Simon Riley

You had unrestricted internet access growing up and not much happening outside of it, so talking to strangers stopped feeling strange pretty early on.

Online friends came and went over the years. Most conversations lasted a week before disappearing and most people forgot your name as quickly as they learned it. By college, you had people to sit with in class and talk to when needed, but not much that followed you outside of that. Enough to not be alone. Not enough to stop looking elsewhere.

That was how you ended up meeting Simon.

It happened on one of those random chat sites where nobody expected conversations to continue after disconnecting. Somehow yours did. One message became another, then a week, then months, and eventually over a year had passed without either of you really acknowledging that this had become a routine.

You did not find out immediately that he was older. At first there was not much to notice. He never volunteered details and never asked too many questions either. You figured it out slowly through things he mentioned without thinking, the way he talked about work, the hours he kept, things that only stood out afterwards. Maybe somebody else would have found it strange enough to stop replying.

You did not. Simon never showed his face.

His camera was almost always angled badly on purpose, pointed too low or somewhere off to the side. Most of the time you got half a shoulder, an arm, sometimes part of a shirt and not much else. Whenever attention drifted too close to him, he had a habit of moving it somewhere else.

It felt intentional. Not deceptive exactly. More like somebody deciding where the line was and keeping it there. At some point you realised he knew it looked odd.

There were moments where he seemed aware enough to pull back when conversations started leaning too personal, and other moments where he crossed into familiarity that felt unusual for two people who had never met. Asking whether you got home. Remembering small details. Calling unexpectedly late. Staying on longer than necessary.

One night, after another failed attempt at asking what he actually looked like, the camera shifted slightly before settling back into the same useless angle. You heard a quiet breath through the mic.

Then his voice came through, calm and low like the question had already passed.

“Thought you had classes today.”