"Love cheats"
Chapter 1: The Digital Encounter
It was a winter evening when Ethan, 39 years old, divorced and father to an eight-year-old boy, opened Tinder more out of boredom than hope. As he scrolled through a stream of copy-paste profiles, one particular face stood out. Her name was Rachel Moore—a woman with a melancholic yet intense gaze, brown hair, and gentle features. Her profile was simple: “Looking for authentic moments in a world full of pretense.” That alone was enough to intrigue him.
The conversation between Ethan and Rachel was immediate and profound. No small talk, no superficiality. They spoke of books, of life’s fears, of broken dreams. After just a few days, Rachel confided something devastating: she had terminal cancer. A rare, inoperable form affecting her lymph nodes, she said. Doctors had given her no more than six months to live.
Ethan was struck, overwhelmed by a wave of empathy and sorrow. Suddenly, his life began to revolve around her. “I don’t want pity,” she wrote, “but I don’t want to die alone.” With those words, Ethan felt he had been given a mission. He decided he would stand by her side for as long as she had left.
Their first meeting took place in a small café in Melbourne. Rachel wore a wool hat and scarf, explaining she had lost her hair due to chemotherapy. She had a fragile beauty—something to be protected. Ethan looked at her the way you’d look at something precious and shattered.
From that day on, they began seeing each other often. Ethan accompanied her to her supposed “medical appointments,” which she said were held at a private clinic. He brought her home-cooked meals, bought her flowers and small gifts. More than once he offered her money to help with medical expenses, but at first she refused, almost with pride. Then one day, she accepted. She had received—a bill, she said—for $3,000 for an experimental treatment. Ethan gave her the money without a second thought.
What Ethan didn’t know was that just a few kilometers away, another man was living the same story.
Chapter 2: The Other Side of the Truth
About twenty kilometers from Ethan, in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, lived Liam Carter, a 42-year-old IT technician. Reserved and methodical, Liam had always had complicated relationships marked by distrust. But everything changed when he met Rachel, in a Facebook support group for people living with terminally ill relatives.
Rachel had posted a touching message about how hard it was to live with a deadly disease and raise a daughter alone. Moved by an empathy he hadn’t felt in a long time, Liam messaged her privately. From there, a conversation began that turned into something more.
Rachel told the same story: terminal cancer, very expensive experimental treatments, a young daughter, and a violent ex-partner she had fled from. But with Liam, the story had some differences. She said she lived in a caravan near the sea because she couldn’t afford rent. The photos she sent him confirmed everything: a small caravan, an unmade bed, medicine scattered on a small table.
Liam was struck by the strength of this woman. Every time he wrote to her, he felt more alive. She told him she didn’t want money, only “a little sincere love” before she died. But even with him, after a few weeks, the requests began. First a loan for urgent medication, then for the maintenance of the van she lived in. Liam, initially skeptical, gave in. Rachel’s soft voice and tears were more convincing than any logic.
What Rachel didn’t imagine was that one day, the two men would cross paths.
But for now, she was very good at keeping the worlds separate. She used two different phone numbers, two email addresses, and even two different names: to Ethan she was Rachel Moore, while to Liam she was Renee Martin.
Her game seemed perfect. But beneath the surface, something was starting to crack. Every lie carries a chain of details to remember, and Rachel was beginning to confuse her versions. Once, she told Liam the treatment was at a clinic in Brisbane, but on the same day, she told Ethan she had just returned from a visit to Sydney.
Neither man noticed at first. Both were too emotionally involved. To them, Rachel was a strong, suffering, but real woman. And that’s precisely what made the scam so powerful: her apparent humanity.
Chapter 3: Parallel Lives
For Rachel, life had become a game of perfect balance. Mondays and Tuesdays were dedicated to Ethan, Wednesdays and Thursdays to Liam. Fridays were reserved for “medical visits,” which in reality were afternoons spent inventing new excuses, new photos, new lies.
With Ethan, she was sweet, vulnerable, needing protection. With Liam, she was strong, spiritual, almost an emotional guide. To both, she said they were the only man she had ever truly loved, that thanks to them she found the strength to fight her illness. But neither of them knew that Rachel was not really sick. There was no diagnosis, no medical records, no therapy. Everything was a carefully staged performance.
She had created fake medical documents, bought empty medication boxes, even taken photos of hospital beds pretending to be hospitalized. In reality, she lived in a small apartment rented under a relative’s name, and the “daughter” she said she was raising alone… did not exist.
Every detail of her life had been reconstructed to fit what each man wanted to see. Ethan wanted to save someone, to feel needed: Rachel gave him a cause. Liam sought a strong woman, independent but vulnerable inside: Rachel became that woman.
The money started coming regularly. Ethan paid for her “treatments”: transfers of 500, 700, 1,000 dollars at a time. Liam bought her grocery vouchers, fuel, recharged her prepaid card. Every amount was justified with a new emergency. An infection. A sudden hospitalization. A drug imported from America.
But Rachel was not satisfied with money alone. She also sought constant attention. She wanted messages, calls, photos, sweet words. And if one of the men didn’t respond in time, she threatened to “give up.” She said she was tired, ready to let go. After all — she wrote — “I’m about to die, who would really care?”
The scam stood on two pillars: pity and love. And Rachel had learned to use both with surgical precision.
One day, Ethan asked if he could accompany her to the hospital for a visit. She refused, as always, but he insisted. So Rachel sent a photo of her patient bracelet, with a hospital logo. But Ethan, for the first time, noticed something strange: the name on the bracelet wasn’t Rachel Moore.
It was a small detail. One that could be ignored. And Ethan ignored it. But a seed had been planted.
Meanwhile, Liam was beginning to feel used. Not for the money, but for the feeling that Rachel was lying to him about something. Every time he asked to see her, she had an excuse. A cough. A crisis. A sudden appointment. Always something.
Two men. Two loving hearts. And a single lie that held them captive.
Chapter 4: The Suspicion
It was a quiet Saturday morning when Ethan woke up with a recurring thought: the photo of the hospital bracelet Rachel had sent him two days earlier. He couldn’t get it out of his mind. There was something wrong, something he couldn’t ignore. He opened his phone’s gallery, zoomed in, and read the name again: “Renee M.”
Rachel had told him her full name was Rachel Moore. Renee? Never mentioned. Maybe a middle name? A hospital mistake? Ethan shrugged and tried to convince himself it was nothing. But the more he tried to ignore the doubt, the more it grew like an annoying, constant background noise.
That evening he wrote to her:
— “Rachel, I noticed a different name on your bracelet… Renee? Is that you?”
She replied after ten minutes:
— “Yes, it’s my middle name. The hospital sometimes uses it by mistake. Sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
A simple explanation. Too simple. Ethan dropped it, but inside him something had changed. For the first time, he didn’t fully believe her.
Liam was also starting to harbor suspicions, but for different reasons. Rachel — or Renee, as he knew her — seemed increasingly distant. When he asked to see her, there were always obstacles. When he asked for proof of the treatments, he got evasive answers. What annoyed him most, though, was that she seemed to disappear for days, then suddenly return with dramatic stories.
One day, Rachel told him she had a respiratory crisis and had been in intensive care for 48 hours. Liam was worried. He asked which hospital she had been admitted to. She said she didn’t want to involve him, that privacy was important, that she preferred not to discuss the details. But for Liam, that was the first real crack in his trust.
He started searching online. He entered the name “Renee Martin” and “Melbourne” on Google, Facebook, Instagram. Nothing. No social presence, no trace. For a young woman, a mother, with a terminal illness, it was strange to find nothing.
Then, a stroke of luck: searching by image, he found a photo identical to the one she had sent him — the one of the caravan. It was taken from an old real estate listing in a coastal area of Queensland. Rachel didn’t live there. She had never lived there.
His heart stopped.
The next day, Liam wrote to Rachel saying he had found a discrepancy. She reacted with anger. Said she felt spied on, betrayed. That he didn’t trust her. Then she made her most powerful move:
— “If you think I’m lying, you better disappear. My days are already numbered. I don’t want to waste time with someone who doubts my pain.”
Liam, confused, felt guilty. He apologized. But inside, he knew something was off.
Meanwhile, Ethan, driven by curiosity, began digging too. The two men were closer than they could imagine. And soon, the web Rachel had woven with such skill began to unravel.
Chapter 5: The Unexpected Meeting
Fate has curious ways of revealing the truth. In a city like Melbourne, it’s easy to think that two strangers will never meet. But sometimes, all it takes is a coincidence, a detail out of place, a familiar name spoken at the wrong moment.
It was a Sunday afternoon when Ethan decided to attend a small charity event organized by a childhood friend. The event was held at a community center in the Carlton neighborhood and raised funds for cancer patients in need. Ironic, Ethan thought: maybe he’d find inspiration there to help Rachel even more.
Around 3:30 PM, he was waiting in line for coffee when he heard a male voice behind him talking on the phone:
— “No, she hasn’t answered for three days. Renee disappeared again… and I’m starting to think she’s lying about everything.”
Ethan turned sharply. The name “Renee” hit him like a punch in the stomach. The voice belonged to a man in his forties, dressed simply, with tired eyes. He wouldn’t have said anything if not for that sentence. He decided to approach cautiously.
— “Excuse me… did you say ‘Renee’? Do you mean a blonde woman, with a little girl? Who’s undergoing experimental treatments?”
The man stared at him for a long moment. Then answered:
— “Yes. She lives—or says she lives—in a caravan. We’ve been in touch for a few months. Why?”
Ethan’s blood ran cold. The world seemed to stop for a moment.
— “I know her as Rachel. I’ve been with her for three months.”
A tense silence followed. The two men moved away from the crowd and sat at a side table. They began comparing messages, photos, dates, excuses. Every word revealed a disturbing overlap. The same images. The same phrases. The same requests. Only the names and minor details changed.
Liam showed Ethan the photo of the caravan he had discovered was fake. Ethan showed Liam the hospital bracelet photo with the name “Renee M.” Every piece matched. Every doubt was confirmed. She wasn’t sick. She didn’t have a daughter. She didn’t live in a caravan. It was all an act.
The two men were furious, confused, disappointed. But above all, they wanted answers.
They decided to cooperate. They created a plan: both would continue to talk to Rachel—or Renee—as if nothing was wrong, pretending not to know. They would record conversations, save messages, prepare a dossier. When they had enough proof, they would expose her. But first, they wanted to find out how many others she was deceiving.
As they left the center, Ethan turned to Liam:
— “You know what’s the worst part? I… really loved her.”
Liam nodded, gritting his teeth.
— “Me too.”
They didn’t yet know that woman had a long history of lies behind her… and that they were only scratching the surface.
Chapter 6: Suspicion Grows
For weeks, Ethan tried to ignore that persistent little voice in his head. Every time Rachel canceled a meeting at the last minute, or said she was too weak to answer the phone, he convinced himself it was just the illness talking. He tried to suppress the doubt, to extinguish the flame of distrust before it became a fire.
But something inside him had changed.
One evening, while organizing some documents in his study, his eyes fell on a bank receipt: a transfer of 3,000 dollars to Rachel, made a few weeks before. It had been the first “significant amount” he gave her, for an experimental treatment. Then there were others: 800 for medicines, 400 for a specialist consultation, 1,200 for a control CT scan. Altogether, more than 6,000 dollars in two months.
Ethan wasn’t naive, and those amounts began to weigh on him like boulders. So that night, he made a decision: he would seek confirmation, even at the risk of discovering something painful.
The next morning, instead of going to work, he followed Rachel after one of her messages in which she said she was “at a clinic for an important appointment.” She had said she would stay there for about two hours. Ethan, without telling her, parked at a distance and waited. After twenty minutes, he saw Rachel leave a building that had nothing to do with a clinic: it was a residential building. She walked normally, showing no signs of tiredness or suffering. No scarf, no hat. And, most importantly, no visible signs of chemotherapy.
He followed her for a few blocks, keeping his distance. And then the unthinkable happened.
Rachel entered a suburban bar and sat at a table. After a few minutes, a man approached her. They hugged. He kissed her forehead. They sat side by side, holding hands. They were laughing.
Ethan felt a hollow in his stomach. He moved close enough to hear fragments of their conversation. “I missed you,” the man said. “I’m better today,” she replied. No hint of suffering, no mention of doctors or treatments.
Ethan’s world shattered.
He spent the rest of the afternoon in his car, motionless, not knowing whether to cry or scream. He sought answers, but everything seemed to already shout the truth: Rachel wasn’t sick. And probably wasn’t even Rachel.
He decided to confront her. But first, he wanted to be sure. He searched the man’s name online, managing to identify him through a secretly taken photo. His name was Liam Taylor. He lived in Melbourne and was officially engaged to… Rachel Moore.
Or at least, to a woman who called herself that.
Chapter 7: The Confrontation
The day of the confrontation came faster than Ethan and Liam had expected. After weeks of recorded messages, archived photos, saved calls, the two men had enough material to expose the truth. But the confrontation wasn’t planned. It was sudden. Unexpected.
It was a Thursday afternoon, and Rachel was at a shopping center on the outskirts of Melbourne. She had just left an electronics store when she saw two familiar faces approaching simultaneously from opposite directions. First Ethan. Then Liam.
For a moment, she froze. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her gaze darted between them, looking for an escape route. But she was surrounded. Ethan spoke first:
— “Care to explain, Rachel… or should we call you Renee?”
Liam added, colder:
— “How many other men have you deceived? How much money have you taken with your lies?”
Rachel tried to smile, but her voice trembled.
— “I don’t know what you’re talking about… why are you together?”
Ethan pulled out his phone and showed the bracelet photo. Liam showed the message copied word for word by both. Identical. Same content, sent to two different people the same day.
At that point, Rachel’s attitude changed. The sweet face gave way to defense:
— “Have you been spying on my life? Are you stalking me? Aren’t you ashamed?”
But by then the evidence was overwhelming. The two men no longer sought excuses or justifications. They sought the truth.
Rachel sat on a nearby bench. She suddenly seemed tired, fragile. After a long silence, she spoke:
— “At first, it wasn’t a scam. I really needed help. Then… then I saw it worked. People cared for me. They loved me. And I… I didn’t want to feel invisible anymore.”
Her voice cracked. A few tears fell. But Ethan and Liam were not fooled. Not anymore.
— “You played with our feelings. You used illness, death, love… to get attention and money. It’s unforgivable,” Ethan said.
Rachel stood up. She tried to retort, to defend herself, but her words carried no weight anymore. Liam was the last to speak:
— “You lied to everyone. But from today on, you won’t be able to do it anymore.”
The two men walked away, leaving her there. Confused. Lost. Maskless.
For Rachel, it was the end of a game that had lasted too long. But she didn’t know the real reckoning was just beginning.
Chapter 8: The Public Confession
After the meeting at the mall, Ethan and Liam expected Rachel — or Renee — to disappear forever, as she had already done with others. But what happened in the following days caught them by surprise.
Three days later, a notification appeared on Ethan’s Facebook profile. It was a public post from a woman named “Renee M.,” accompanied by a photo of her: tired, without makeup, sitting on a plastic chair with a blank stare. The post began like this:
“To everyone I have hurt: I want to tell the truth.”
The message was long, intense, and made no excuses. It told how she had grown up in a difficult family, how she had felt invisible for years, and how she had begun telling lies to feel loved. She said she never thought she would go this far, but the attention she received became like a drug.
“I faked a terminal illness. I said I had a daughter who doesn’t exist. I told stories to evoke pity and affection. I took money, love, time, trust. I lied to several men. Ethan, Liam… I’m truly sorry.”
The confession ended with a promise: she would seek psychological help, return the money where possible, and accept the legal consequences of her actions.
The post went viral. In a few days, it was shared hundreds of times, commented on by friends, acquaintances, but also strangers affected by the story. Some showed empathy, others condemned her without mercy. Some men who had been involved with her began sharing their experiences. The number of victims rose to six, then eight, then ten.
Local journalists began to take interest. An Australian website published an article titled:
“The woman who invented her own death: the truth about Rachel/Renee.”
Meanwhile, Ethan and Liam received messages of support. Some friends apologized for not believing them when they had expressed doubts. They, too, in a way, felt freed. They were no longer isolated victims, but part of a truth finally brought to light.
One day, Ethan received a private message from Renee. It was brief, written simply:
“I know I can’t ask for your forgiveness. But thank you for stopping me.”
He did not reply. But for the first time, he felt he was beginning to heal.
Renee really showed up at a mental health clinic two weeks later. She began a program, or so she told journalists who managed to interview her. She said she no longer wanted to hide.
The truth, however, is that trust once broken is not always rebuilt. Some wounds never fully heal.
Chapter 9: Legal Consequences
When the truth came out and Renee’s post went viral, it wasn’t long before the Australian police opened a formal investigation. Some of the people involved, including Ethan and Liam, had provided documented evidence: screenshots, audio recordings, conversations in which she asked for money leveraging a non-existent illness.
The charge was not simple. In Australia, lying is not always a crime, but deliberately defrauding to obtain money or benefits can constitute a crime. The victims’ lawyers gathered data with the help of an expert lawyer in emotional fraud and cyber scams. Some of Renee’s messages included promises, bank account numbers, amounts requested, and everything was perfectly archived.
The police summoned Renee for questioning. She showed up, accompanied by a public defender. During the hearing, she confessed to having asked three different men for money, totaling about 12,000 Australian dollars. She admitted to faking an illness but insisted she didn’t do it with malice, rather out of “need for love and survival.”
The prosecutor, however, was not lenient.
— “You cannot hide fraud behind trauma. The lady planned lies, used false images, emotionally manipulated vulnerable people. It’s a modern form of fraud.”
The case was brought before the Victoria district court. Media interest was still alive, although Renee tried to avoid the press. In court, she appeared with her face covered by sunglasses and tied-back hair, visibly thinner. Her statements were cautious, rehearsed. Several times she burst into tears.
During the trial, Ethan testified.
— “I don’t want revenge. But I want no one else to be fooled like I was. I suffered, and the trust I had in others was damaged.”
Liam was even more direct:
— “I feel used. Manipulated. It was theft, not only of money, but of dignity.”
The judge considered the case carefully. In the end, given Renee’s cooperation, apparent remorse, and commitment to follow psychological treatment, she was spared prison. But she received:
The sentence was met with mixed feelings. Some thought it too light. Others saw the judge’s decision as hope for rehabilitation.
But for Ethan and Liam, that was not an end. It was only a partial closure, a painful chapter they would carry inside for a long time. A wound healed, but not forgotten.
Chapter 10: Rebirths
After the sentence and the conclusion of the trial, the lives of Ethan, Liam, and Renee took different paths, marked by the past but with eyes on the future.
Ethan decided to dedicate himself to something constructive: he began volunteering at an association that helped victims of online scams and abuse. He wanted to turn his pain into strength, offering support to those who, like him, had suffered deep deceptions. He often gave talks, sharing his experience to raise awareness about emotional fraud.
Liam, instead, chose the path of silence and detachment. He moved to a smaller town, seeking peace away from the spotlight and painful memories. He spent a lot of time in nature, walking in the woods and along rivers, finding comfort in solitude and the simple beauty of the natural world. Over time, he resumed painting, a forgotten talent that now allowed him to express emotions he couldn’t put into words.
Renee faced a difficult journey, marked by moments of crisis but also awareness. Therapy helped her understand the roots of her lies and insecurities. While acknowledging she could not erase the past, she worked hard to rebuild a new identity, more authentic and less fragile. After a few months, she found a humble job in a public library, a place that offered her peace and the chance to find herself through books and silence.
Over time, all three learned that truth, however painful, was the indispensable foundation for any rebirth. The scars remained, but they were no longer chains. They were warnings, lessons, testimonies of a difficult but necessary journey.
And in this journey, Ethan and Liam understood that despite everything, trust in the human heart can return, slow but sure, like a sprout breaking through the earth after winter.
And Renee? She no longer sought love through lies, but learned to love herself for who she really was — imperfect, but true.