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"Why didn't you just call him on the phone?" Star asked.
"I don't know. He didn't suggest it and neither did I. I think he was afraid of hearing my voice or maybe me hearing his. He hadn't told me his name yet. I mean his real name:'
"Just Loneboy?" Misty said. "All this time?"
"Yes. I have to admit it was just easier this way. You don't confront the other person as directly. You feel. . . safer:' I said looking at Dr. Marlowe.
"I told him most of what I've been telling you. His home situation was a lot stormier, more like Star's in a way. His mother found out his father was seeing another woman and they got into a bad fight in front of the younger brother who saw his father strike his mother. The police were involved. It went from a domestic abuse case to a divorce. Loneboy liked his father but turned on him when he cheated on his mother and they had words. Later, he and his father had a calm conversation and Loneboy said he didn't hate him as much. He understood a little more about his father and why he had cheated on his mother.
"Still, he was unhappy about what was happening to his younger brother and he blamed his father mostly for that because his mother eventually deserted them."
"Why did she desert her own kids?" Misty asked.
"Maybe she just used the marriage problems as an excuse to run off and do what she always wanted to do anyway," Star suggested.
"That's what Loneboy believed, I think, although his father didn't avoid blame. He said he just felt trapped in the bad marriage and didn't know what to do."
"Didn't you ever find out his real name?" Misty asked.
"Finally, he told me his name was Craig Bennet. He gave me his address too and described his home as one that had been in his father's family for a long time."
"And he already knew your name?" Star asked.
"Yes. I didn't know much about chat rooms when I first started going to them so I just used my real name. After a while, Craig started to give me advice about how to deal with my problems at home. Some of it made sense to me, like advising me to get more involved in the things I liked. He said the best thing for me to do at this point was to be selfcentered, too, to stop worrying about my parents and their feelings and to care only about my own. Just because they messed up their lives, he said, it didn't mean I had to mess up mine.
"'Survival,' he said, 'that's what you should think about and how you won't let them ruin your life with their petty problems.'
"He wasn't all seriousness though; he knew lots of good jokes and our Internet relationship grew stronger and stronger until I had the courage to scan my picture and E-mail it to him. I waited nervously to get his response. It came in one word."
"What?" Misty asked.
"Wow!"
Misty laughed.
"I asked him to send me his picture and he did. He wasn't bad-looking, kind of sensitive-looking, in fact. I didn't sent back 'Wow,' but I told him I thought he was a good-looking guy and he shouldn't worry about finding someone.
"He said he already had. Me.
"I began to feel good about myself again, not that I didn't have lots of boys wanting to go out on dates with me, but none of them really wanted to hear about my problems. Craig seemed so much more mature than the boys at school and what I thought I needed at this point in my life more than anything was a mature, good friend, someone who could understand what I was going through. I was really lucky to find someone who was in a situation similar in many ways to my own."
"Yeah, wonderful," Star said She looked like she was getting bored.
"I'm just trying to explain why I did it," I said.
"Did what?" Star asked.
"Decided that when I ran away, I would run to him. I don't know what I was thinking I guess I got so desperate for good news and good feelings and thoughts, I let my fantasies explode.
"I envisioned being with someone who understood my every feeling and I wanted to shut the door on my life at home, not answer a single question more, not deal with lawyers or judges, and especially not listen to one of my parents downgrade the other with the hope I would agree.
"One night after the custodial assessment had begun and statements were being taken from my guidance counselor, some teachers and family friends, my parents had a particularly bad argument. They each accused the other of backstabbing sabotage with the intention of making the other look like an irresponsible parent. Thei
r attorneys had been sniffing around Doctor Morton's assessment to date and apparently she wasn't very complimentary about either of them.
"'You're trying to get my own daughter to hate me,' my father accused.
"'That's exactly what you hope to do,' my mother responded. 'Fill her head with lies about me.'
