Love Online(16)

Knowing my limitations didn’t stop me from wanting him, though. And that certainly didn’t stop my feelings of jealousy. The wheels in my mind had been turning ever since the story he told me earlier tonight.

“Who’s the girl who broke your heart?”

Ryder seemed unprepared for my question. Then he let out a long breath. “Her name is Mallory.”

“She must be beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you,” he whispered.

I swallowed. He had no idea how much I needed to hear that right now, even though it was foolish of me.

“What happened?” I asked.

He looked down for a bit, then said, “We were together for four years. And I screwed things up pretty badly. It’s a long story.”

I needed to know. “You cheated on her?”

“No. It was nothing like that.”

A sigh of relief escaped me. I’d been really hoping he didn’t cheat.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Honestly, not right now. I’ll tell you what happened someday, though. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He cracked a slight smile, and there we were, staring at each other again, both seeming to have forgotten we were supposed to say goodnight.

“Tell me something about you that I don’t know, Eden.” When I stayed silent, he said, “I know you want to keep certain things private. I get it. But I’m dying here. I need to know more about you.”

There was so much he didn’t know that I could have told him. But then what? His little fantasy would be over. That’s what I was to him, wasn’t I? And the fantasy is always better than the reality.

I decided to share something anyway. “I once had dreams of moving to New York. I wanted to work on Broadway. I was always in musicals in high school, and that’s what I aspired to do. But when my mother died, I lost my way. It never happened for me.”

He looked sad to hear me say that. “It’s never too late to pursue your dreams. And you’re still young. If there’s something you really want, you should go after it.”

“I’m not sure what I want anymore. A lot has changed since then. But part of why I love to sing when I’m camming is that it sort of satisfies that itch to perform in front of an audience. Which is ridiculous, I know, because clearly the kind of performing I actually do most of the time is nothing like Broadway. And no one is really there to hear me sing.” I chuckled. “Well, except you.”

His tone was serious. “It’s not ridiculous. That makes a lot of sense, actually. Thank you for telling me.” He paused. “Why do you do the camming? Is it solely money? Or do you like it?”

“It’s mostly the money. It would be hard to give that up. It’s more than I can make doing practically anything else without a degree.”

I’d told him the truth before, that I worked at a restaurant during the day and did the camming at night. Being a cam girl was really exhausting, mentally and physically. While I had the option to do it full time, I couldn’t imagine more than a few hours of it a night. So, I sacrificed money for sanity.

There was one thing I’d always wanted to confess to him. This seemed like the right time to do it.

“You were right, Ryder.”

“About what?”

“The night you accidentally saw me crying on camera, when I forgot to shut it off after my show—something upsetting did happen in the private chat just before that.”

He let out a long breath. “Fuck. I knew it.”

I nodded. “The man who’d ordered it asked me to masturbate for him. Everything was normal at the beginning, and about halfway through, out of nowhere, he started spewing things at me, calling me ‘dirty whore’ and ‘nasty slut’. It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to me, but the way he did it, coming on strong so suddenly—like Jekyll and Hyde—really freaked me out. I ended the chat, but it really shook me up.”

“Fuck. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

“I have to assume I’ll run into a certain amount of assholes.”

His face was red. “Doesn’t fucking make it right.”

“Anyway, your email coming in that night—it actually made me cry, but not in a bad way. It made me realize that there are good guys out there who won’t shun me for what I do to make a living. You restored my faith in humanity, even though you didn’t even realize it. I really needed that message.”

Ryder looked like he didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about what I’d just admitted. “Well, I’m glad I could do that for you. I was genuinely concerned, but I didn’t even know you then. I didn’t know you would become an important part of my days. I can’t ever repay you for bringing me out of the funk I was in.”

It felt like I should be thanking him. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re a good human. You give of yourself to make others happy, whether you realize it or not. I know you’re doing the camming for the money. But you put your heart and soul into it. You listen to people’s worries. You give real advice that comes from within, and you fucking sing your heart out. You smile when you’re not feeling great because you’re a consummate professional.” Ryder stared off. “I’m sure if I told any of my friends about you, they wouldn’t get it. They’d tell me I was crazy. But if this is crazy, I don’t want to be normal, because I can’t remember a time when I’ve been happier.”