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“The one that everyone keeps sending me friend requests for and sending some dumb thing called Pokes?”
“Yep! That’s the one. You should friend request him and then poke him! He’ll know that you’re interested or thinking about him or whatever the hell that poke button really means.”
“I’m not doing that. I’m going to relax today. I’ve got plans ofreading, watching some tv and doing my laundry later. Then I’ve got to head over to the library and do some studying for a test coming up this week. Besides, I’m sure I’ll see his profile at some point on there. It suggests friends constantly.”
“Okay,” Meg sing-songs as she walks off to her bedroom. “Think it over! I know you will.”
Three hours later, she was right. I found myself on my computer looking through the website. I refuse to friend request him but that doesn’t mean I haven’t looked at all the pictures that he’s been tagged in that I can see. There’s a decent amount but not as many as I expected. I expected to see more drunken frat photos or parties but what I’ve seen is him sitting with friends at dinner tables, playing sports, a holiday photo with what I assume is his family. All very normal and not the stereotypical photos I thought I’d see of him.
I give up my search and lay on my bed and think about the upcoming week. The football team has an away game this week and we’re traveling with the team. We go to a certain number of away games with the team each season. I usually love traveling with the team and going to the games but this one couldn’t come at a worse time. I’ve got several tests and with all the travel we’ll be gone for an extra day which means I’ll miss class.
My professors are all aware and it’s always considered an excused absence those days but it doesn’t give me a pass on the course work. I still have to work just as hard to pass the classes without the instruction. I don’t twirl alone on the field, there’s five other girls who I twirl with on the team. All of us have a group AOL Instant Messenger chat that we talk in. I can hear it dinging on my computer speakers so I haul myself off the bed and turn my monitorback on. When my screen comes to life I have a message from someone I don’t recognize.
MatthewsB22:How’s your day going?
I look at the screen and immediately do a double take. There is no way that MatthewsB22 could be Brad.Would he really use his name like that?I mean mine isn’t much more original, just my initials and then our university initials. It has to be some kind of coincidence. How would he have even gotten my username? Did someone see us at the party talking? Did Meg see us talking and is now playing a prank on me? I bet she’s in the other room on her computer typing away and laughing her ass off. I sit there staring at the screen, absentmindedly chewing my thumb nail while I debate responding.
If it’s Meg and it is a prank it’ll just give her more to tell others. If it really is Brad, what could he possibly want to speak to me about?
MatthewsB22:It’s Brad.
Holy shitis my instant reaction but then I calm my racing heart. It could be Meg saying that. I do the only thing I can think of.
NMMUtwirler:Prove it.
If it really is Brad he will give me something to know that it really is him. Thirty seconds pass by before a reply pops up in the chat.
MatthewsB22:How would you like me to do that?
MatthewsB22:What do you want me to do? Take a photo holding today’s newspaper and email it to you? LOL
I bark out a laugh. It truly is a ludicrous request.
NMMUtwirler:That’s not a bad idea…
MatthewsB22:Nah. I’m too hungover to go out and do all that. It’s me. Trust me.
NMMUtwirler:Hmm… is it really you though? You could be some chain smoking grandma in her basement, folding chain letters to put in the mail tomorrow.
MatthewsB22:We have two classes together this semester. You sit in the very back row of each of them and you always carry a canvas bookbag with tye dye letters on.
My mouth falls open—it is him. I rush to stand up, pushing away from my computer desk. Flinging my bedroom door open, I rush down the short hall to Meg’s room. Her door is shut so I rapidly knock, not caring one single bit that she might be asleep.
“Oh my God! What is it?” Meg yells from the other side of the door.
“Are you dressed?” I ask her.
“Yeah, why?”
I grab the knob and fling the door open, rushing into her room. She’s laying on the bed reading from a book that I recognize from her English lit class. I have no time to waste becauseBrad freaking Matthews isliterally waiting on me to message him back. “Have you been on your computer?”
She gives me a confused, quizzical look. “No, not since earlier, why?”
I step forward and grab her forearm, pulling her up from the bed. “Brad Matthews sent me a message on AOL. At first I thought it was you and then he proved it was something he would know from class.”
That does it. She scrambles to get up off the bed as fast as she can. We both rush back down the hall, into my bedroom and over to the computer. The instant message is still open and he hasn’t said anything more. Meg hovers over the computer, quickly reading over what was said and then turns and gives me a look.
“How do you think he got your username?”
