Need You, Need You Not ~*~ CHAPTER 1 ~*~ I’m not a good writer. At all. Especially when it comes to writing in English. You see, English is not my first language. Portuguese is. I’m a Brazilian girl. But wait! Before you start picturing me, don’t! I’m not what you probably think a “typical” Brazilian girl looks like, those Brazilian girls they paint for you in magazines and TV and stuff like that. I’m not pretty, I’m not exotic, I’m not hot, I’m not tanned, I’m not sexy, I don’t dance (I mean, I do dance, but I’m kinda too shy for that), I couldn’t care less about soccer… I’m pretty much the opposite of all of that. I’m not pretty, sexy, hot… I’m very plain actually, with my brown eyes, light-brown hair (or dirty blonde, as some might say), kinda clumsy being as tall as I am (I’m 6’)… To be honest, I don’t even feel like a Brazilian. You should also know that I have this problem with words… I’m not very good with them. I have this problem that I can’t stop talking and most of the times I lose track of the conversation. Just like I did in the paragraph before this one. That happens especially when I’m nervous. And I can’t be succinct. Imagine how terrible that is to someone who is majoring in Communications. Yep! That’s me. I’m just terrible with words, but good with images. I can’t read anything and not just picture that perfectly in my head. That’s why I’m majoring at what I’m majoring… I let other people write and I’ll do the work at putting those words into images. But… You see? Doing it again. Babbling. Sorry! So, let’s get to the point. You must be wondering… if I told you already that I can not write and that I’m not good with words, then why the hell am I writing a fiction? Well… Because I have a story that needs to be told. Or not. Actually, is not something that needs to be told, it’s more like something that I have to write down. I can’t have it with me anymore. I wanna let this whole story go. Put it in the past. But it’s never that easy. And maybe writing it down will help me get there. I guess I’m only gonna know that for sure once I finish it. But God knows when that will be. I’m in the middle of a huge project, this being my last year of college, and it is taking some of my time. But hopefully not all of it. Tonight is April 9th. Let’s see how long it will take to tell you this story. So… let me start… Oh… First off, just because I’m a kind of ashamed of some of the things I’m gonna expose about myself in this fiction, I’m gonna take a fake name and for the boy in question too. From now on, I’m Amy. And the boy, Josh. Well, it starts as every fair tale does. Girl meets boy. Boy meets girl. Girl falls in love with boy. But there’s a minor difference there. It all happens virtually. Yep! You may think it’s not possible, you may think I’m a fool for thinking it possible. Well, I am a fool, but for other reasons. And some of those reasons you’ll find in this story. Some you’ll only know if you really know me. But it is possible to fall for some boy over the internet! If you haven’t yet, reading this, you’ll understand how it is possible. Ok? Ready? Can I really start? Good. Then let’s do it. ------------------------------- ~*~ CHAPTER 2 ~*~ Oh, I forgot to mention it on the previous chapter… This is my side of the story. Josh probably has his own. But you know what? I don’t care. Hihihi I was kinda on the rebound. I had this guy and I thought we were going somewhere, but he turned out to be not… hum… let’s just say he was not who I thought he was. So when I wrote Josh a scrap in his Orkut scrapbook that December 22nd, I had no idea he would even write another one back. I was checking out an Orkut Community, saw his profile picture, clicked on it and checked his profile. He seemed alright… So I decided to write him something. You see, I usually scrap guys that I think are cute or interesting. Usually some cheesy line, like… “Wow”. Yeah, I know. Terrible. But with him I didn’t write something that ridiculous. I just put a =oP in his scrapbook. Just that. A simple smiley face. =oP Got nothing for a couple of days, then I saw his pic in my scrapbook. He asked if he knew me or something. I replied saying that I didn’t, of course and add him in my MSN Messenger. It was December 24th. Then it all began. ------------------------------- ~*~ CHAPTER 3 ~*~ I got home from my Christmas celebration. You see, here in Brazil we celebrate Christmas by having a feast at midnight of the 24th. I’ve never really liked Christmas at my family’s house, because I have a small family. And we’re pretty much every weekend together, so there’s not too much to talk about at Christmas that our family members don’t already know, not too much to be updated. So last year we celebrated at my uncle’s. We got there around 10:30 p.m., ate dinner before midnight and around 12:40 a.m. we were back home. I was having my summer break from college during that time and I had probably woken up around 2 p.m. Yep! Every summer break it’s the same thing. I sleep until the middle of the afternoon and go to bed around 6 a.m. So… when I got home from my Christmas celebration that night, I did what I’m used to, what I’m actually addicted to. I logged onto my Orkut account and MSN Messenger, because, you see… Remember the guy I mentioned last chapter? The one I was trying to forget? Well… I no longer had him in my messenger. It had been like… 15 days since I had blocked and deleted him. I had gotten addicted to MSN because of him, but those days I had no one that I really liked to chat with, so I never really felt like logging onto my messenger anymore. But that day I did anyway. I wanted to talk to someone, but I was pretty much sure there wasn’t gonna be anyone on, being Christmas night and all. I think I must have logged on to feel better, like… seeing someone meant that I wasn’t the only one having a pathetic Christmas night. LoL That was when I saw him online for the first time. I saw his MSN icon green. I smiled (don’t ask me why) and opened a conversation window with him. “Hey.” I wrote. “Hey. And you are…” “I’m that girl that added you on Orkut.” “Oh, so you’re the bunny from my scrapbook” (I used to have a picture of me with bunny ears as my profile picture.) That was it. Conversation had been initiated. We were connected. Love was on his way. I knew it, but didn’t prepare myself for what was about to come. Stupid me! ------------------------------- ~*~ CHAPTER 4 ~*~ Our first “conversation” lasted 1 hour and 10 minutes. I knew it right there that he was gonna be the one. The one who’d make me stop thinking about the previous guy. The one who’d make me laugh as he already had so many times during our one-hour-and-so conversation. The one that could make me forget about all my troubles. The one that could suppress my needy feelings. The one that I could truly fall in love with. And fall hard. He had promised to log in the following day, so… What did I do? I logged onto MSN as soon as I woke up. There was no one I was really wanting to chat with, so I set my status as “Away” and wrote right next to my nickname: “Waiting For Josh”. He logged at 10h44 p.m. He opened my conversation window and wrote: “You’ve been adding too many Joshs lately, huh?” There it was. My stupid silly smile again. As all of my other stupid silly smiles that came every time he’d start talking to me, I wasn’t able to control that one. It was kind of a reflex thing. As my heart skipping a beat whenever he’d call me up was a reflex too. I had actually spent the entire day, while waiting for him, looking at his Orkut photo album, practically knowing by heart every detail of every picture there was. I had also looked through his Orkut Communities more carefully then when I first saw his profile. He was on one called “I’m crazy about my girlfriend.” That thing got me thinking about it and I was kind of worried. So, when he went online, I tried to find a way to ask him about it somehow and he was actually ok with telling me he had a girlfriend but had broken up with her just 10 days before, so he hadn’t had time to unsubscribe to that community. The conversation went on and we talked about so many things and it felt so easy. It was so easy just chatting with him. With his little jokes and his sweet compliments and the way he made me feel… I don’t know why, but he captured me too much too fast. (Ok. Just a little pause here, because I need to wipe away these stupid tears…) Ok! I’m back! (And here was I thinking it wouldn’t be that hard to write about it. Think again, Amy!) Maybe it was the needy thing. But I prefer to thing it was something else. Something I can’t explain. Something he can’t explain. No one can, actually. We talked silly about marriage arrangements even! During my summer break, I stay at my mom’s house. I live in Sao Paulo, where I study, but I’m actually from a small town from the same state. So, during my vacations, I get to be with my mom, since I don’t work or anything. And at my house there, my sister had a webcam, and I borrowed it so I could “show myself”, even though I hated it. I think he was actually the only one who I felt like “showing myself” to. This second time we talked, I sent him a webcam exhibition invitation. I was so shy, I just sent him a kiss through the cam and that was it. He said that, and I quote: “I think I’ll never ask for my mom’s Kiss goodnight again… I’d rather have yours...” There. Sweet. Again. This was starting to get to me. He knew exactly how to get to me. I hated it. But I also loved it. But then the next news he told me crushed me: he was going to the United States. ------------------------------- ~*~ CHAPTER 5 ~*~ The third day was the day that I realized I was already too much involved. Deeply involved. And even for me it felt crazy. Come on! It was only the third day. The third day and I had spent the entire day, and I mean it, the entire day, logged on waiting for him to go online and to talk to me. I was almost giving up and going to bed when he appeared online at 2:15 a.m. “Hi beautiful!” he typed. Oh, this damn stupid smile again. “It took you too long. I thought you weren’t coming tonight, silly.” “Hi, it’s good to see you too. I missed you too.” he joked about my first line of conversation. He explained he hadn’t logged on earlier because it was his mother’s birthday and there were too many people at the house for the party. And, what made me feel so good and special (and, if I remember it correctly, I think I cried a little bit. Yep! I’m a crying baby! Sorry!) was the line “See, I logged on just to let you know that I wasn’t gonna be able to Chat with you tonight. That’s how much I care about you.” There. Falling even harder. You see, you guys that are reading this, you can NOT say a line like this one to a girl who’s completely needy and trying to heel from a bad relationship! You’re asking for the girl to fall for you. And maybe that was Josh’s wish. To see if he could get a girl to fall for him. Maybe that was all he really wanted. To see how far he could go. We talked for a little while because he had to socialize with the guests at the party. But before logging off, he gave me his cell number. Now, just who really knows me, and now you guys that are reading this, knows this: I can’t have anyone’s number. If you give me your number, I will call you. Even if I hardly know you or even if I don’t have anything else to say. I can’t have a number and never call it. I guess it’s one of my many O.C.D.s (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). He got me completely hooked and he now gives me his phone number? He was asking for it! LoL So, the next day I woke up singing. LoL Yeah, right. LoL I just woke up really happy! So much that I wrote him a testimonial for him to have it in his Orkut profile. I didn’t even know him and I was already writing about him. And it felt normal, because he was always on my mind, I felt like I knew him because he was the only thought in my mind since the first day we talked. We talked too much this fourth day. And what did I say about the phone number? I called him, but just to say a hello! I was too embarrassed. Just wanted to listen to his voice. And it was amazing. My heart skipped not only one, but 4 or 5 beats. We resumed chatting online. That day we chatted from 4 pm. To 4 am. We talked about pretty much everything. I didn’t even see the time passing. And I didn’t want it to end. The next day I was traveling and would only be back after that New Year’s. This was also the day he told me he didn’t believe in fate. He told me I had “found” him because I was looking for him. But, you see, I always believed in one thing: all things happen for a reason. Things just don’t happen because you want them to or because you don’t want them to. They happen, or don’t happen, because they are supposed to be that way. You can work hard to get something, really hard, and if you don’t get it, it was because you were suppose to work that hard and do not get it, you had to go through all of that. I can’t say why that is, but for me everything happens because of destiny. Fate. It’s all part of a bigger plan. So, when Joshua said that he was going to the U.S.A., of course, my first reaction was to be devastated. But then I came to think about it and realized that maybe that meant that I had to work harder and faster to fulfill what I so wanted: to meet him in person. ------------------------------- ~*~ CHAPTER 6 ~*~ Before moving forward, I have to, once again, go back and tell you one thing about the time before I met Josh. I forgot to tell you guys, I had that relationship with Edward, the one I was trying to forget when I met Josh, but the one that I really loved and was really trying to let go was Kyle (Yep! I fall for guys just like that. Needy, people! Remember that! I was really needy back then!). Kyle was this guy from my college class that I was completely in love with for a year. He was the typical guy I’d fall in love with: tall, dark-haired, funny, ironic, really cool, a real good friend, a guy that, majoring at the same thing that I was, liked the same things that I did. He got me. There were thousand of things we talked about. And to be even more perfect, he was shy. I totally love shy guys. But the thing was… Kyle had a girlfriend. And the girlfriend hated me. Still do, even though I don’t like him anymore. And I could and still can see that he does love his girlfriend, so I never tried to meddle. So, I started this “relationship” with Edward, trying to get over Kyle. It almost worked, not completely though. ------------------------------- ~*~ CHAPTER 7 ~*~ The day came when I had to travel. A family trip. I had agreed to that trip almost a month before meeting Josh. So I couldn’t just not go. My wish was that I could, but being that a family thing and me loving my twin cousins that were going to this trip, I couldn’t say no. So I went. I knew things would be horrible. I’d be there with no computer to talk to Josh and as I told you already, I was completely addicted to him by that time. And as predicted, it indeed was horrible. I’d spent the entire day at the beach thinking I’d rather be locked in a room with a computer than being there. You see, I hate beaches. All that sand and salty water. And the sun! Urgh! Just hate it! But once again, I concentrated on one thought: “It’s your family. It’s your family!” But my communication with him during those days was easier than I thought it would be. I think it was on the first day already, I sent him a cell phone message. He quickly replied saying he missed chatting with me too. Even though, later on that trip I found a Lan House and paid to get online for an hour every day, we kept exchanging cell phone messages and I called him a few times too. I think the relationship started to get more “serious” while I was there, because it was then that I lost my shyness and started calling him more. And he kept the cute things while I was there. One day, while I was online chatting with him, he sent me a print screen of his desktop. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was. One of my pictures. It was the background of his computer desktop. I looked around and hoped the dozens of teenagers around me hadn’t seen the tears daring to fall from my eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was doing that on purpose, trying to make me fall for him, or if he actually liked me the way I liked him and put the damn picture there because he wanted to look at me more often. I sure hoped for the last one. We women always do. The New Year’s Eve came and I couldn’t not call him. It was midnight and I tried desperately to call him. All phone companies were terrible, too many people trying to use their phone lines. But the call finally got through and we talked briefly. I was there, calling him, in the middle of the street, people screaming and celebrating next to me, a holiday vibe all around me and me there, just wanting to hear his voice as I couldn’t be next to him. It was the next best thing I could get: to hear his voice. He said he wished he had a white horse to come and get me. Another thing for you guys to write down on that notebook of yours. That was a silly thing to say that makes girls fall for guys. You can use that one. It works. My case proofs that. I went to a party after the phone call. I tried to enjoy myself there, get his face and his voice out of my mind. I can’t say it worked too well. Here we have this… Ahm… Superstition, I think you may call it, that, if you kiss a guy during a New Year’s Eve Party, you’ll kiss him for the rest of the year. I didn’t believe at all. So I kissed 3 days at that party. But the thing I could not believe was that, after I kissed the very first guy, I asked for his name and he just said it, just like that: Joshua. There. I smiled, looked down, shook my head and asked him: “You’re kidding, right? My friend talked to you, right?” (I was at the party with a friend that knew the whole Joshua story and I thought she had asked him to tell me his name was Joshua). He looked at me puzzled, of course. I don’t know why, but I thought it meant good luck. That it was some sign that I wasn’t gonna be kissing THAT Joshua for the rest of the year, but I was gonna spend it kissing A Joshua. Hope… Tricky thing. So, the trip came to an end. I liked the trip. It was fun, I had a great time with my uncle, aunt and cousins, but I couldn’t wait to get home and get online and talk to him for as long as I wanted, without paying so much for it. ************* P.S.: LOVE all the reviews I'm getting. Keep them coming at [email protected] Thanks! And I hope u keep reading this as I'll keep writing it! xoxo ------------------------------- ~*~ CHAPTER 8 ~*~ The days before his trip went by too fast. But too much happened. Now, you see, I have this problem. I don’t know if you see it as a problem, but I do, since I’m not rich or anything like that. I love giving my friends and beloved ones gifts. So, one day we were talking about perfumes and colognes. We were both crazy about that. I love guys that wear colognes. They have to smell great for me. And he felt the same way about women. So we were talking about our favorite ones and I told him about this cologne a friend of mine had. And he told me he had never smelled that one. The very next I went to the mall, bought the damn cologne and sent it to him. All in the same day. He got the gift the following day. He thanked me and said he was actually speechless. After a while, John, a friend of his (that kinda became mine too) told me Josh rubbed at his face that cologne for about two days, saying stuff like: “Did YOU get a cologne? Oh, no? Yeah, didn’t think so…” At that time, I thought it was cute. He liked the gift so much he couldn’t keep it to himself. But now that I stop to think better about it, I again understand it as he was just trying to show it off, trying to prove to himself and to his friends that he was some hot shot guy, that some chick he didn’t even know in person and met online for about 10 days had sent him an expensive cologne through the mail. Yeah… maybe that really was his thought. The trip was now only one week away. I had to meet him that weekend or I’d have to wait for him to come back in a month, because he was leaving soon. And as anxious as I am, I was determined to meet him before his trip. I couldn’t bare the thought of having to wait for a whole month to meet him. He was going on January 9th, a Monday, so I planned on going on the 6th, to spend the weekend with him. But fate once again interfered. His plane ticket was changed to an earlier flight, and he was going on Jan. 8th. I couldn’t visit him as I was planning on doing. He was traveling on a Sunday. I wouldn’t be able to spend the whole weekend with him that way. The day he told me on the phone he really was going on the 9th I thought he was joking. A sick joke, of course, but a joke nonetheless. I soon realized he was not joking and got really, really sad. I don’t know… I always tend to think that when things don’t go as I planned, it was because it was not supposed to happen at all. So when that happened, I thought someone was trying to tell me not to go for it. Not to try to meet him. But I guess my heart was louder and I didn’t listen to reason once again. I tried to let that thought go, as I concentrated on having the best time talking to him, whether it was on the MSN Messenger, on Orkut, on the phone or through cell messages. We were always connected by that time. We talked every single day, at least 3 hours a day. And I was really putting all my efforts on having him to me. I knew I couldn’t, he lived too far away from me, but I wanted him. Only him by that time. No one else mattered, really. ------------------------------- ~*~ CHAPTER 9 ~*~ Jan. 8th. The fatidic day. He was leaving. What killed was that I didn’t know if he would be able to log on the internet as frequently as he did here in Brazil. Actually, I knew he wouldn’t. It wasn’t his house; he was a guest at his friend’s house! He couldn’t monopolize the computer! My real fear was that we weren’t gonna be able to chat as often, so our “relationship” would cool down and it wouldn’t be as exciting when he’d come back and we’d meet. So… the Bloody Sunday came. He had a test that day for a job. A public job, so he had to take a test. As he had told me the night before, he got home from the test, around 1 p.m., and wrote me a cell phone message to wake me up (Yep! Told you I sleep too much) telling he was home already and was waiting for me online on the MSN Messenger. We wanted to spend the entire day talking to each other. Only God knew the next time we’d be able to chat for a long time again. He told me he was leaving around 6 or 7 p.m. But something happened in my family and I had to go to my aunt’s house and couldn’t spend too much time chatting with him. And also, he had some stuff he had to settle before leaving. So, I went to my aunt’s. When the hour came, I sent him a cell message asking if he had already gone. He replied saying he was in the car already. I went to the bathroom and cried a little. He was actually leaving. That hadn’t really gotten to me until that moment. I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted to be able to run really fast towards him, like Superman does, and just hold him tight and don’t let him get inside that plane. Didn’t want to let him leave me. I wouldn’t be the same without him anymore. He was already a part of me, even though he didn’t know it. It was hard as I drove home from my aunt’s. Knowing he’d be in that plane in a couple of hours and I wouldn’t be able to stop it... Tears fell again. I know I may sound too melodramatic here, but if you were ever in love before, you know how it feels when that person goes away, leaving you behind. Even if it was only for a month, a month can be too much to bear when you depend on that one person. I washed the tears away as I got home so no one would bother me about it. Before leaving to my aunt’s, we’d agreed he’d call me from the airport a few minutes before getting into the plane. His plane was scheduled to depart at 11 p.m. that night. It was 10:55 and I had gotten nothing from him yet. I got sadder. He had forgotten to write me. I figured something might have happened, so I just sent him a cell message wishing him a good and safe flight. I didn’t get an answer to that message as quickly as I usually got the replies from him, so I assumed he wasn’t gonna reply it, he’d be on the plane already, so I got to the shower. 10 minutes later, my cell phone biped. I had a new message. It was his. My heart skipped a bit. He wasn’t on the plane? His plane got delayed? How come he was writing me at that time? The message simply said he didn’t travel, that he was really pissed, he was coming back home and expected me on the MSN in 30 minutes to talk better. I frowned and wasn’t even able to resume my bath. I ran to the computer and waited for him to show online. ------------------------------- You know what's great? To see I'm not alone here... People are actually relating to this fiction. People actually get me. They may not have had internet relationships, but they get me. That’s the beauty in getting reviews! Thanks soooo much everybody! I read all the feedback I get and I love them all! Keep them coming and let me know what you’re enjoying about the fic and what you’re not. See you next chapter! Xoxo Fernanda E-Mail Addy: [email protected] ~*~ CHAPTER 10 ~*~ One thousand things crossed my mind as I stood in front of the computer waiting for him to show up online. I was so worried, I actually couldn’t stay in front of the computer, so I set my Messenger as ‘Appear Offline’ and tried to get it off my mind by watching some TV. A few minutes later, I got a cell phone message: “I lost my flight and you’re not online. What now? Am I gonna get bold?” I chuckled and sat in front of my computer again, setting it as Online again. It was 12:46 a.m. He had a “deal” with an airplane company (something he never actually explained clearly to me, so I can’t really tell you how it works. Sorry! Josh’s fault!) and he thought he would be able to travel that night, but they couldn’t arrange him a seat in that night’s flight, so he’d probably go in the following night’s flight. We chatted for a long time before logging off. The next day would be terrible for us to chat because I was going to my place in São Paulo, to get some things done. I wouldn’t be able to get online for too long because I shared the computer with 4 other friends that lived with me. So... when I went online, he was almost leaving to the airport already. He told me he’d call me from the airport as soon as he had an idea if he was flying that night or not. It was 9 p.m. when I decided to leave the house with one of my friends and go have dinner at McDonald’s. When I stepped foot at McD’s, my cell phone rang. I smiled as I saw an area 21 code on the ID (F.I.A., I’m from São Paulo, our area code is 11; he is from Rio de Janeiro, area code 21). He told me he was in fact leaving that night. I didn’t get any sadder. I was as sad as I could get. He told me nice things... we talked like we were a couple that was saying their goodbyes. That’s what I loved about our conversations. We did sound like a couple. A real couple. It seemed like we cared a lot about each other. Reciprocally. And I really thought we did. I didn’t even have too much to eat that night. I got home and soon got to bad. Why would I stay awake for? I knew for sure that now he wasn’t gonna be online, I wouldn’t be able to talk to him, so why stay up until late? The next day he’d be in the U.S. and I’d be in Brazil, totally lost, not knowing where our relationship would go from there. What else did I have to do, but wait?
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