The Stranger Behind the Screen

The coffee between them had gone cold. Neither of them had noticed.

Ariv hadn't touched his in several minutes. He kept turning the cup slowly on its saucer, like he needed something to do with his hands before he could make himself speak.

"There's something I should have told you a long time ago," he said. "I don't think you're going to like it."

Arika didn't answer right away.

Something in his voice had already told her this wasn't going to be small.

She'd known his opinions. His arguments. The exact rhythm of his replies at midnight when neither of them could sleep. She would have said she knew him well — better than she'd expected to, three months in.

She was starting to understand she'd only known the version of him he'd let her see.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Tell me."

___________________________

Three Months Earlier

The sticky notes on Arika's wall had multiplied again. Yellow ones for revision dates, pink for the sections she kept forgetting, one blue note stuck crooked above her desk that just said *Live a happy life.* She couldn't remember anymore if she'd written it as a reminder or a joke.

She peeled open a fresh page of case law, pushed her half-empty mug of chamomile tea aside, and reached for her highlighter without looking — three years of muscle memory. Her room was small, but she'd made it hers: fairy lights above the headboard, a shelf of skincare stacked next to accounting manuals, books stacked two-deep on every surface.

Her parents had been thrilled when she came third in 11th grade. Genuinely thrilled — no lecture, no comparison to anyone else's daughter, just her mother's face lighting up over dinner. That was the part that stayed with her longer than any scolding would have. Nobody had asked her to do it again. She'd decided that on her own, lying awake that night, turning the number over and over like it wasn't quite enough.

She closed her books around midnight and let herself do the one thing she always regretted: a few minutes on her phone before sleep.

A reel autoplayed on her screen: some man, confident and smiling into the camera, saying women were too emotional, that they took every statement personally. She let out a short, sarcastic laugh and, out of muscle memory, tapped open the comments.

The first few were exactly what she expected. *Yes so true, women are just not easy to understand.* *Very emotional fr.* She was about to lock her phone when one comment stopped her thumb mid-scroll.

Ariv: *Emotions are a design flaw. Strip them away and the world makes a lot more sense.*

She read it twice. Then four times. What was this person actually thinking, writing something like that?

She'd never once replied to a comment — not from any account, let alone her real one. But her thumbs were already moving before she caught up with herself.

Arika: *Wow okay. Hope you find someone worth listening to someday. Cause right now? Doesn't sound like it.*

The second she hit send, her stomach dropped. She hadn't meant to actually post that. A reply notification blinked onto her screen before she could find the delete option.

Ariv: *I guess the reel was right after all.*

Her jaw tightened. So he was exactly what she thought — someone who couldn't listen, could only deflect. She locked her phone, shoved it under her pillow, and told herself she wasn't going to think about it again.

She was asleep within minutes.

_____________________________

Somewhere else, at that same cold coffee table, three months later, Ariv was still turning his cup.

_____________________________

5 a.m. came the way it always did. She reached for her phone out of habit before she was even fully awake.

One notification.

Ariv: sorry i guess

No punctuation, like he'd typed it fast and hit send before he could think better of it — or delete it, the way she'd tried to delete hers.

The message sat there for a long minute while she decided what to do with it. Delete it, ignore it, block him — any of those would be easier.

But she hadn't actually talked to anyone in months. Not really. Her days were books, highlighters, and her parents asking if she'd eaten. And this man clearly needed to be told, calmly and thoroughly, exactly where he'd gone wrong.

A small smile before she started typing — not to fight, just to see what he'd say.

Arika: *"Sorry I guess" isn't an apology, it's a shrug with punctuation.*

Ariv: I don't do the whole three-paragraph apology thing. Take it or leave it.

Arika: Noted. For future reference, most people prefer at least one full sentence.

Ariv: Most people also cry during sad movies. Doesn't mean I have to.

Her eyes rolled without her permission, a grin following right behind.

Arika: That escalated fast. Nobody said anything about movies.

Ariv: You implied I lack basic human warmth. I'm defending myself.

Arika: I said your apology was bad. You're the one who brought up crying at movies, which, for the record, is a completely normal human response.

Ariv: See, that's the problem. You call it normal. I call it a controllable weakness.

Arika: Here we go again.

Ariv: I'm serious. If you can turn something off, why wouldn't you? Crying doesn't fix anything.

A reply typed, deleted, retyped.

Arika: Because turning something off isn't the same as solving it. You're not logical, you're just avoiding the work.

Somewhere on his end, Ariv smirked at the screen — the kind of smirk that meant he was enjoying this more than he wanted to admit.

Ariv: That's exactly what emotional people say to justify being emotional.

Arika: And that's exactly what people say when they confuse being emotionless with being strong.

Ariv: Interesting. So according to you, emotions always improve decision-making?

Arika: No. According to me, ignoring emotions doesn't automatically make decisions better.

One reply became five. Five became twenty.

Someone replied: are you two gonna solve human psychology here or should the rest of us leave 😂

Someone else: bro wrote a thesis 💀

Another: get a room

14 likes stacked under a comment neither of them had written.

Ariv: She started it.

Arika: You said crying doesn't fix anything. I said you were avoiding the work.

Ariv: At least I didn't lecture a stranger about right and wrong at 5am.

Arika: You deserved it.

Ariv: Didn't say you were wrong.

Several minutes passed before he sent anything else — not agreement, exactly, just the exchange sitting with him longer than these things usually did.

Most people either folded under his certainty or came at him swinging. She'd done neither. She'd just kept making him defend himself, calmly, like she actually wanted to know if he could.

That, annoyingly, was interesting.

A message request landed a few minutes later.

Ariv: You argue a lot.

Arika: You make a lot of wrong statements.

Ariv: So you admit you argue because of me?

Arika: No. I argue because you're wrong.

Ariv smiled at his phone — small, involuntary, gone in a second. This stranger was irritating. Genuinely irritating.

He read her last message twice before he finally put the phone down.