Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE;

Ollie’s POV

I slammed the apartment door behind me hard enough that the frame rattled.

The silence swallowed me.

No thumping music. No laughter. No Ryder. Just the faint hum of the old refrigerator and the quiet creak of the building settling around me.

My chest still burned, like Ryder’s words had been carved into me with a knife. You’ll never belong here.

God, he was such an arrogant bastard. And the worst part? He was right.

I kicked my shoes off and dropped my bag on the couch, collapsing next to it. My hands ran over my face, fingers digging into my temples. I wanted to scream. To punch something. To stop replaying Ryder’s smirk over and over again in my head. The way he had leaned close, his voice dripping poison, then pulled back laughing like I was nothing. I hated that my body shook even now, long after it ended.

Instead, I stared at the crooked family photo on the wall. Just me and my sister, Mia. She was only a few years older, but she’d practically raised me after Mom bailed and Dad disappeared into the kind of “odd jobs” that meant never coming back. Mia had been my constant, my anchor, the only one who didn’t make me feel like I was in the way.

She worked herself to the bone to keep us afloat, taking double shifts at Ray and Fishers Corp, a soulless corporate machine that chewed up people like her and spat them out with barely enough to survive. She always came home with tired eyes and aching shoulders, but she never complained. Not once.

I glanced at the clock. It's almost midnight. Her shoes weren’t by the door, her jacket wasn’t on the hook. The apartment felt emptier without her, like the walls knew she was gone.

Pulling out my phone, I shot her a text.

Me: Hey. You okay?

The reply came a few minutes later.

Mia: Still at work. They asked me to stay overtime. Don’t wait up.

Of course. I let out a sigh, staring at the glow of her words until the screen dimmed. She worked herself to exhaustion, and I couldn’t even keep myself together at a stupid party. Guilt pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating. She carried everything, and here I was falling apart over Ryder’s laugh.

Shoving the thought down, I pushed off the couch and headed to my room.

My room was… different. It wasn’t much to look at if you didn’t know me, just a bed, a desk, a dresser. But tucked in the corner was my secret. My salvation.

The tripod waited, camera already attached. The ring light sat beside it, faintly dusty from lack of use the last couple days. A plain black mask rested on the desk, smooth and simple, hiding everything from the nose down.

My second skin.

Nobody at school knew. Not Allison. Not Mia. Not anyone. By day, I was just Ollie: invisible, awkward, easy target. By night, behind that mask, I was someone else entirely. Someone bold. Someone wanted.

I wasn’t just a streamer. I was a top creator. Over a hundred subscribers, all paying for me. For my body. For the version of me that wasn’t humiliated by Ryder Caldwell. For the boy who wasn’t laughed at, who wasn’t shoved to the corner, who wasn’t told he didn’t belong.

And tonight, I needed that version more than ever.

I stripped down slowly, tugging off my shirt, tossing it aside. The bruises of Ryder’s words still clung to me, but they wouldn’t matter here. Not when the mask slid into place and the red recording light blinked on.

“Hey, guys,” I murmured, voice low, practiced. The chat immediately began to fill on my laptop screen. Hearts. Comments. Requests. Familiar usernames flooding in, excited that I was back.

My shoulders relaxed. My pulse steadied. Here, I wasn’t Ollie the nerd. I was him. The masked fantasy people paid to see. The one who got attention, who got praise, who was worth something.

I leaned toward the camera, letting the mask shadow my mouth, letting the light catch the curve of my collarbone. The chat went wild. Little bursts of text filled the screen, people begging for more, telling me how good I looked, how much they missed me.

And I lost myself in it.

For an hour, I forgot Ryder. I forgot the party. I forgot the laughter. There was only me, the camera, and the strangers on the other side of the screen who wanted me, who worshipped me. I played into it easily, letting their words build me back up, filling in the cracks Ryder had left behind. Every compliment was a bandage. Every request, a reminder I was seen.

Until….

Bang.

The sound made me flinch, mid-sentence. A heavy thud against the wall next to my bed.

I froze, heart hammering.

It came from the apartment next door.

The “ghost neighbor,” as I called them. I’d lived here months and never once seen who actually lived there. Their door was always closed, their lights always off, and sometimes I wondered if the place was abandoned. But apparently not.

“Guess they’re alive after all,” I muttered under my breath.

The chat scrolled with confused emojis. I forced a laugh, shrugging it off. “Sorry, guys. No ghosts. Just the neighbor making noise.”

I adjusted the camera, slid back into my role, and kept going. The noise didn’t come again. My body slowly relaxed, though I kept one ear tilted toward the wall, waiting. Nothing. Just absolute silence which I was grateful for because it won't disturb my live.

But then, my phone buzzed.

I reached for it absentmindedly, still half-focused on the screen, until I saw the name.

Ryder Caldwell.

My breath caught.

A message blinked at me, simple and cruel:

Ryder: Hi Oli-nerd.

The mask suddenly felt suffocating.

I stared at the screen, heart pounding, the live chat still exploding beside me, but all I could see was that single message.

How the hell did Ryder get my number?

And what the hell did he want?