Out Of His League

1 In the high-stakes, hyper-fixated ecosystem of competitive MMOs, there was an unwritten tradition we called the “Sync.” It was the ultimate trust fall for long-distance gaming couples. The day you finally met up offline, you were supposed to update your in-game handles simultaneously. If the chemistry translated to the real world, you adopted matching, nauseatingly sweet tags. If the meetup was a disaster, the community peer-pressured you into wearing a humiliating “Miserable” tag for thirty days. A digital walk of shame. Gavin Miller and I had a year-long pact. The day he finally flew into Boston to see me, we were supposed to sync up as Happy Kitten and Happy Pup. It was undeniably cringe, but late at night, bathed in the blue light of my monitor, I had been counting down the days. Then, the night before our meetup, a permissions glitch on Discord pulled me into a hidden channel in his private server. That was how I found out that a month ago, Gavin had gone digging. He’d scoured the archives of a dead university forum and unearthed a candid photo of me from my sophomore year of high school. It was from the darkest, heaviest year of my life. I was pushing a hundred and eighty pounds, hiding behind thick tortoiseshell glasses, my cheeks flushed with angry, cystic acne. Gavin had thought I was repulsive. But he was far too obsessed with his curated “Good Guy” Twitch persona to just break things off. If he dumped a girl before meeting her, he risked his chat turning on him. So, he dropped the photo into a hidden channel titled #The-Project with a challenge for his inner circle of frat brothers and fellow streamers. “Who wants to string this catfish along until the IRL meetup and dump her live on stream? Ten legendary skins and three hundred bucks on Venmo to whoever takes the bet.” I sat frozen at my desk, my stomach bottoming out as I scrolled through the archived messages. “Keep her on the hook,” Gavin had typed. “Tell her she’s the one. The higher her hopes, the sweeter the crash. It’ll be legendary content for the channel. Total humiliation.” The chat logs were a waterfall of skull emojis, crude memes, and boys laughing at the expense of a girl they’d never met. Only one person had pushed back. “She didn’t do anything to you, Gavin,” the message read. “Why put this much effort into destroying her?” Gavin’s reply was a digital sneer: “Catching feelings for the mark, Zach? If your heart’s bleeding, why don’t you take over the account?” A moment later, the dark, default avatar with the username Z replied. “Send me the login.” I stopped breathing. The hum of my computer tower suddenly sounded deafening. For the past thirty days, the man who stayed up with me while I crammed for finals, the man who remembered my chronic acid reflux, the man who DoorDashed Panera chicken noodle soup and a heating pad to my apartment when my cramps left me crying on the bathroom floor… was never Gavin. They had no idea I was currently reading every single message in that channel. And they certainly didn’t know that the photo Gavin had weaponized was two years old. I stared at the words Send me the login, my fingers numb. Just below that message, Gavin had pasted his password, adding a smug little postscript: She’s naive as hell. Tell her you miss her once a day and she’ll swoon. Zach’s reply was brutally brief: Shut up. The puzzle pieces clicked into place, sharp and agonizing. From that exact evening onward, “Gavin” had started reminding me to skip iced lattes because of my stomach. The one time I casually mentioned a brutal deadline at my marketing internship, he had stayed muted on our Discord call until 2:00 AM, typing softly just so I wouldn’t feel alone in the dark. Every quiet, tender moment that had made my chest ache with affection had belonged to a complete stranger. I scrolled down to the present day. In the group chat, the boys were finalizing the logistics for tomorrow’s prank. Gavin dropped the address of an upscale downtown steakhouse, bragging: “Private room is booked. I’m going live on Twitch the second she walks in. When she comes through the door, I need you all to cheer for her gamer tag. Set the trap right.” Someone asked: “Is Zach actually coming?” “He doesn’t have a choice,” Gavin replied, dropping a screenshot of a Venmo transaction. “He took the money and the skins. If he flakes, I’m mass-reporting his account for boosting and getting him permabanned.” A string of laughing emojis flooded the screen. I methodically took screenshots of everything. Every joke, every transaction, every cruel meme. I saved the folder to my cloud drive, backed it up to my phone, and quietly exited the server. A second later, a direct message popped up from Gavin’s account. Mia, are you asleep yet? I looked at my name on the screen. A sharp, acidic burn rose in my throat. For the past month, he had messaged me every night before 11:00 PM, urging me to close my laptop and rest. I rested my fingers on the keyboard and deliberately typed: Will you be disappointed when you see me tomorrow? The typing bubble appeared, vanished, and appeared again. He was hesitating. No. What if I look completely different from what you expect? I pushed. As long as it’s you standing in front of me, that’s enough. Then, a follow-up message appeared in rapid succession: If you feel uncomfortable and want to cancel, that’s completely fine too, Mia. Your safety and peace of mind come first. We don’t have to do this tomorrow. Would a predator hunting for a viral clip beg his prey to stay home? I swallowed the lump in my throat and typed: See you tomorrow. Just as the message delivered, my phone buzzed on the desk. An unknown number was requesting to add my personal social media. The introductory text read: Hey, it’s Gavin! Wear something pretty tomorrow! I’m so hyped I can’t even sleep haha! The casual, arrogant tone, the obnoxious “haha”—it was quintessential Gavin. The irony was suffocating. Back then, Gavin had used his own photos and voice to date me online; now, he was playing the role of his own hype-man from a burner phone. I texted back: Are you bringing your friends? Of course! The whole squad is gonna be there to witness the legendary meetup. Good, I replied. Witnesses were essential. Without Gavin there to watch, the stage I was building wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining. The next morning, my phone rang. An audio call through the gaming app. It was Zach. “Mia.” His voice was low, laced with a frantic, rough edge I’d never heard before. “Don’t go to the steakhouse. I’ll send you a different address. Meet me somewhere else. Please.” I looked at my iPad propped on the vanity. I had a dummy account logged into Gavin’s server, watching them discuss how they were going to corner me on camera. “Why?” I asked softly. “Just don’t go. Something… unpleasant is going to happen. Just trust me—” “Are you really Gavin?” I interrupted. The line went dead silent. The kind of silence that rings in your ears. After a heavy, suffocating pause, he exhaled. “Mia… you know?” A needle of grief pricked my heart. So he really had taken Gavin’s deal. He had clocked in every night for thirty days to execute a transaction. I gripped the edge of my bathroom counter. “Is it fun? Watching me make a fool of myself? Was it a good laugh?” “Mia, God, no. It’s not what you think—” In the background of his audio, a hostess’s crisp voice chimed in: “Sir, your private dining room is just down the hall.” I closed my eyes. “Where are you right now?” “At the—” Zach started, but a burst of static washed over the line, and the call dropped. Bad reception in the restaurant corridor. Maybe it was a sign. Simultaneously, my iPad lit up with messages in Gavin’s group chat: Where the hell is Zach? Gavin pinged him three times. No response. With the Twitch stream scheduled to start in ten minutes, Gavin was spiraling. “Did that coward back out? Bro, the main attraction is almost here! What do we do?” “He sent her voice notes, man. She knows what he sounds like.” Gavin dropped an angry-face sticker into the chat. “If he doesn’t show up, I’ll just handle it myself. I’ll tell her I lost my voice. That girl is so desperate for a rom-com moment, she won’t even notice.” I set the iPad face down. I reached into the back of my closet and pulled out a hideous, oversized beige puffer jacket that was three sizes too big. I bundled my long hair up and shoved it under a slouchy beanie, then pulled a disposable medical mask over my face. In the full-length mirror, I looked shapeless, bulky, and awkward—a perfect ghost of the girl I had been two years ago. Whatever Zach was trying to hide, I would pry it out of him myself. And as for Gavin? Since he was so desperate for the spotlight, I was going to give him the performance of a lifetime. When I arrived at the steakhouse, the ambush was already in motion. Two guys in tailored button-downs were hovering near the mahogany entrance doors. They spotted the plush cat keychain hanging from my tote bag and immediately whipped out their iPhones, aiming the lenses at me. “She’s here! The legend has arrived!” One of them intentionally bumped his shoulder against mine as I walked past, taking a dramatic, mocking step back. “Damn. The sheer tonnage on this one. Gavin’s gonna need a forklift.” Raucous laughter erupted through his AirPods. I kept my head bowed, pulling the oversized jacket tighter around my frame, feigning nervous embarrassment. When the double doors to the private dining room swung open, metallic party poppers exploded overhead. Confetti rained down on my beanie. A dozen male voices shouted in unison: “Welcome, Happy Kitten!” Gavin was sitting in the center of the sprawling circular booth, wearing the dark fitted shirt from his profile picture. The moment his eyes landed on my bulky, masked silhouette, genuine disgust rippled across his face. But he forced a blinding, cinematic smile, grabbing a bouquet off the table and striding toward me. “Mia. We finally meet.” I stared at him. “What happened to your voice?” Gavin coughed twice into his fist. “I was so excited last night, I didn’t sleep. Caught a little throat bug.” “Gavin stayed up all night pacing the room waiting for you!” a guy beside him chimed in, practically vibrating with glee. “Give her a hug, man!” Terrified of letting me get too close, Gavin shoved the flowers into my chest, keeping a foot of distance between us. “I remembered you love blue baby’s breath.” I looked down at the bouquet. They were cheap plastic knockoffs. I could literally see the dried hot glue on the synthetic stems. He launched into his rehearsed script. “I know you have a sensitive stomach, you hate onions, you’re terrified of thunderstorms, and your cycle usually starts on the seventeenth.” Every single detail had been painstakingly extracted and logged by Zach. Gavin was just reading the spark notes of someone else’s emotional labor. “Last week, when my ulcer flared up,” I asked quietly, my voice muffled by the mask, “what did you order for me?” “Uh…” Gavin blinked. “Medication.” “What kind of medication?” Gavin’s practiced smile faltered. His face darkened as he drew a blank. I pressed harder. “And whenever we muted our mics on Discord at night to sleep, what was the last thing you always typed to me?” The stifled laughter in the room was growing louder, turning into a collective sneer. Gavin’s patience, thin on its best day, snapped. He ripped off the matching braided couple’s bracelet on his wrist and slammed it onto the table. “Enough! We just met in person, why are you interrogating me like a cop?” He took two steps back, spreading his arms wide toward the streaming setup resting on a tripod in the corner. “Look, chat. I honestly thought looks didn’t matter,” Gavin projected, his voice ringing with fake victimization. “But this is just ridiculous, right?” On cue, the massive projector screen on the wall flickered to life. My high school sophomore photo—puffy cheeks, cystic acne, thick glasses—was blasted across the room in high resolution. Gavin grabbed a laser pointer, circling my face. “Tell me, chat, does this qualify as getting catfished?” Roars of laughter exploded in the private room. “Bro pulled a swamp monster!” “Take the mask off! Stop hiding!” I cradled the plastic flowers, my voice small, perfectly playing the victim. “You said over text that appearance didn’t matter to you. That’s why I never sent a recent photo.” Gavin laughed—a cruel, barking sound. “You actually believed sweet-talk like that? Did you seriously look in the mirror and think a girl like you belonged with someone like me?” My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from an unknown number: Mia, don’t take your mask off. Wait for me. I am in the building. I will give you a full explanation about the group chat. I looked at the text. My chest felt hollow. So he had known exactly what this was. Gavin stepped into my personal space, reaching out to snatch my phone. “What, already swiping on Tinder for your next mark?” I sidestepped him smoothly, raising my eyes directly to the glowing red light of the live Twitch camera. “What’s the rush, Gavin?” I asked, dropping the timid act. My voice was suddenly cold, perfectly steady. “The best part of the show hasn’t even started.” I tapped a pre-saved audio file on my phone, holding the speaker up to the microphone on the table. Gavin’s own voice boomed through the room’s expensive surround-sound speakers: “Make her think she’s about to date a millionaire, then dump her live on camera. Zoom in on her face when she cries. The more pathetic she looks, the higher the engagement. It’s pure content.” The room went dead quiet. The frat brothers who had been hooting seconds ago suddenly shrank back, throwing their hands up to shield their faces from the camera. The streamer managing the tripod panicked, scrambling forward to cut the feed. “I wouldn’t touch that,” I advised him casually. “A screen recording of this entire broadcast, along with your IP address, has already been forwarded to my attorney.” The guy’s hand froze mid-air. Gavin gritted his teeth, his neck flushing purple. “Are you psycho? You think a prank is illegal?” “Recording a private citizen in a closed venue without two-party consent, and utilizing stolen media to incite targeted cyberbullying?” I rattled off smoothly. “Is it enough for criminal charges, or just a devastating civil suit? We’ll let a judge decide.” I glanced at the laptop monitoring the chat. The Twitch comments were scrolling so fast they were a blur, the mood shifting violently. [These guys are absolute trash.] [Leading a girl on for a month for a clip? Psychopath behavior.] One of Gavin’s friends panicked. “Gavin, bro, you never said she’d bring lawyers into this!” “Shut up!” Gavin roared. He lunged for the streaming phone, yanking it off the tripod and shoving the lens inches from my masked face. “You want the truth, Mia? Fine. I sold your pathetic account weeks ago!” He pulled up the Venmo transaction on the projector. “Three hundred bucks and ten legendary skins! You actually thought a man was falling for you? He talked you to sleep because I paid him to tolerate you!” I stared at the Venmo receipt on the massive screen. A sharp, cold ache pierced my chest, deeper than I expected. Gavin caught my silence and his smile returned, victorious and ugly. “Zach is a broke loser who’ll sell his soul for game cosmetics. Honestly, an ugly catfish like you and a desperate ghostwriter like him? You’re a match made in heaven.” Someone in the back muttered, “Zach’s still not answering his texts, man.” “Of course he isn’t! He saw her old photo and bailed!” Gavin sneered. He pointed the phone camera back at me. “Mia, have a shred of self-awareness. Admit you’re a fraud to the chat right now.” I met his gaze dead-on. “I don’t recall ever sending you a photo.” Gavin choked on his words. I had him. The photo was stolen from a defunct forum; I had never claimed it was current. Furious that he was losing the narrative, Gavin snapped. “Whatever! Take the damn mask off and let everyone see what a freak you are!” He lunged forward, his hand swiping violently at my face to rip the mask away. I jerked my head to the side, the elastic cord snapping painfully against my ear. Before I could raise my hand to shove him away, the heavy oak doors to the private room slammed open. A hand shot out from behind me, locking around Gavin’s wrist like a steel vise. Gavin let out a sharp yelp of pain, twisting around. Zach stood in the doorway. He was breathing heavily, his dark hair disheveled from the winter wind, his chest rising and falling beneath his wool coat. The veins on the back of his hand strained as he tightened his grip on Gavin. His eyes were murderous. “Who gave you permission to touch her?”

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