Ghosted My Onlinemate Chapter 04

Ghosted My Onlinemate Chapter 04

For one instant, the world went silent.

I snatched the phone back from Maya and gave her a smile.

“The app auto-generated that name when I signed up. Pure coincidence.”

I wasn’t lying.

Sia was randomly assigned by the system, and I’d never bothered to change it.

Maya didn’t think twice about it. “Oh, that makes sense. Cute name, though.”

She turned and glanced at Elias.

“It’s nothing. You misheard. Nobody here goes by that name.”

Elias shifted his gaze away from me.

His tone was flat, unreadable. “Is that so?”

I lowered my eyes and opened my textbook.

My heart was practically clawing its way up my throat.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally turned back around.

Only then did I dare look up.

In my line of sight, he was hunched over his desk, thumb scrolling across his phone screen.

The Moon Goddess alone knew what he was looking at.

My phone vibrated once.

I picked it up instinctively.

The anonymous app had been deactivated. No more messages could come through.

It was a text.

Unknown number.

Just a single period.

I stared at that period for a long time.

Who was this?

A wrong number?

I was about to lock the screen when another message came in.

[Sia, is that you?]

[I know you deactivated your account.]

[But your phone number is all I have left.]

My fingers went rigid.

How did he have my number?

Elias seemed to read my mind.

[This time last year, you told me if I ever had something on my mind, I could call you. You said we could talk on the phone.]

[This year you just deleted me.]

[Is it because I have a girlfriend now? You think we need to keep our distance? Because I really don’t think our friendship has anything else mixed into it. There’s nothing to keep distance from…]

Another message.

[Forget it. It’s fine if you don’t want to talk.]

[I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.]

[You straight-up disappeared. I got a little worried.]

I stared at the screen, typed a line, deleted it.

Did that several times. In the end, I sent nothing.

Locked the screen.

Set the phone face-down on the desk.

My heartbeat was so loud it sounded like someone pounding a drum.

I closed my eyes, aching.

The things Elias said were so innocent and so cruel at the same time.

Morning PT the next day.

Elias was late.

He walked into the training grounds and passed right by me.

I was finishing my last stretch, arms reaching back, when my hand collided with something solid as a steel plate.

But warm.

I turned my head and met Elias’s eyes.

The sunlight made his green irises look like polished glass, and his long lashes were tipped with gold.

“Sienna.”

He said my name like a slow cello note, and it sent ripples through my chest.

Was I blocking his way?

I stepped back to let him pass

But his gaze lingered on my neck

Then he spoke, his expression impossible to read.

“That’s an interesting necklace.

I looked down and realized my training fatigues had slipped at some point, exposing my collarbone and the moonstone pendant engraved with the Vance Pack crest.

I gave an online friend one just like it, he said

My lashes trembled.I fixed my eyes on the stone statue behind him

Is that right? I bought this from the pack’s online store. It’s a pretty common design.

Elias hummed.

Said nothing more and walked on

I stood there.

Clutching the pendant.

I spent the rest of the morning distracted, getting thrown to the mat over and over during combat drills.

I watched the figure who was always at the front of the formation. Always the winner.

Elias.

Honestly, sometimes I wished you’d never shown up in my life.

I took the pendant off. Set his number to blocked.

I trained harder. Studied harder. My only goal now was to qualify for the Elite Corps after graduation and become an elite warrior.

But things never went the way I planned.

That day, before class, I got cornered at my locker.

Yvette pushed through the crowd surrounding me and looked down at me.

“What’s that tucked inside your notebook?”

My stomach dropped.

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“That essay Elias wrote freshman year. Why do you have it?”