounded like my old self. We talked all night. He told me about his small apartment above his aunt's studio, about the clay figures he sculpted when he needed to think. He told me he had two phones and one nickname; that he used the other name when he wanted to be less dangerous, less him.
"Why did you think you weren't enough?" I asked, because the question had no other home.
"Because I remember you as small and safe," he said. "And I was loud and clumsy. I thought if you had a softer Dylan, you'd be happier. But you deserved the whole thing."
"I deserved the truth," I said.
"Then have it."
He knelt in front of me in a quiet corridor behind the student union. He had no podium, no words prepared. He had hands.
"Gracie," he said, "I like you. Not the ghost of you, not the picture on the forum. The whole real you. I've been both things because I didn't know how to be one."
"Then be one," I said. My voice shook.
"I will," he said. "But only if you want me like this."
I thought of the lollipop and the doll and the months of messages where he had stayed. I thought of the bruise-faced girl and the crowd and how small the world had suddenly become when someone dragged it into a post.
"Do you promise not to use two names to hide?" I asked.
"I promise," Cade said. "No more hidden names. No more secrets like that."
"Then promise you'll still be Dylan when nights are hard," I said.
He grinned like the boy who used to walk me home. "I'll be Dylan in the nights and Cade in the days," he said.
I let him kiss me then. It was clumsy and perfect. His hands were warm and his mouth was patient, like the parts of him that had been there for me in pixels and in breath.
We had a lot to work on. We were messy and human. But we had started with a truth.
Later that winter, I sat by the window and sewed the little ribbon back on the doll.
"Are you happy?" Dylan asked on voice.
"Yes," I said. "But we have to do our work. We have to be honest. And you have to help me learn not to be soft with people who hurt me."
"I will." He sounded very solemn.
"And you," I added, "no more forum stunts. Promise me."
He laughed. "I promise."
The school cleared of the forum storm slowly. Evelynn's scholarship was frozen, a public apology posted, and she did community service cleaning the theater sets she had once used to build a reputation. People still whispered about the cruelty, but the worst had passed.
One day, months later, we went to the hill behind the arts building. The sky had a thin grey reach and snow came down in soft sheets. We made a small snowman like it was the first time we'd ever built anything together.
"I kept the doll you gave me," I said, and held it up. Its ribbon was fixed and its face stitched.
He smiled and took the doll from me. "Keep it," he said. "But if you want, I'll make a better one."
"No," I said. "This one is mine."
He knelt and put his forehead to mine, exactly like a kid would do before a game. "Then I'm glad you're keeping it."
We watched the snow fall together, the town folding white and quiet around us.
"Will you come home with me at winter break?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "If you promise not to hide."
"I promise," he said.
I smiled and put my hand in his. The snow made our cheeks red. A wind came and the scarf slipped and he tugged it back around me.
"In case anyone tries to break your heart again," he said, "I'll guard it."
"Guard it like a bully?" I teased.
"Guard it like a very tired guard," he said.
I laughed. "Okay. Guard it like someone who will build things for me at night and stand with me in the day."
He kissed my forehead and the contact was small and true.
Later that year, at a small student show, Evelyn Stevens gave a quiet apology to the group she had hurt. The crowd watched her with a wary hush. She lost the scholarship and the sponsors. Her friends left. She showed up to the theater, head down, and painted props for free. The feeds moved on quickly, as the internet always does, but the memory of what she had done stayed in the halls and in people's mouths. She had to rebuild. The world had taught her she could not tear down others without paying a steep toll.
I did not gloat. I learned that justice is messy and that my anger had to be controlled. I learned that I wanted to be kind and also safe.
"Do you ever regret saying yes to Dylan?" Katrina asked once, months later in our dorm kitchen.
"Sometimes," I said, stirring tea. "At first it felt like a lie. But the best thing he did was tell me the truth when it mattered."
"That's lucky," Juliana said.
"It was," I agreed. "And then we got to re-learn each other. He taught me how to be brave in public. I taught him how to be softer at home."
"That's balance," Ayla grinned.
We kept living, with more late-night calls, with more awkward dates, with more small kindnesses. Cade brought me a sketch of a little doll he had tried to carve from clay. He failed and laughed and gave it to me anyway.
"Bad artist," I told him.
"Best attempt," he said.
The winter closed and then melted.
One quiet evening, we were back on the same bench where he had told me to forget a crush and then turned out to be the crush and the comfort.
"I kept the first message you ever sent me," I said.
He looked surprised. "What did it say?"
"It said, 'Spring comes and you make things soft.'"
He blinked, then laughed, the sound like a small bell. "I remember that. I remember being so foolish."
"Don't be," I said. "It was true."
He tugged my scarf until it fell loose and then looped it back around me with both hands. "I like you," he said simply. "All of you. The old you, the whole you."
I pressed the doll into his palm.
"Keep it," I said.
He took it and kept it. He kept the promise to stop hiding, though sometimes he kept the gamer jokes at night. We learned honesty filled the space two names had left.
Snow came down that week, soft and thick, and we watched it together. We watched it like something we had earned.
"Promise me one more thing," I said.
"Anything," he said.
"Don't ever post cruel things about anyone," I said—but not in the way I had once wanted revenge. "If you see cruelty, stop it. If you can, fix it. But don't add to it."
He looked at me and his eyes were patient. "I promise."
I leaned into him and we watched the town dress in white. Around us, people walked in little flurries and cities muffled their noise. I felt safe. I felt heard. I felt like the kid who kept a doll in a box and the woman who could tell a man to be honest.
"Dylan," I murmured.
"Hm?"
"You were always safer with me than you thought," I said.
He kissed me gently and the kiss was the answer.
The snow fell, and we watched it fall.
The End
— Thank you for reading —