_A Novel of Love and Deception_

*Chapter 1: Algorithm*

Maya didn’t believe in soulmates. She believed in Wi-Fi signals, shared Spotify playlists, and the statistical improbability that out of 8 billion people, the right one would just _appear_.

Then she met Jay.

It started the way everything did now — with a notification. A match. A message. _You have good taste in sad indie music._ She’d laughed, because no one ever noticed the bands in her bio. By the third day, they were sending voice notes at 1 AM. By the second week, she was saving his goodnight texts.

_Fate > algorithms ❤️_ he’d written, after she said she couldn’t believe they met on an app. Maya had screenshotted that one.

That Tuesday, it rained. The kind of rain that made the city feel like it was holding its breath. Jay said he was stuck at work. Again. _Deadline_, followed by that tired-face emoji he always used. Maya curled up by her window, phone warm in her palm.

_It’s raining here too. Weird._

She didn’t expect him to answer. He was “working.” But at 11:47 PM, her screen lit up.

_Can’t sleep. Wish u were here._

For a second, she let herself believe it. Let herself picture his office, him looking at the same rain, thinking of her. It was a dangerous kind of hope — the kind that made you ignore the way he never called when he said he would, the way “work” always seemed to happen after 9 PM.

Her thumb moved on its own. Snapmap. A habit she hated. His Bitmoji wasn’t at the downtown office tower she’d memorized from his stories. It was across town, at a pin labeled “Kiki’s.”

The rain suddenly sounded louder.

She typed before she could stop herself: _Then why does your snapmap say you’re at Kiki’s?_

The three dots appeared. _Jay is typing…_

Then vanished.

Then appeared again.

Maya’s chest felt tight. She knew what was coming. An explanation stitched together from half-truths. She’d heard them before, from other men, in other chats. But not from Jay. Not from the one who said _fate > algorithms_.

_That’s my cousin’s place. Phone died so I borrowed hers._

It was too quick. Too rehearsed.

Maya switched apps. Instagram. She didn’t follow Kiki, but she didn’t have to. Kiki’s story was public. Five minutes old. A crowded living room, music, laughter. And there — in the blurry background, just over Kiki’s shoulder — Jay. Someone’s arm around him. His arm around someone else. He was smiling the way he smiled in the selfies he sent Maya.

Her hands didn’t shake when she screenshotted it. They only shook after she sent it.

_Maya wait. That’s not what it looks like._

She stared at the words. _Not what it looks like._ As if she hadn’t spent weeks learning to read him. As if love didn’t train you to become fluent in someone else’s lies.

_Then what does a lie look like, Jay?_

_Jay unsent a message._

The notification mocked her. He could delete the text. He couldn’t delete the image burned behind her eyes: his face, caught in someone else’s flash.

_You can delete the text. Not the truth._

She threw her phone on the bed like it had burned her. Twenty minutes. That’s how long it took for him to decide what version of himself to send next.

_I love you._

Three words. The ones she’d wanted for weeks. Now they landed like stones.

Maya picked up her phone. Her thumb hovered. She thought about the girls who would’ve written back. The girls who would’ve begged for more context, more excuses, more reasons to stay.

She wasn’t that girl anymore.

_You loved the idea of me._

She hit send. Watched the _Delivered_ turn to _Read_. And before the three dots could appear — before he could type his way back into her doubt — she left the chat.

Outside, the rain kept falling. But for the first time in months, Maya felt like she could finally breathe.

---

*End of Chapter 1*

Maya didn’t sleep.

She told herself she would. She told herself that leaving the chat was the hard part, and now it was done. Clean. Over. But her phone was still on the bed, screen-down like a dare. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it: Jay in Kiki’s story, blurred but undeniable. The way his hand rested on someone else’s waist. The way he laughed.

By 3 AM, she was no longer trying to sleep. She was hunting.

Kiki’s Instagram was public. That was the first mistake — Jay’s or Kiki’s, Maya hadn’t decided yet. The second mistake was Kiki’s caption from two hours ago: _my ride or dies 🥂 #tuesdayvibes_.

Jay wasn’t tagged. Of course he wasn’t. But Maya knew his hoodie. The black one with the frayed sleeve. She’d told him it made him look like he was hiding from the world. He’d said, _Only from everyone but you._

She scrolled. Kiki had stories archived as highlights. _Bdays. Girls Trip. Us._ Maya clicked _Us_.

Photos loaded like accusations. Kiki and Jay at a rooftop bar. Kiki and Jay at a beach, her head on his shoulder. Kiki and Jay in a mirror selfie, his arm around her, her caption: _3 years, still crazy about this one ❤️_

Three years.

Maya did the math. Three years ago, she was still engaged to Daniel. Three years ago, she didn’t even have this dating app. Three years ago, Jay had been telling Kiki he loved her while telling Maya that love was “fate > algorithms.”

Her throat burned. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to call him. She wanted to do neither.

Instead, she DM’d Kiki. No plan. Just fingers moving faster than sense.

*Maya* [3:17 AM]: Hey. I don’t think you know me. But I think you know Jay.

Kiki read it in four minutes. Maya watched the _seen_ notification appear. No dots. No reply. Just _seen_.

At 7:02 AM, her phone buzzed. Not Kiki. Jay.

_Can we talk? Please. In person. Let me explain._

Maya stared at the text. _Let me explain._ As if this was a misunderstanding. As if there were a version of the truth where he wasn’t a liar.

She didn’t answer. She got dressed, grabbed coffee, and went to work with Kiki’s profile still open in her browser. By lunch, Kiki had posted again. A selfie. Red eyes. No caption. Just a black heart.

*🖤*

Maya’s phone buzzed again at 2:14 PM. Unknown number.

*Unknown*: _He told me about you. Said you were “just a girl from the app.” Said it wasn’t serious._

*Unknown*: _I believed him. I’m sorry._

Maya’s hands shook. She didn’t have to ask who it was.

*Maya*: _Three years?_

*Kiki*: _Three years. And one apartment. And a dog._

A dog. Maya put her coffee down before she dropped it. There was a dog.

*Kiki*: _He told me you knew. That you were okay with it. That you were “poly too.”_

*Kiki*: _Are you?_

Maya laughed then. A sharp, broken sound that made her coworker look up. No, she wasn’t poly. She wasn’t okay with it. She wasn’t anything except the other woman in a story she didn’t agree to be in.

*Maya*: _I didn’t know. About any of it._

*Kiki*: _I didn’t either. Not about you._

*Kiki*: _He’s at work right now. Or he says he is._

*Kiki*: _Do you want his location?_

Maya’s breath caught. The question hung there, blinking on her screen. _Do you want his location?_

She thought about the rain last night. About _Fate > algorithms_. About _I love you_ sent at 12:17 AM while Kiki was probably asleep in their bed.

Her thumb hovered.

*Maya*: _Yes._

Kiki sent a pin. Not “work.” A hotel downtown.

Maya stood up. She didn’t grab her bag. Didn’t tell her boss she was leaving. She just walked out, phone in hand, the map already routing her to a truth she wasn’t sure she could survive.

But she was done being lied to.

---

*Typing…*

_A Novel of Love and Deception_

The Uber smelled like pine air freshener and bad decisions. Maya didn’t speak. She just watched the blue dot on her phone inch toward Kiki’s pin.

_The Meridian Downtown. Room 814._

He wasn’t at work. He was never at work.

The hotel lobby was all marble and quiet piano music. Too expensive for a Tuesday. Too anonymous for a man with a girlfriend of three years and a dog named Bear. Maya’s heels clicked against the floor, loud as a heartbeat.

She didn’t have a plan. She only had the screenshot of him in Kiki’s story burned into her vision, and Kiki’s text: _He checks in as “J. Miller.” Says it’s for work clients._

J. Miller. Not Jay. Not the man who wrote _Fate > algorithms_ and _I love you_ at 12:17 AM.

The elevator took 14 seconds. She counted. When the doors opened on the 8th floor, the hallway was empty. 814 was at the end, next to the ice machine.

Maya raised her hand to knock. Her knuckles stopped an inch from the wood.

What was she doing? What would she say? _Hey, surprise, it’s the girl from the app?_ _Hey, your girlfriend sent me?_ _Hey, I loved you for 47 days and you lied for 1,095?_

Before she could decide, the door opened.

Jay wasn’t expecting her. He was wearing the black hoodie with the frayed sleeve. His hair was wet, like he’d just showered. There was a towel around his neck. He looked like the man from her voice notes. The one who said _can’t sleep, wish u were here_.

He looked like a stranger.

“Maya.” Her name sounded wrong in his mouth. Like he’d been practicing it.

She didn’t step inside. She didn’t trust herself that close. “Kiki says hi.”

His face did something complicated. Guilt, then panic, then that smooth, awful calm she’d seen in his texts. The _Jay is typing…_ face.

“Maya, wait. I can explain—”

“Don’t.” Her voice didn’t shake. She was proud of that. “Don’t do the thing where you explain. Just… tell me one true thing. Right now.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. The towel slipped a little on his shoulders. For a second, he looked young. Lost. Like the boy he’d pretended to be when he told her his biggest fear was “ending up alone.”

“I did love you,” he said finally. “I do.”

Maya laughed. It hurt coming out. “That’s not true. You loved that I didn’t know about her. You loved that she didn’t know about me. You loved _lying_.”

A voice called from inside the room. Female. Not Kiki. _Babe? Who is it?_

Jay’s eyes went wide. The color drained from his face.

Maya took a step back. _Babe?_ There was a third.

Of course there was a third.

She didn’t wait for him to type his way out of this one. She didn’t want his explanation. She didn’t want his version. She turned and walked back toward the elevator, her heels quieter now. Behind her, she heard him say her name again.

“Maya.”

She didn’t turn around. She hit the button. The doors opened. She stepped inside.

As they closed, she saw him in the gap — barefoot in the hallway, towel still around his neck, a man with three lives and zero left.

Her phone buzzed as the elevator descended.

*Kiki*: _Did you find him?_

*Kiki*: _Was he alone?_

Maya looked at the screen. She thought about the voice from the room. About Bear the dog, probably waiting at Kiki’s apartment. About the 47 days she’d spent believing in _fate > algorithms_.

*Maya*: _No._

*Maya*: _And I’m sorry._

She turned her phone off before Kiki could reply.

---