Last night I was struck with a pretty bad case of insomnia, so I wrote a little story. It's inspired by the recent "controversy" regarding Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o. If you haven't heard, basically Te'o claimed his girlfriend died, either in a car accident or from leukemia. But it turns out that girlfriend was never real, and Te'o is claiming to have been the victim of an internet hoax.
I have no idea what's really going on there, although a new internet fad is to take a picture with your arm around your invisible girlfriend (it's called Te'oing and I love the interent). But I wrote a tale similar to this, giving my own explanation for how something like this could have happened. It's purely fiction, meant to entertain. Enjoy it.
"She Was Never There"
by Isaac Crow
They met in the summer at a party.
Eve was a friend of a friend of Manuel’s cousin Skylar. It was a fun party, but
Manuel had promised Skylar he’d drive home. Hating being around drunk people
unless he too was obliterated, Manuel had reserved himself to standing along
the back wall, watching people dance. That was when Eve had approached him.
She was quite the vision. She had
long blonde hair, a beautiful face, and was the only girl at the party who
didn’t have a fake tan. Manuel was instantly smitten as the two struck up a
conversation. He learned she went to school far away; she was just in town
visiting a friend. He told her about football and, unlike most girls who
obviously weren’t listening, her face lit up a bit as they talked about it. She
said she was sure he was going to have a good year in the fall, despite how
nervous he felt.
They talked for hours, until one of
Skylar’s friends vomited on a girl’s shoes. At that point Manuel decided it was
time to call it a night. Before he left the party Manuel made sure they were
Facebook friends. She shot him a sly, sad smile as he left the party, rounding
up Skylar and his baboon friends into his car.
Eve had gone home shortly after
that. A few days after the party Manuel struck up a Facebook chat with her.
Eventually it became a nightly ritual, them chatting online or texting each
other. Manuel was really falling for this girl, which felt crazy because he’d
only met her once. But it also felt right; he was never able to open up to anybody
like he could with her.
Before school started back up in
the fall, he called Eve and asked her to be his girlfriend. She said “yes” but
requested they not make it Facebook official. “It’s just so tacky,” she said
dismissively over the phone. Manuel smiled even though she couldn’t see him.
“Yeah,” he agreed, “it’s so dumb.”
And that was that: Manuel had a
great girlfriend, albeit a long-distance one. His grades were good and the team
was doing great, no small thanks to him. Girls at school would hit on him all
the time. He enjoyed the attention he was getting, but he’d brush them aside
gently. And every night, either after classes or practice, he’d text Eve.
Sometimes they’d just make small talk, but it always made Manuel feel better
and was his favorite way to end the night.
Manuel made plans to travel up to
Eve’s college the weekend before Thanksgiving break. She happily agreed and
sent him directions to her apartment. “My roommate will be outta here ;-)” she
texted him. His interest peaked, Manuel started the upcoming countdown to his
weekend away.
The day before he was going to
leave to see her his cousin questioned him. “I don’t understand…who is
this girl?” Skylar asked.
“I told you she was at that party.
The one you were too shitfaced to see straight at?”
“Yeah, I remember that. But I don’t
remember seeing any girl there talking to you.”
“Well yeah, but you were drunk.
Remember in the car you told us all how badly you were gonna miss Whitney
Houston?”
Skylar flushed a little. “I meant
that.” He admitted. “But like I don’t know how you can have a girlfriend after
this one party. I mean I haven’t even seen a picture of her on Facebook.”
“She’s a very private person. I
like that about her.” It was true, Manuel liked that Eve wasn’t one of those
girls who posted their lives on the internet for the world to see.
“Well whatever, just be careful
okay? I mean what do you know about her?”
Manuel felt his face get hot with
anger. “I know a lot about her, asshole. We talk all the time. She’s really
great. Get over it.”
He stormed away from his cousin, no
longer wanting to talk about it.
The drive up to Eve’s college took
a while, but eventually Manuel made it there. It was a beautiful campus, very
large with big buildings and trees everywhere. Eve’s apartment complex looked a
lot nicer than his own shabby residence back home. He took it as another good
sign that this weekend would be great.
He got to Eve’s apartment following
the directions she’d texted him. He knocked on the door and she opened it. She
was just as gorgeous as he’d remembered. It was if time had frozen for her
after that party; her hair was even the same length.
“You look great,” he said. He
leaned in to kiss her. It was awkward; not because it was their first kiss, but
her lips were so cold it made him gasp. But he kept kissing her, making a
silent vow to warm her lips up. She smiled appreciatively as he pulled his face
away.
“It’s so good to see you again” she
said in a quiet voice. “I’ve missed you.”
Manuel laughed. “We talk all the
time.”
“I know that,” she said, pulling
her blonde hair back. “It’s just so good to see you again.”
This time she pulled him into a
kiss; her lips were much warmer now, Manuel noted. His whole body ached as they
stood their kissing. After months of talking, she was finally right here in his
arms. Life was good.
The rest of the weekend went by way
too fast. They went out dancing at the clubs full of college kids who hadn’t
left for break yet. They’d dance til late in the morning, then go back to Eve’s
apartment. The first night there, the two of them had sex. Manuel was sure it
was the best he’d ever had and, judging from the noises, Eve seemed to enjoy it
too.
For the rest of his visit the two
of them mostly stayed in. They ordered food (Eve didn’t want to buy new
groceries right before the break), watched movies on the couch, went out
dancing again, then returned home for another round of lovemaking. The last
thing Manuel wanted to do was leave that Sunday morning.
She kissed him goodbye in the
doorway of her apartment.
“Bye,” she whispered lovingly.
“I love you.” Manuel said it
without really thinking. But he found he meant it.
Eve’s face looked sadder. Oh
shit, Manuel thought, I scared her. What kind of douchebag drops the
love bomb this early?
A smile eventually formed on her sad face. “I love
you too.” She said. They kissed goodbye again, and he left. He felt corny just
thinking it, but Manuel was confident he’d never been this happy before.
Manuel’s life was wrecked two weeks before Christmas. He received an email from someone at Eve’s college. Apparently Eve had been hit by a car one night and was killed on impact. Manuel couldn’t believe it; how could this have happened? How could the one thing that brought him so much joy now be taken from him?
Manuel called his family and told them what had
happened. He said they had to get a hold of someone, get information about the
viewing and the funeral. He wanted to talk to Eve’s parents, tell them who he
was and how much he’d loved her. His parents had nodded along, agreeing to do
anything they could to help their heartbroken son.
However, when he went home to see them he was
greeted with a surprise. His parents brought him in and they all sat down on
the couch. With them in the living room were his cousin Skylar and a woman
dressed in nice black dress clothes with a police badge on her shirt.
“Manuel,” the woman said, “I’m Detective Collins.
I’d like to talk to you about Eve.”
“Are you in charge of finding the bastard that ran
her over?” Manuel asked angrily.
His parents share a nervous glance with each other
as Detective Collins continued.
“Eve wasn’t hit by a car” the woman said.
A small light of hope swelled in Manuel’s chest.
“She’s alive.”
Collins shook her head. “Well, no.”
“So…how did she die?”
Collins bit her lip before answering. “She didn’t
die, Manuel. She was never alive in the first place.”
That really threw Manuel. “What? I-I don’t
understand.”
His mother reached over and patted his leg
affectionately.
“We ran a check on this Eve when your parents called.
There are no records of her in any morgues or hospitals, nor is she even
enlisted at the college.”
“What? They sent me an email-“
“Could I see it?”
Manuel got out his phone and looked through his
emails. He searched for that horrible email that wrecked his world, but
couldn’t find it. He looked over all his files; it was nowhere to be found.
“I must have deleted it.” He said unsurely.
“No traces
of her were found on Facebook or anything like that.” Detective Collins
informed him. “Nobody with her last name lived in that town. Your cousin here
got a hold of the people that went to that party; nobody said they knew an
Eve.”
“But-“
“There’s more,” the policewoman kept going. “The
police were called out to the Nichols Apartment at “Eve’s” college the week after
you went up there to visit. Did you stay in room 231?”
Manuel nodded.
“The girl who lives in that room said she came home
after break and found her bed had been messed up, like it had been slept in
and-excuse me-fucked in. The pictures she kept out on her desk and nightstand
had been stuffed into a box in her closet.”
“Wait, what are you saying?” Manuel was about to
lose it.
His mother was crying now, rubbing her son’s leg
sadly.
His father spoke up. “Son, we think you made Eve
up.”
“What!? That’s crazy!”
“No kidding,” Skylar muttered.
“Eve was real! I saw her there, I kissed her, we
went out!”
Collins spoke up again. “Security cameras on campus
captured you walking around by yourself that weekend. You were looking at
someone who wasn’t there and you kept talking to it.”
Manuel was breathing hard now, tears welling up in
his eyes. “But she was real, she-“
“Did Eve cook anything for you?” Collins inquired.
“No, we ordered out.”
“Did she pay the deliverymen?”
“No, I did, what difference-“
“Son,” his dad said calmly. “Eve wasn’t real. You
didn’t visit anybody. You broke into a stranger’s apartment and messed up her
room. Then you went all over the campus talking to yourself. Manuel, we think
you might have schizophrenia.”
His mother burst into a fresh round of tears after
that was said.
“I’m not crazy!” Manuel yelled, getting up from the
couch angrily. “How can you think that about me?!?”
“Manuel, these things can happen to anybody-”
Detective Collins started.
“Fuck you guys! I’m not crazy! I’ll find her!”
Marius screamed as he stormed out of his house, his family and the policewoman
yelling after him.
Manuel’s search for Eve came up empty. He looked all
over her college campus, closely monitored by the police. He tried to find her
texts, her Facebook profile, any proof of her existence. There was nothing.
But how could that be? Manuel had kissed her, had
sex with her, had loved her. How could she just not have ever existed?
She was gone without a trace.
He had become a laughingstock at his school. His friends,
his teammates, they all said he’d gone crazy looking for a girl none of them
had met and who had never been real. Eventually it was too much for Manuel: he
dropped out of college. A week afterwards, at the urging of his parents, Manuel
agreed to go somewhere to receive psychiatric care.
Eve watched from the trees as Manuel’s parents
helped him load up their car. She cried softly as observed, feeling guilt for
the pain she’d caused him. As she watched she became aware of the cloaked
figure that had appeared next to her.
“Hello Eve,” the Judge said.
“Hello,” she said glumly.
The Judge held a black clipboard in its hands and
read off of it.
“Got a bit careless this time, didn’t we Eve?” the
Judge asked in its creepy ambiguous voice.
Eve nodded a response.
“Let’s see…the terms were you could make yourself
visible and corporeal to one mortal at the party, with the intent of having a
quick hookup.” The Judge read lazily from the sheet. “You would also be allowed
to posses a phone to continue a “long-distance” relationship that would not
last more than a month.”
Eve nodded again.
“But it went on, didn’t it? You possessed his phone
and kept talking to him. He eventually wanted to visit you, so you found an
empty apartment, stole a key from one of its residents, hid any sign that
resident lived there, and invited him into it. Continuing to take corporeal
form, you had sex with said mortal- that’s a huge offense, by the way- and got
him to fall in love with you.”
“That’s all true.” Eve said softly.
The Judge looked up from its clipboard and held it
against its body.
“So did you love him?” it asked her
curiously.
“I did.” Eve said.
The Judge clucked a little. “Well I hope it was worth it.
Once your sentence passes in the Courts I can guarantee you’ll be in purgatory
for a long time.”
Eve nodded solemnly. It was worth it, she decided.
She had loved him but had also wrecked him. She could now only hope he’d
recover from the mental scarring she’d given him. And hope that purgatory
wasn’t as bad as she’d heard it was.
“Come,”
the Judge said. It held out a cloaked arm. Eve grabbed it lightly, and the two
faded away from this world.
