When the Loyalty Tester Gets Tested Novel – I had barely posted our vacation photos on social media when a loyalty tester slid into my DMs. The loyalty tester messaged me: [Hey, sweetie, your boyfriend looks like bad news. Send me his WhatsApp, and I’ll run a free loyalty test for you.] I replied: [Since when are professional homewreckers this shameless?] After I turned her down, she posted our private messages online and started crying victim. Before long, hordes of strangers were flooding my inbox with abuse.
I swallowed my pride and publicly apologized, saying I just wanted a quiet life. But she and everyone online took it as proof that I had something to hide, and they became even more determined to hurry up and put him through a loyalty test. A few days later, the loyalty tester smugly posted screenshots showing that she’d added my boyfriend on WhatsApp, with the caption, [That was easy. Your boyfriend hasn’t been behaving~] But when I looked at her post, all I felt was pity. *** Less than an hour after the loyalty tester’s new post went up, it had already racked up over ten thousand likes.
I stared at the two screenshots in the post. The first was a friend request with just one line, [Hey, handsome, is that really you in the photo? Add me~] The second was a WhatsApp chat screen. The contact name was Subject #12. I couldn’t see the username, but the profile picture on the other side was me, taken during our trip a few days earlier, and I was smiling brightly in it. The comment section had already blown up, and wave after wave of people rushed in to mock me. [@her, come take a look.
Recognize what your man looks like in somebody else’s chat window?] [Where’s that clown now? No wonder she started cussing people out even over a free loyalty test. So the precious boyfriend she’s been defending this whole time is just bargain-bin trash.] [Certain people can stop hiding now. Get out here and grovel.] Just as they wanted, I got tagged in the pinned comment. Under it, the loyalty tester had left a hand-over-mouth giggling emoji. As the comments got nastier and nastier, I couldn’t hold back anymore and finally made a post of my own. [Thank you to everyone who’s concerned about my relationship. My boyfriend and I have known each other since high school, and we’ve already weathered more than a few storms together. I know what kind of person he is, and I have faith in what we have. If our relationship ever really falls apart, I’ll break up with him without hesitation.
But before that happens, I don’t want anyone putting him through some kind of test of character, and I don’t want anyone stepping into our relationship.] When I saw that quite a few people seemed to agree with me, I finally breathed a little easier and prayed the whole thing would die down. But the loyalty tester immediately rushed over and played the victim again: [Sweetie, I’m not trying to ruin your relationship. I just worry about girls ending up with bad men, so I only wanted to test him for you.] The second she spoke, her followers swarmed in behind her, and the tone in the comments flipped instantly. They were convinced I just couldn’t let go of a scumbag. They even copied my wording and twisted it into all kinds of snide parody versions, then attached my post underneath and joked that it was their “source material.” Even the comments saying we’d last forever were buried and replaced.
Staring at those harsh, glaring words, I felt a tight ache in my chest. In the end, I just turned off my phone. That night, after finishing a long day at work, I finally got home. The moment I walked in, I saw Chase Carter leaning against the couch, looking at his phone, a faint smile still hanging on his handsome face. When he heard me, he flinched on instinct and flipped the phone facedown in one quick motion. Then he said stiffly, “Summer, you’re home early today?” “Yeah. Were you chatting with someone?” “Just one of the guys.” My heart sank. He was lying. Every time Chase lied, he blinked once first. I told myself we were adults, and adults were allowed to have private things they didn’t share. So I pretended not to notice and started venting about work the way I always did.
Just like always, Chase sat there quietly and listened, but his eyes kept drifting back to his phone. I talked for quite a while, and he didn’t respond to a single thing I said. For some reason, a wave of exhaustion washed over me. Thinking back to the uproar from earlier that day, I finally asked tentatively. “Chase, did any strange person try to add you today?” He smiled faintly. “No.” But that one word made my heart sink even lower. I tightened my grip on my sleeve and quickly forced myself to shove those ugly thoughts out of my head. Chase and I had been together for years. It wasn’t as though no one else had ever come along. There had been younger girls at school who had crushes on him and coworkers who liked him too, but he had turned every one of them down. How could someone who had suddenly appeared online possibly ruin what we had? Besides, I knew exactly what kind of man Chase was.
With that thought, I let out a breath and went back to my room to rest. But the moment I opened the app again, I saw that the loyalty tester had just made another post.