It started, as these things always do, with a perfect mistake.
He found her through a friend's story — not tagged, just visible in the background. A flash of her face, caught mid-laugh, her hands covering her mouth like she was trying to keep something beautiful from escaping. She wore a threadbare sweatshirt and no jewelry, and something about her made him sit up straighter.
He followed her. She followed back.
She replied to his first message with a lowercase "hey :)" and somehow that was enough. They talked for a week without stopping. It was dizzying. Clean. Like stepping into a dream that already knew your name.
They met in a coffee shop she chose. He paid. She didn't reach for her wallet, but thanked him as if he'd offered something rare. She didn't smile with her teeth, but she smiled often. She said little things that made him feel like he was clever, or rare. He left the date feeling taller.
"You feel familiar," she said at the end.
"In what way?"
"Like something I thought I'd lost."
He walked home thinking he'd been chosen.
In the beginning, she gave everything slowly.
She was affectionate, but sparingly. She complimented him, but only when he was doubting himself. She asked questions like she was taking notes, tilting her head in a way that made him want to confess.
She said she didn't like social media — called it "noise." Said she preferred her life small, quiet, curated. Her profile was wiped except for two photos: a sunlit window and a blurry cat. He loved that. It felt like intimacy.
She asked if she could keep a spare toothbrush at his place after a week. Left a cardigan over the back of his chair. Started doing his laundry without being asked.
He told himself it was love, though he hadn't said the word.
She never said it either.
There were things she wanted help with, small at first.
"Can I borrow your card for gas? Mine's being weird."
"I don't want to ask my family, but it's just a small bill."
"I hate doing this. You make me feel safe."
Each time, she said it like it pained her. Each time, he said yes. It felt good to be needed in a way that wasn't desperate. He felt like a hero — the kind that never had to wear a cape, just sign quietly at checkout counters.
She didn't talk about her past. When she did, it was in fragments.
"I've had to learn to survive."
"I know how to disappear if I have to."
"People always think I'm the one who needs saving."
He thought he was earning her trust. That the half-stories would someday become whole.
He didn't notice how often she asked about his work. His passwords. His schedule. She said it was cute how predictable he was. She knew when he'd be home. She knew what days he had calls. She knew where the emergency key was.
At the time, it felt like closeness.
Now, he sees it was mapping.
She was gone when he woke up.
Not slowly — no argument, no goodbye. Just space where her body had been. Her clothes vanished. Her toothbrush gone. Every trace of her removed as precisely as surgery. Even the laundry she'd folded was missing.
No note.
He called. Nothing. He messaged. Nothing. Her number disconnected. Her profile deleted.
He stood in his living room for a long time, waiting to feel something. Guilt, maybe. Sadness. But it didn't arrive — not right away. Just a tightness, somewhere under the ribs. A little cold.
Then he opened his work laptop.
The password didn't work.
His email was locked. His shared cloud folder wiped. The backup hard drive missing.
He laughed at first, because it felt impossible.
But she had asked about everything. Gently. Like she was just interested in what he did. She had asked how his files were secured. Said she was proud of him. She had praised him for being responsible.
And then she took it.
Three weeks later, the full weight arrived.
She had used his name to impersonate him. Sent emails to clients. Forwarded contracts. Transferred files. She hadn't just deleted things — she'd rerouted them.
He still doesn't know what she stole, exactly. But the deals didn't go through. A quiet freeze fell over everything. Clients stopped replying. One asked if he had "resolved the issue."
No police report. He couldn't prove she ever existed.
There were no photos of them together. No texts he could show. She had used disappearing messages. Private folders. Calls, not chats. It was like she knew how to vanish before she arrived.
And maybe that was the point.
He still dreams about her sometimes — but never as she was.
Only as suggestion.
The scent of her shampoo on someone else's coat. A voice that sounds like hers across the subway car. A hoodie left behind in a restaurant.
He wonders if she was ever real.
If she ever liked him, even for a second.
Or if he was just another open door she could walk through, carefully — barefoot, quiet, soft — and lock from the inside.