My sister has seen behind the mask. And she's afraid of what's underneath.
The headset sits in my lap like a confession I can't take back. Lily stands by my bed, arms still wrapped around herself, and the silence between us stretches until it becomes its own kind of violence.
"Well?" Her voice is steadier now, hardened by the seconds she's had to process. "Are you going to explain, or are you just going to sit there?"
My mouth opens, closes, then opens again. What can I possibly say?
That I've been deceiving my best friend for six months? That the female avatar she watched having sex with Simon was me? That I'm in love with someone who will never want me as I actually am?
"It's complicated," I manage, and the words sound pathetic even to my own ears.
"Complicated." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "My brother pretends to be a woman to seduce Simon, and the best you can give me is 'it's complicated'? Try harder, Gordon."
"It started as an accident."
The explanation tumbles out before I can shape it.
"I made the avatar months ago, before I ever matched with him. I didn't plan for us to end up on the same team. When it happened, I should have told him, but we clicked in a way we never have in real life. I couldn't make myself ruin it."
"So you lied to him instead."
"I didn't mean for it to go this far. It was supposed to be just teammates. But then he started opening up to me—to her—in ways he never does with Gordon, and I realized this was the only version of me he'd ever want."
My voice cracks. "He doesn't know. He's happy. I'm not hurting anyone."
"Not hurting anyone?"
Lily's expression hardens with every word, disgust settling into her features.
"Simon thinks he's falling in love with a woman. He talks about Kira constantly—how amazing she is, how she gets him like nobody else. He's building his whole emotional life around someone who doesn't exist."
"She does exist. Kira is me. Everything she says, everything she feels—that's real. I'm being myself in a body he's allowed to want."
"That's not how consent works!" Her voice rises sharply. "He didn't consent to being with you. He consented to being with a woman named Kira. What you're doing is sick. It's deceptive."
She stops, collecting herself, and when she speaks again her voice is quieter but worse. "Do you have any idea what this would do to Simon if he found out?"
The question lands like a fist to the solar plexus.
I know exactly what it would do. I've played it out a thousand times—the confusion giving way to horror, the disgust in his eyes when he realizes his perfect girl is his best bro.
Every intimate moment, every whispered confession, every time he touched Kira, he was actually touching me—a man, his friend.
It would destroy him.
"I know," I whisper. "I've always known."
"And you did it anyway." Lily shakes her head, looking at me like a stranger. "Three years I've watched you with Simon. Three years of you being his loyal best friend. And this whole time, you've been waiting to trick him into bed?"
"It wasn't like that!"
"Then what was it like? Make me understand how my brother became someone who catfishes his best friend into a sexual relationship."
Every justification crumbles before it reaches my mouth. She's right. I built something beautiful on lies, knowing it would collapse. I just loved him too much to stop.
The silence stretches. Lily watches me struggle, and something shifts in her expression—anger cooling into something more calculated. When she speaks again, her voice drops to a quiet that's more dangerous than shouting.
"I could tell Dad."
The words hang between us, and my blood turns to ice.
"Lily..."
"I could show him exactly what you've been doing. The avatar. The recordings—yes, I saw the folder on your desktop. I could let him see his son pretending to be a woman, having virtual sex with another man."
She pauses, letting each word land. "How do you think that conversation would go?"
My father's face flashes through my mind. Mark Hayes, who leads grace before every meal, who talks about me finding "a nice girl" with casual certainty. He's a good man, a loving man. But his love rests on assumptions about who his son is that have never been tested.
I cannot guarantee his love would survive the truth.
"Please." The word comes out broken. "Please don't tell him. I'll do anything."
"Anything?" Lily tilts her head, something clinical in her gaze. "That's dangerous, Gordon."
"I mean it. Just not Dad. He wouldn't understand."
"And Simon?" She steps closer. "What if I told him instead? One message. 'Hey Simon, Kira is actually my brother Gordon. Everything she told you was a lie.' How long would your friendship survive that?"
The image sears into my brain—Simon's face when he reads those words. Confusion. Disbelief. Slow, terrible understanding.
"Please." I'm begging now, voice cracking. "I know I don't deserve your silence. But please—don't take everything from me."
She studies me, calculation happening behind her eyes. She's not just angry. She's planning. Using my desperation.
"Fine." The word drops like a verdict. "I won't tell anyone. Your secrets stay buried." Hope flickers before her next words crush it. "But there are conditions."
"Name them."
"First: no more romance. Whatever you've been building with Simon ends tonight. You can keep playing, I know the tournament matters, but no more flirting, no more love mods, no more sex. You're teammates, nothing more. The moment you cross that line, I send everything to Simon."
The demand carves something vital from my chest—no more Simon looking at me like I'm precious, no more whispered confessions, no more being wanted.
But the alternative is losing him entirely.
"Fine," I whisper. "What else?"
"Second." She meets my eyes, and beneath the steel I see something wounded. "You help me with Simon. In real life. Talk me up, create opportunities for us, make him see me as more than your little sister."
Her voice wavers. "I've wanted him for two years, Gordon. Two years watching him look through me while he obsessed over some girl in a video game. And now I find out that girl was you? That my own brother has been stealing the person I—"
She stops, swallows, forces control back into her voice.
"You don't get to have him while lying. Either step aside and give someone who can actually be with him a chance, or I blow everything up. Those are your options."
I stare at my sister and see the girl who cried at our mother's funeral, who crawled into my bed during thunderstorms. She's not a villain, she's just a desperate girl reaching for the same unreachable thing.
We're both drowning, dnd she's decided to push me under.
"You want me to help you win the man I love," I say slowly. "Using my secrets as leverage."
"I want you to stop lying to him. If helping me is the price of my silence, then yes."
The silence is suffocating. Tomorrow I'll log in and dismantle everything. Tomorrow I'll face Simon at the gym and act like nothing has changed. Tomorrow I'll help my sister pursue the only person who's ever made me feel real.
"Okay." The word scrapes out like broken glass. "You win. I'll end things with Simon in the game. I'll help you."
Lily nods, but there's no triumph—just grim satisfaction that looks like grief.
"Good." She moves toward the door, pausing at the frame. "And Gordon? Don't make me choose between protecting you and protecting Simon. Because I'll choose him. Every time."
She leaves, the door clicks shut.
I sit alone in the dark, surrounded by wreckage, feeling walls close from every side. The man I love doesn't know I exist. My sister is blackmailing me. And tomorrow, I have to kill the only version of myself Simon ever wanted.
The headset glows on its dock, waiting.
I don't touch it. I just sit in silence, and let myself shatter.
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