I Thought She Was My Friend

At first, PetiteLouna was just a username.

I had come across her in an online game one Wednesday evening.

We were on the same team.

She played well.

Even very well.

At one point, I had missed something really easy, and she had written in the chat:

"Don't worry, it happens."

Then a few minutes later:

"Well played Safa."

I don't know why, but I smiled.

Maybe because the other players mostly wrote when someone made a mistake.

She had noticed when I did something good.

At the end of the game, she sent me a request to play together another time.

Her username was PetiteLouna.

In my head, I immediately imagined a girl.

A girl my age.

I didn't know what she looked like.

I didn't even know if Louna was her real first name.

But I hadn't really thought about it.

Her username said PetiteLouna.

She wrote like a girl my age.

So, for me, she was a girl my age.

It was as simple as that.

Well...

I thought.

---

In the following days, we met up several times in the game.

At first, we only talked about what was happening on the screen.

"Behind you!"

"Wait for me!"

"Well played!"

"How did you miss that?"

We laughed a lot.

Then we started talking between games.

She asked me:

"How old are you?"

I answered:

"Thirteen. And you?"

She answered almost immediately:

"Same."

That made me happy.

I was thirteen.

She was thirteen.

She liked the same games as me.

She said she liked cats.

Me too.

She found some characters in the game unbearable.

Me too.

After a few days, I felt like I knew her.

Not a lot.

But enough.

One evening, she wrote to me:

"You're really nice."

I answered:

"You too."

She sent a little heart.

I sent one too.

I hadn't found anything weird.

Why would I have found it weird?

I thought I was talking to a friend.

---

PetiteLouna remembered things.

That's maybe what brought me closest to her.

If I told her I had something important the next day, she would ask later:

"So, did it go well?"

If I told her I was annoyed about something, she would remember it several days later.

Once, she wrote to me:

"You're less funny today, are you okay?"

I looked at the message for a moment.

No one had asked me that all day.

So I started telling her a bit more things.

Not everything.

But little things.

When I was annoyed.

When something made me laugh.

When I had argued with my cousin.

She always answered.

Sometimes very quickly.

Even late.

After a while, when I turned on the game, I would check if PetiteLouna was online before even starting a game.

When she was there, I was happy.

When she wasn't there, the game seemed a bit less interesting to me.

I think that's when, in my head, she was no longer just someone I met in a game.

She had become my friend.

---

One evening, she asked me:

"Where do you live?"

I answered with the name of my country.

She wrote:

"Me too."

Then:

"What city?"

I started to write.

Then I stopped.

I don't even know why.

Mommy had already talked to me about personal information on the Internet.

So I erased it.

I answered:

"Not far from a big city."

PetiteLouna sent:

"You're mysterious."

I laughed.

She didn't insist.

So I forgot.

A few days later, she asked me:

"What middle school do you go to?"

This time, I answered:

"Why do you want to know?"

She wrote:

"Just like that. Maybe we don't live far apart."

I felt a tiny bit of discomfort.

Nothing huge.

Just something.

I changed the subject.

She followed.

Again, I told myself it was nothing.

---

Then one evening, she asked me if I had another app to chat on.

"It would be simpler than here."

I answered:

"I prefer talking here."

She sent:

"Why?"

"Just because."

She took a few seconds before answering.

"Don't you trust me?"

I remember that sentence very well.

Because it bothered me.

Not enough to scare me.

On the contrary.

It almost made me feel guilty.

We had been playing together for several weeks.

She knew lots of things about me.

She had listened to me.

She had been kind.

So I asked myself:

Why wouldn't I trust her?

I wrote:

"I do."

She answered:

"Then come on, it changes nothing."

I didn't answer right away.

Then Mommy called me to eat.

I closed the game.

During the meal, I thought about it several times.

But I didn't talk about it to anyone.

Not because I wanted to hide something.

Well, not yet.

I just thought it wasn't important.

---

The next day, PetiteLouna sent me:

"You left yesterday."

"Yes, I ate."

She answered:

"Do your parents check what you do on your phone?"

I frowned.

I wrote:

"Why?"

She answered:

"Just like that."

Then:

"If we talk elsewhere, don't tell them, otherwise they might tell you to stop talking to me."

I stayed in front of the screen.

This time, the discomfort was stronger.

I reread the message.

Don't tell them.

I didn't know why those three words bothered me so much.

PetiteLouna sent another message.

"Don't worry, I'm not weird."

Then:

"I just don't want them to ruin everything."

I didn't answer anything.

A few seconds later:

"Safa?"

Then:

"Are you not answering anymore?"

I put down my phone.

---

I went downstairs to the kitchen.

Mommy was putting something away.

I stayed near the door.

She looked at me.

"Are you okay?"

I answered:

"Yes."

Then I stayed there.

She looked at me again.

"Did you want something?"

I didn't know how to start.

So I asked:

"Mommy... if someone tells you not to tell your parents that you talk to them, is that weird?"

She stopped.

Not abruptly.

But her face had changed.

"It depends. Why?"

I immediately regretted having started.

"For nothing."

Mommy didn't insist strongly.

She just said:

"Safa, if someone asks you to hide a conversation from me, you can show it to me. You won't be punished because you come to talk to me about it."

I remember that sentence exactly.

You won't be punished because you come to talk to me about it.

I think that's what made me take out my phone.

I showed her.

---

Mommy read.

Not just the last message.

She scrolled up a bit in the conversation.

The questions about my city.

My middle school.

The other app.

The trust.

The secret.

She read without speaking.

The more she read, the more my stomach tightened.

And something strange happened.

Messages that had seemed normal to me a few days earlier no longer seemed quite the same when I looked at them with her.

Mommy asked me:

"Safa, do you know this person in real life?"

"No."

"Have you ever seen her?"

"No."

"Have you ever heard her voice?"

"No."

I was starting to understand where she was going with this.

But it almost annoyed me.

"But she's a thirteen-year-old girl."

Mommy looked at me.

"How do you know?"

I didn't answer right away.

"She told me."

"And how do you know it's true?"

Silence.

I looked at the username.

PetiteLouna.

Then I said:

"Well... her username already."

As soon as the words came out, I realized what I had just said.

A username.

That was my proof?

A username?

Mommy didn't laugh.

She didn't even make that face that adults sometimes make when they think something is obvious.

She simply asked me:

"If I created an account now and called it PetiteLouna, would that make me a thirteen-year-old girl?"

I lowered my eyes.

"No."

"Can a person write that they are thirteen when they are twenty, thirty, or forty?"

I didn't answer.

I knew.

Yes.

Of course, yes.

And then, something broke in the image I had built in my head.

I saw PetiteLouna again.

Well...

I didn't really see her again.

Because I had never seen her.

It was me who had given her a face in my imagination.

It was me who had decided she was thirteen.

It was me who had imagined a room, a voice, a way of laughing.

PetiteLouna had never shown me any of that.

My brain had filled in the gaps.

---

I took the phone again.

I was rereading some messages.

"Where do you live?"

"What middle school?"

"Don't you trust me?"

"Don't tell them."

They were still exactly the same.

But now, I wasn't reading them the same way.

I asked:

"Do you think it's an adult?"

Mommy answered:

"I don't know."

I raised my head.

"But what do you think?"

She repeated:

"I don't know, Safa. And that's exactly the problem."

That sentence chilled me.

Because I wanted an answer.

I wanted her to tell me:

Yes, it was an adult.

Or:

No, it was just a weird girl.

But she couldn't.

No one could.

We didn't know.

I didn't know.

And yet, a few hours earlier, I was convinced I knew exactly who I was talking to.

---

Mommy asked me if I had given my address.

"No."

My middle school?

"No."

My phone number?

"No."

If I had agreed to talk on another app?

"No."

She breathed out softly.

I could see she was relieved.

Then she told me:

"You did well to stop when something made you uncomfortable."

I asked her:

"But should I have understood before?"

She shook her head.

"That kind of person can try to seem normal for a long time. Kind even. The problem isn't that you talked to her. The problem would have been to keep hiding something that was starting to make you uncomfortable."

That made me feel good.

Because part of me was starting to feel stupid.

How could I have believed all that?

How could I have called someone my friend without even knowing who it was?

Then Mommy added:

"And someone who truly cares about you shouldn't need to distance you from your parents to keep your friendship."

I didn't say anything.

That sentence also stayed with me.

---

We blocked the account.

Then Mommy helped me report it.

Before doing it, I looked one last time at the username.

PetiteLouna.

I almost wanted to send a message.

"Who are you really?"

But Mommy told me:

"You don't need to get an answer to stop a conversation that doesn't seem normal to you."

I blocked.

The account disappeared.

Just like that.

After all those weeks, it had only taken pressing a button.

---

For several days, I didn't feel like turning the game back on.

I often thought about the conversation.

Not just the last messages.

The first ones too.

"Well played Safa."

"Are you okay today?"

"You're really nice."

I wondered which ones were sincere.

Then I understood that this question might not even have an answer.

---

Before, I thought you could easily recognize someone dangerous.

I thought a weird person said weird things from the start.

That you felt it immediately.

That you knew.

But PetiteLouna hadn't started by asking me where I lived.

She had started with:

"Well played."

She had laughed with me.

She had remembered things I told her.

She had been kind.

And little by little, because she had been kind for a long time, I had started to believe I knew her.

But being kind doesn't prove who you are.

A username doesn't prove who you are.

An age written in a message doesn't prove who you are.

And someone who says:

"Trust me,"

doesn't automatically deserve to be trusted.

I still sometimes think about PetiteLouna.

About her username.

About all the things I thought I knew about her.

Her age.

Her first name.

What she liked.

Her way of speaking.

In reality, I knew almost nothing.

I didn't even know if it was a girl.

I didn't know if she was thirteen.

I didn't know if Louna was her first name.

I didn't even know who had written all those messages.

And I think that's what struck me the most.

I thought she was my friend.

In reality, I didn't even know who was talking to me.