The LiveStream System: Every Viewer Makes Me Rich

At 4:41 in the morning, I send my girlfriend two hundred and twelve dollars.

I do it the way I always do, with one thumb, still wearing my headphones, my voice scratchy from four hours of talking to strangers. A little checkmark pops up on the screen. *Sent to Bree V.* Then the number in my bank app drops, and I feel the old sting, like pressing on a bruise to see if it still hurts.

My name is Caleb Brooks. I am twenty-five years old, and I live in a one-room apartment above a pizza shop in Cleveland, Ohio, where the whole building smells like oregano and the radiator knocks all night like a ghost asking to be let in. Everybody I know has a number these days. Followers. Subscribers. Viewers. In this world, the number is your worth. A hundred viewers means a brand will email you. A thousand means you can quit your day job. A million means you stop being a person and start being a product.

My number is about seventy. On a good night, maybe ninety.

That is enough to make money, though. Real money, not rich money. I stream as Mr. Midnight, a voice with no face. I narrate games like they are movie trailers. I read short stories to strangers who cannot sleep. I do voices, a gravel-rough detective, a gentle old king, a robot who has just discovered sadness. People drop five dollars here, ten dollars there, and at the end of a good month it adds up to about three thousand dollars.

Every cent of it goes to Bree.

I know how that sounds. I have heard it in my own head a hundred times, usually around the same time I am skipping lunch. But when you are twenty-five, and you weigh three hundred and ten pounds, and the only thing in your life that ever made someone say *wow* is your voice, you do not argue with the one person who said it first.

Bree found me eleven months ago, in a chat window at two in the morning. *your voice is the only thing that makes me feel safe,* she typed. I read it three times. Then I cried a little, alone, in the dark, because nobody had ever said anything like that to me.

We started talking every night after my stream. She told me about her dad leaving, her rent, her dream of becoming an influencer in Los Angeles. I told her about my sister, my day job, my old church choir. I never told her what I looked like. She never really asked. When she finally did, I sent her one photo, the only one I had where I looked okay, from my sophomore year of college, back when I was a hundred and ninety pounds and played intramural basketball.

*omg you're so cute,* she wrote. *why have you been hiding?*

I should have told her the truth right then. I know that. I have known it for eleven months.

The phone buzzes in my hand. It is her.

**Bree:** *thank u babe!!! ur literally the best. also random but my landlord is being a nightmare, can u cover another 400 for rent? i'll pay u back i promise*

She has promised that severally.

I look at the ceiling. There is a water stain up there shaped like the state of Ohio. It has been there since I moved in. Sometimes I talk to it.

"What do you think?" I whisper. "Should I?"

Ohio does not answer.

I type: *Sure. Anything for you.* And I send it.

By noon I am in my car, a nine-year-old gray Corolla with a cracked dash and a delivery bag in the backseat that smells like old onion rings. January in Cleveland is the kind of cold that gets inside your bones and settles there. The sky is the color of dishwater. Snow is coming sideways off the lake.

I deliver for DashDrop from noon to seven, and I stream from midnight to four, and I sleep somewhere in the gap. Three hours a night, on a good night. My eyes are always a little red. My knees ache from climbing stairs. My stomach hurts because I eat whatever is cheap and fast and in my car.

I have done the math on all of it. After rent, gas, my phone bill, and the interest on the loan, I am left with just enough to buy a cup of coffee once a week.

The loan is its own story. Four thousand dollars from an app called QuickBridge, taken out in October, when Bree's car broke down in Los Angeles and she cried on the phone because she could not get to a casting call. I told her not to worry. I told her I had it. I did not have it. I put it on a loan with a forty percent interest rate and told myself I would pay it back in two months.

That was three months ago.

My phone buzzes against the cup holder. I glance down at the screen.

*QuickBridge Loans: Your payment of $4,200 is past due. Pay now to avoid additional fees.*

I put the phone face down.

My day is a string of small humiliations. A woman who will not look me in the eye when I hand her the bag. A man who snorts at me through a screen door. A kid who whispers, loudly, to his mother, *why is he so big?* and gets shushed. I smile every time. I say *enjoy your meal.* I have a rule about that. A man can lose a lot of things, but he does not have to lose his manners.

In the car between deliveries, I do the thing I always do. I hum. It is low and quiet, a melody I do not know the name of. It comes up out of me the way breath does. When I was a kid, my dad taught me three chords on his old acoustic guitar. He lives in Arizona now with his second family and calls on my birthday. The guitar is under my bed in a black case, and I have not opened it in two years.

My sister Maya calls at 3:15.

"Caleb! I just failed a quiz and I want to be comforted."

"Hello to you too."

"Be comforted. Say something deep and manly."

"You'll do better next time, kid."

"That's not deep. That's what Dad says."

I laugh. It is a real laugh, the kind that loosens my shoulders for the first time all day. Maya is nineteen. She is studying nursing at Tri-C, she has hair she cuts herself, and she is the only person alive who has never made me feel like I owe her something.

"How's Bree?" she asks.

My stomach twists. "Good."

"You don't sound good."

"I'm just tired."

"You're always tired." Her voice softens. "Caleb, you know you can tell me stuff, right? Even bad stuff. Also i need you to rest, take good care of yourself."

"I know."

"Do you? Because last Thanksgiving, you looked like you'd lost ten pounds of happiness."

"I'm fine, Maya."

A long pause. She knows I am lying. She lets it go anyway, which is the kindest thing she could do.

"Okay," she says. "But waffles on Sunday. You're buying."

"Deal."

I hang up. I sit there with the engine running and the wipers going, and I think, not for the first time, that I would not trade my sister for anything in the world. And that I have never once asked what I would do if I lost the other person.

I get home at 6:20.

The sky is already dark. The snow has stopped, leaving everything quiet and blue. I climb the stairs with my bag over my shoulder, breathing hard, one hand on the rail. By the top step my shirt is stuck to my back, and my thighs are burning, and I am thinking only about how nice it will be to lie down.

Then I see the suitcase.

It is pink. Hard shell. Standing right outside my door.

A girl is standing next to it with her back to me, scrolling on her phone. Long blonde hair. White sneakers. A tiny purse on her arm.

My heart stops.

I know that purse. I bought that purse in March for eleven hundred dollars. I ate noodles and eggs for nine days after.

"Bree?" I say.

She turns around, and she is smiling. A big, bright, practiced smile, with her phone half raised like she is about to film something.

The smile lasts about two seconds.

I watch it happen. I watch her eyes move down my body, then up, then down again, slower this time, like she is checking the price tag on something she did not order. Her mouth stays curved, but nothing behind it is moving anymore. Her phone sinks to her side.

"Caleb?" she says.

"Surprise?" I try.

It is a terrible joke. It dies right there in the hallway.

"You said you were six foot one," she says. Her voice is very quiet.

"I am six one."

"You said you worked out."

"I used to."

"You sent me a picture."

"That was from college." I wipe my forehead with my sleeve. My hand comes away wet. "Bree, I know this looks bad. Can we please go inside and talk?"

She takes one step back. Her suitcase wheels squeak against the floor.

"Don't touch me."

"I'm not touching you."

"You were about to."

I put both hands up. Down the hall, a door opens an inch. Mrs. Haverty from 2B peeks out and quickly pulls back. Perfect. Now I have an audience.

It takes me two tries to get the key in the lock. My fingers will not stop shaking. Bree watches me the whole time, and she does not say one word. When the door finally swings open, she looks at my apartment the same way she looked at me. One room. A bed against the wall. A desk with a microphone on an arm, two monitors, foam panels I stapled to the walls myself. A pizza box on the floor from three days ago.

"This is where you stream," she says.

"Yeah."

"This is where you've been living."

"Yeah."

"You told me you had a loft."

"I said it was an upstairs space."

She laughs. It is not a nice laugh. It has no air in it. "Oh my God. Eleven months. I told you everything. I cried on that voice."

"I know. I did too."

"But you let me believe..." She waves a hand at all of me. "You let me believe you looked like it."

That one lands low and hard, right under my ribs. I hold perfectly still so nothing shows on my face.

"I never lied about my voice," I say.

"You lied about everything else!"

"I lied about one photograph, Bree."

"And the loft. And the gym. And the whole life you were selling me!"

"I wasn't selling you anything." My voice cracks and I hate it. "I've sent you almost every dollar I make. For almost a year. I never asked for one thing back."

Her face tightens. She steps inside and crosses her arms over her chest like a door closing.

"So you're going to throw the money in my face."

"I'm not throwing it."

"Then what are you doing, Caleb?"

I open my mouth. Nothing good comes out. I close it.

This is the scene I have played in my head a hundred times. In my head, she walks in and sees me and laughs, a little embarrassed, and says, *I don't care what you look like, I love you.* She hugs me. We order pizza.

She walks to my desk and picks up the arm of my microphone. She looks at it for a long time. Then she lets go, and it swings with a hollow clunk.

"This is humiliating," she says. "I told my friends about you. I told them you were this deep-voiced, mysterious gym guy who sends me flowers on random Tuesdays."

"I do send you flowers."

"Stop talking."

I stop talking.

She paces to the window, then back to the door. Her jaw is working from side to side, the way it does on call when she is deciding how to say something mean in a sweet voice. Then she turns, and her face is different. Smooth. Planned.

"Okay," she says. "Here's what is going to happen."

My stomach drops. I have heard that tone before. She used it on a hotel manager once while I listened on the phone.

"We're done."

I nod slowly. I knew it. I knew it from the second she looked at me on the stairs. Knowing does not make it hurt less. It feels like a hand squeezing my throat from the inside.

"Okay," I say.

"I flew here. Four hundred and eighty dollars for a ticket."

"I'll pay you back."

"That's not the point." She holds up one finger. "You deceived me. Do you understand what that does to a woman? Emotionally? A friend of mine is in law school. She says what you did is a kind of fraud. Emotional fraud."

"That isn't a thing."

"It is if I say it is." She tilts her head. "Fifteen thousand dollars."

The room goes silent. Even the refrigerator seems to hold its breath.

"What?"

"For emotional distress. For the damage to my mental health. Pay me that, and I will walk out of here and never say a word about you."

I stare at her. I really look. I look at her pink lips and careful eyebrows, and I search for the girl who cried on my stream when her cat got sick. I cannot find her. Maybe she was never there. Maybe I just wanted her to be.

"I don't have fifteen thousand dollars," I say.

"You make money streaming."

"I make it and I send it to you."

"Then you have savings."

"I have sixty-three dollars. I owe four thousand to a loan app. I work sixteen hours a day, Bree. I sleep three. For you."

"So now this is my fault?"

"No."

"You keep saying things and then saying you didn't!"

"Because I'm trying not to say what I really want to say!"

"Then say it!"

I take a breath. I was about to call her a gold digger. My hands are clenched, so I force them open. I look at her and say it quietly.

"No."

She freezes.

"No," I say again. "I'm not paying you fifteen thousand dollars because I turned out to be fat."

I hear the word as it leaves me. I have never said it out loud like that, not about myself, not to anyone. It sits in the air between us like something dropped and broken.

Bree's mouth falls open. Then it closes, and her eyes go flat.

"Wow," she says. "A cheap, lying, *disgusting* person. I really thought you were different."

That one I feel everywhere.

I say nothing. I stand there in my wet shirt with my aching feet, and I let it hit me, and somewhere deep in my chest a small voice that has been holding on for months quietly lets go.

Her phone buzzes. She looks down, and for one second her whole face changes. It softens. It lights up like a girl who has just seen someone she loves. She almost smiles.

"Who's that?" I ask, before I can stop myself.

"None of your business."

But I am close enough to see the screen. The name at the top says **Ty Blaze.**

My blood goes cold. Ty Blaze. Two point four million followers. A loud, tanned, white-toothed gaming streamer with sneaker deals. The man she started following three months ago and told me was *just a friend, Caleb, don't be insecure.*

The message on the screen reads: *Landed yet? Don't worry about him. I'm waiting. Come to LA. I'll take care of everything.*

She sees me reading. She does not even flinch. She just slides the phone into her purse, the purse I bought, and lifts her chin.

"You can't expect a girl to wait around for a liar."

"You were already talking to him."

"You have no proof of anything," she says, calmer now. "Think about it. Who do people believe? A big streamer? Or you?"

She grabs her suitcase and stops at the door.

"You have until tomorrow. After that, I go public. With the truth. That you're a fat, ugly catfish who preys on women with that voice."

And then she is gone. Her wheels rattle down the stairs. The front door slams. A car engine starts outside and fades.

I stand in the middle of my apartment for a long time.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out without thinking.

*QuickBridge Loans: This is your final notice. We will contact your listed contacts.*

Below that is my bank app. I tap it. The little number loads slowly, like it does not want to tell me.

**$63.18.**

I sit down on the edge of my bed. The mattress groans. I look at my hands, my knees, my stomach pushing against my shirt. I have worked sixteen hours a day for a year. I gave away every cent. I thought it was love. I thought if I gave enough, she would never leave.

I was not buying love. I was renting it. And the rent just came due.

"Great," I whisper. "That's great."

A tear slides down my cheek. I wipe it fast, angry at myself. Another comes. Then I stop trying.

Outside, a siren goes by. Down the hall, Mrs. Haverty finally shuts her door all the way. I stay there until the window goes from blue to black and my phone has buzzed four more times and I have not looked at it once.

At 11:58, I wipe my face on my sleeve.

Nobody is going to pay me to feel sorry for myself. Rent is due in six days. I have a mic and a stream and exactly one thing I am good at.

I sit down at the desk and put on my headphones. The little green bar jumps when I click on the mic. My voice is the only thing in this room that is not broken.

"Alright," I say softly. "Good evening, everybody."

The stream starts. **Viewers: 2.**

Two. One of them is probably a bot.

I lean back in my chair. I am so tired I could sleep through the end of the world. I read a short story to the dead air, one about a lighthouse keeper who talks to the sea, and I do it in my gentlest voice, and I do not even hear myself. When the last line ends, nobody has typed a thing.

Then something appears in front of my eyes.

Not on my monitor. Not on my phone. Right there in the air, pale and blue, as if somebody has drawn it straight onto my vision.

**[DING.]**

**[Host detected: Caleb Brooks. Condition: financial collapse, emotional collapse, last chance.]**

**[Binding the Viewer Cash System...]**

I do not move. I do not breathe.

**[Binding complete.]**

**[Rule One: For every viewer in your livestream, the host earns $100.]**

I read it three times. My mouth goes dry.

**[Current viewers: 2. Payment pending: $200.]**

I look down at my phone. The number in my bank app flickers like a candle catching a breath.

**$263.18.**

My whole body goes still. Then the phone buzzes again, a different sound. A notification from the platform.

*Your name was mentioned in a new post by @BreeVance_Official.*

I tap it. My thumb is not steady.

It is the college photo, the only good one I had. Across it, in big pink letters: **"THE FAT CATFISH WHO TRIED TO SCAM ME. REPOST SO NO ONE ELSE GETS HURT."**

Twelve thousand likes already.

On my screen, the viewer counter jumps. **2... 15... 61...**

I stare at it, and the blue letters flash one last time.

**[Congratulations, Host. Your first hater has arrived.]**