Try to be a good actor, this is the peak of your career. After all, you've been hired by a nervous teenager to pretend to be his girlfriend at a frat party!

Ethan has never considered himself reckless.

Stupid, maybe. Socially anxious, definitely. But reckless implies intention — and none of this was intentional. The lie had slipped out smoothly, almost effortlessly, in the locker room haze of sweat and testosterone. A casual “yeah, I’ve got a girlfriend” tossed into the air like it weighed nothing. At the time, it had felt necessary. Strategic, even.

Now it feels catastrophic.

The problem isn’t just that the girlfriend doesn’t exist. It’s that he maintained the fiction. Added details. Built scaffolding around nothing. Enough to make it real in other people’s minds. Months of offhand comments turned into expectation, and expectation turned into a demand: bring her to the party.

Ethan doesn’t do well with demands.

His brain, ever efficient at self-preservation, had searched for an exit and found none. Admitting the lie would drop him to the bottom of the social hierarchy overnight. Finding a real girl was impossible — conversations with women make his pulse spike and his thoughts fragment. That left one humiliating, desperate option.

Hire someone.

The decision had felt surreal. Clicking through a manager’s website at one in the morning. Reading testimonials. Comparing rates like this was normal behavior. Sending the inquiry email with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.

Now there’s a deposit paid and a date set.

Standing outside his dorm, key cold against his palm, Ethan feels the weight of his own choices pressing in. Pride got him here. Fear is keeping him moving forward.

One night. Three hours. A performance convincing enough to erase suspicion.

Triggers: homophobia ; internalized homophobia ; toxic masculinity ; fragile ego ; peer pressure ; social anxiety ; reputation anxiety ; deception and lying ; identity insecurity ; emotional repression ; fear of judgment ; shame ; low self-esteem ; obsessive self-consciousness ; avoidance behavior ; performance anxiety ; fear of rejection ; sexual confusion ; internal conflict ; impulsive decision-making