This story was inspired as I was listening to the song "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon. I don't use any of the lyric in it, but I thought I'd let you know that one. Really, this was spur of the moment and I tried to portray it well. Maybe it worked. Please R&R.

I stared at the screen of my computer, waiting for anything to catch my interests. An e-mail from a friend, a review on my writing… something. For hours, there was nothing. More often than not, I found myself reading stories online that I really wasn’t in the mood for, simply for the purpose of killing time. No ideas for my own works were flowing, nor could I find anything that truly piqued my interest. Finally, I saw the message from Cale. He was someone I’d met through the internet. We’d never shared too much detail about each other, at least not in the terms of stalkers. We didn’t ask where the other lived, never asked for more than a first name and were perfectly content talking about our daily lives without revealing anything that would lead one of us to believe the other was a stalker. We had a comfortable friendship. Today’s message was simple.

‘How’s your day?’ he’d asked.

There were a few details about what he’d done that day: hung out with friends, played a new video game. I told him of my uneventful day and mentioned the boy I, admittedly, had a crush on. That was something I really only trusted telling Cale about. If I told my friends where I lived, news would spread like wildfire. Such was the nature of high-school. If my parents caught wind of a love interest, they’d pester me with who he was and so forth. Cale was the only one I could talk to about it. I never talked much about this little crush I had. I knew it wouldn’t interest him. Of course, Cale was always good at reading between the lines.

‘Sounds like the kind of guy you’d be happy with. I mean, you said yourself that he says all the right things at the right time. And that he understands you better than most people do. I say go for it.’

I couldn’t just “go for it”. That was something Cale didn’t understand. I never could figure out how he was so good at reading between the lines, and yet he’d miss some details. Eh, no one’s perfect. Cale was good, though. He could put together the pieces of what I told him, and get straight to whatever matter was really bothering me. I wasn’t sure how he managed to do that, just by reading an e-mail.

‘I can’t do that,’ I answered. ‘It wouldn’t matter anyway.’

Cale’s response was relatively quick. We probably should have Instant Messaged each other, if we had compatible programs. I chuckled when the first thing I saw on the screen was his confused emoticon.

‘For someone you say you like, it sounds like you’re pretty detached. There’s something more, isn’t there? This guy sounds perfect for you, but you sound as if he doesn’t really mean much to you.’

I chuckled again at his response. This one was just completely over his head, wasn’t it? I had resigned to just sit back and watch everything play out when it came to him. After all, the odds of me actually getting the guy of my dreams were slim to none, leaning closer to the none. I decided to give Cale one more message before dropping the topic completely.

‘In all honesty, he probably is perfect for me. Well, maybe not perfect, but who is? Lol. But seriously, there’s really no point in me getting my hopes up for anything. I’d never get a chance with him. How do I know that? Call it intuition. This guy is everything I’ve ever wanted, he understands the weird twists and turns my emotions take better than some of my friends. He talks me through my problems, helping me keep a level head while I sort out my emotions. He just... knows. I don’t know how, but he does. But it could never work. As close as we are, we’re very far apart.’

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Cale quickly read through the message on his screen and was about to reply. He just didn’t get why Christi wouldn’t even attempt this chance she had at being happy with someone else. She said herself that whoever this guy was, he was everything she wanted. She still kept herself detached from that fact. Sighing, Cale reread the message, trying to make sense of the girl he’d been talking to for two years now. Then, it clicked. Cale’s mind blanked as he stared at his screen in shock. Reading through the previous messages they’d sent to each other, he finally put all of the pieces together. He couldn’t believe he didn’t see it before.

“Me,” he whispered in disbelief.