Finally

Finally
A JC short story
Jess ©2000

It became part of my daily routine. Who would've thought that I, Melissa, would actually catch myself falling into one of these childish traps. Sitting by the computer at all hours of the night just to share a brief conversation with people whom I have never laid eyes on.
I had always heard about people falling in love over the computer and it struck me as funny. How could you love someone so much, yet never have met them? It still doesn't make sense to me.
But now, I find myself dropping to the level of these childish crushes. I sit silently at the computer, waiting for his name to appear.
Everyday it's the same routine. I get home at night, shower, finish up any other things on my agenda for the day, then I sit in front of the computer and wait. Sometimes I wait seconds, sometimes it's minutes, and even now I find myself waiting hours to talk to this man.
I can't explain the way I'm acting. It was just one day that a friend of mine got me chatting with different people online. Usually all that goes on in those chat rooms are pointless arguments, or conversations about how badly young males want to chat with hot, young females. And when my friend found a chat room for me, I found these things taking place. But for her sake, I stayed in the chat room, and gave it a chance. That's when I first talked to him.
Amongst all the pointless chatter going on between adolescent teens, I saw a few people talking sensibly to one another. Simple things like, "what are your hobbies?" or "where are you from?" They were small questions, but they caught my attention more then "any hot males want to chat with a hot female?" or vise versa.
So I sent instant messages to a few people. A couple of them turned out to be just like the rest of the people in the chat room. But one of them was the kind of person that I would enjoy talking to.
We talked for about an hour that night. We talked about all sorts of things, such as, where we lived, our ages, our hobbies, our looks, our friends, what school we went to, and even jobs. He was the only person who I've met online and actually had fun chatting with.
I found that we had a lot in common. We were the same age, both 23. We both said that we really enjoyed music and reading, we lived in the same area, and we even had the same hair color.
The way he answered, well, more like avoided some of my questions, made me want to talk to him more. I wanted to find out more about this sort of mystery man. Which is basically what he was, I had no idea who I was talking to, for all I knew, he could've been lying.
But as he told me all that he had to tell, I had this instinct that he was different. He was too nice to be one of those Internet stalkers, and he was too sincere to be lying to me.
So even though, he never directly answered my questions for him about where he went to school or his job, I still talked to him. I mean, maybe he went to a bad school or didn't have a job, and he was embarrassed. Or maybe he went to an excellent school or had lots of money, and he didn't want to come across as cocky. Either way, I didn't mind.
This went on for weeks. We chatted and chatted for hours and hours, and I was beginning to feel like I knew this man for who he really was. I couldn't fall for him superficially, because I'd never seen him, nor did I know if he was popular or rich.
Call me crazy, but I was beginning to, dare I say it, fall in love over the Internet. I never imagined becoming so involved with someone without meeting them.
It was driving me insane. For days it bothered me. I didn't want to believe that I was falling for someone in this matter. I tried to hide it, and I tried to fight it, but nothing would work. So I tried to convince myself that I simply loved talking to him, and it was nothing more. That lasted for about a day.
So here I am, 23 year old Melissa, falling into a childish relationship. I know what people think when I tell them my story, and I don't blame them.this is ridiculous.
Where do I go from here, one might ask. To be honest, I have no idea. I've dug myself into a hole from which I cannot escape. I'm trapped into this senseless act of adolescent love.
So for months, I found myself mindlessly awaiting his messages and emails. Every time we chatted, it felt more and more like we had known each other our entire lives.
I can't go a day without talking to him.
But I wonder, does he feel the same way? Or am I just being foolish? There is no way for me to tell. I do not know him.
I will not tell him that I'm thinking these things because I fear that he will laugh. But it's not like I can really hear him laughing if we're talking over the computer. Maybe that's what scares me, I don't know if what he's saying is sincere. He could be laughing behind the screen.
After talking to him one night, I went to sleep with a clear mind. I began feeling better about the whole situation because I would never meet him.
The next morning, the weather was wonderful, so I decided to go shopping in my hometown of New Orleans.
As I walked down one of the main streets, I saw crowds of people, mostly young girls, standing around.
I tapped a woman on the shoulder and asked her what was going on. She then explained to me that one of the most popular boybands was there for a concert, and they were seen shopping in one of these stores.
So much for my relaxing day of shopping.
I pushed my way through the crowd and started heading toward the stores far away from the commotion.
Just then, I heard the girls screaming. I turned around to see one of the boyband members walking out of the store. He stopped to sign autographs, so I turned back around. But when I did, I bumped into someone.
I looked up and saw a pair of blue eyes staring back at me. I backed away, and saw that he was young, around my age.
He ran his hand through his dark brown hair and apologized for being so clumsy.
I looked at him again and realized something; he looked awfully familiar to me.
Then it dawned on me.dark hair, blue eyes, around my age.it was him.
He looked down at me.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" He asked.
"I'm not sure." I said confused.
"I think we've met somewhere." He said.
I then realized something else. He was from that boyband, there's no way that it could be him.
"I'm sorry, I must've mistaken you for somebody else." I said as I turned to walk the other way.
"No wait, what's your name?"
"Melissa." I answered.
"Melissa?" He asked confused.
"Yes."
"Do you know what my name is?" He asked me.
"Yeah, you're JC, from NSync." I answered.
"No, my real name. It's Josh."
I stood there silent for a moment.
"I think we've talked before.over the Internet." He said.
"It's you." I said surprised.
Everything was making sense to me. That's why I didn't know where he went to school or what his job was. This was the Josh I've been talking to.
"This is weird." He said.
"Yeah, I know." I said still confused.
After all of this time, the mystery man I've been talking to for months, wasn't a mystery anymore. We finally met.