It's only a game.
At least that's what I used to tell myself whenever I'd feel the cold fingers of doubt rake through my mind.
But it was more than that. It was a dare. A challenge. A bet with myself to see if I could succeed.
It began last December, in the shadow of Christmas; a time when things were going well for me. I was surrounded by friends, achieving high marks at school and felt on top of the world.
My life was good.
I just had no idea how it was all about to change.
Stealing another furtive glance in her direction, his eyes hovered on her attractive form for the briefest moment before dropping back to the worksheet lying on the desk as he reluctantly resumed writing. His focus didn't hold for long; just seconds later, his gaze returned to the girl who sat on the opposite side of the classroom.
Tess Saunders, the epitome of brains and beauty. Soft hazel eyes, silky brown hair, and an intelligence to match. Harry was right to like her. She was, in many ways, perfect.
I watched as he stared longingly at her again. A smirk formed on my lips as I turned back to my work. "Ask her out."
Startled by my suggestion, Harry turned to look at me. "What?"
"Ask her out." I repeated.
"I can't do that!" he replied in a hushed yet panicked tone.
"Why not?" I flicked my head in her direction. "Just walk over there, say hello, and then ask her out. It's not hard."
He hung on my words for a moment and then shook his head. "I just can't."
I moved my mouth next to his ear and lowered my voice. "You know, you're cute when you're all flustered."
He laughed and pushed me away. "Shut up."
"It's true." I teased.
"And what would be true, West?"
Skirting around from behind our table, Miss Roberts, our English teacher, moved to stand in front of us as she peered down at me. I glanced up at the thirty-something woman. "Uh, this." I reached for the closest thing to me and held up the novel we'd been studying in class.
"Oh? What about it?" Roberts crossed her arms as amusement flashed across her face, eager to hear my excuse.
"Harry will tell you." I shot a look at my best friend, just in time to catch him rolling his eyes at me.
Roberts shook her head. "I don't mind you talking, but please get the work done first."
"I have."
"Already?"
Reaching down to the desk, I secured the sheet of paper I'd been writing on between my fingers and held it up towards her. "Yep."
Taking the sheet from my hand, her eyes flicked back and forth as she scanned the lines. Satisfied that I'd told the truth, she handed it back to me and nodded. "Good work."
"Thanks."
Expecting her to tell me to move onto the next task, she surprised me by turning around and walking to the front of the room. Arriving before the whiteboard, she cleared her throat and began to address the class.
She proceeded to tell us about the project that we'd be working on over the Christmas holidays. I only half listened, as she'd been through it all before. We were going to be split into groups of three and had to create a presentation about the various themes of the novel. A simple enough task, one that shouldn't steal too much time from our much needed break.
Sitting down at her desk, Roberts began to go through the register, telling each of us who we were going to be working with. Harry was placed in a group with two other guys, while I would be working with Tess.
I grinned at Harry. "It's your lucky day."
His eyebrows dipped towards his blue eyes. "Huh?"
"Now that I'm gonna be spending time with Tess, I can tell her all about a special guy I know."
"No." Harry shook his head. "You can't say anything!"
"Relax." I laughed. "Besides, what's the big deal? Worst case is she'd say no."
He regarded me with alarm, as though I'd made the most ludicrous suggestion. "Just promise you won't say anything."
I sighed and slumped back in the chair. "Alright, I won't. But you should."
Harry was a great guy and usually full of confidence, but he always got so nervous around girls. I didn't understand it. Reading between the lines of some hints he dropped me last year, I knew he wasn't a virgin, so I wasn't entirely sure what the problem was. It wasn't like he was walking into unknown territory. I shook my head as my eyes grazed Tess, noting that she had a hand raised above her head.
"Miss?" she called out. "What about the third person in our group?"
It was a good question, though I'd simply assumed that Roberts ran out of people towards the end and decided to make the strongest two students, Tess and myself, a couple.
Roberts turned around to speak, but was interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by a boy entering the room.
"Sorry I'm late, I had a meeting..." He trailed off and handed Roberts a pink slip of paper.
Sean Tamlin. The boy with a colour of hair so bright it was closer to white than any shade of blond. He was a little taller than me, placing him just above six foot, and had a nice physique to match.
"That's fine, Sean, and good timing." Handing him one of the worksheets, Roberts continued, "I was just going over the Christmas project again and telling everyone who they'll be working with. You'll be with Tess and West."
Sean looked over at Tess and then at me. I nodded in return and watched as he took his seat. I'd always assumed that Sean was gay, a fact that no one else seemed to pick up on. Throughout high school he'd somehow been able to avoid having a girlfriend without raising any questions, though there were rumours that he dated a girl from another school, rumours I didn't believe. He was smart, popular, and liked by everyone. He wasn't really my type, but he did pique my curiosity.
Once finished with her recap of the Christmas project, Roberts then issued a sheet of paper to be passed around the class, instructing us to write down our email addresses. As we were going to be out of school for over two weeks, she wanted to have a way to contact us, in case we had any trouble or questions with the work. It took a few minutes for the sheet to make its way around the room before arriving at my table. Staring down at it, I quickly skimmed over the list of email addresses, a smile forming on my lips from some of the names used. Finally, towards the bottom of the list, was Sean's address. My eyes hovered on it for a few seconds, the cogs in my head spinning at a million miles per hour.
Reaching beneath the table, I snuck my hand into my bag and retrieved one of my notebooks. Bringing it up to the table's surface, I flipped to the back page and scribbled down Sean's address. After returning the notebook to my bag, I wrote down my address on the sheet, along with Harry's beneath it. Finished with the task, I passed the piece of paper along to the next table.
"Wait, I didn't do mine!" Harry called out.
"I did it for you," I replied to reassure him, forcing myself to appear nonchalant as I picked up the novel and flicked through the pages.
"Oh, thanks."
"No problem." I focused back on the book.
A small surge of excitement continued to buzz throughout my body from what I just did. I had an idea, a plan. Nothing concrete, just something I came up with in a split second. Peering over the top of the book, I stared at Sean as he sat across the room. I watched him working for a few minutes as I thought about my next move.
"Would a smile kill you, West?"
Glancing up from my lunch, I homed in on the source of the voice. Zoe. My ex. I softened my expression. "It might."
Pulling out the seat opposite me, she plopped down and shifted forwards, brushing her leg against mine beneath the table. "Oops." She giggled, slowly moving her leg back under her seat.
My eyes narrowed. I hated the way she did that, how she'd adopt a flirtatious attitude whenever we were alone. Perhaps she wanted us to be together in that kind of way. Our relationship had never lasted long enough for us to be that close, a fact I knew she resented. While being a decent person on the whole, her provocative advances only served to sour our friendship.
She pulled out a plastic container holding her lunch from her bag and set it down on the table between us. "Have a good morning?"
"Pretty much." My eyes surveyed the chaotic lunch time rush of the school cafeteria. "Can't wait until next week though."
"Why?" Raising a hand to her hair, she brushed it away from her eyes. She kept her hair short while we were together, but it had since blossomed into a shoulder length, light brown curtain.
I arched an eyebrow at her. "We break up for Christmas next week."
"Oh, right." She shook her head and began to unpack her lunch. "I forgot."
"You forgot?"
"Forgot what?" Harry asked, arriving at the table and sitting down next to Zoe.
"Nothing important." Zoe shot me a look. "We were just talking about you."
"Oh?" Harry grinned, his eyes lighting up as he rummaged though his bag. "About what to get me for Christmas?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Any requests?"
"Not really," he began, before a younger boy passed behind his seat, grazing the back of Harry's head with his bag. After giving the boy a threatening scowl, he spun around and stared at Zoe. "All I want is for them to hurry up and finish painting our common room. I hate being out here with them."
"Me too." I laughed. "But you'd better give us some hints, otherwise you'll have to deal with whatever Zoe picks out for you."
"Thanks, West." Zoe glared at me. "You make it sound like I have no idea what a sixteen-year-old boy would want."
"I'm seventeen."
"Not you, him." She gestured to Harry.
"Fine." I folded my arms and sat back in the chair. "What does he want then?"
She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment, before a devilish gleam flashed in her eyes. "I know exactly what he wants."
"Hello?" Harry waved his foil-enclosed sandwich at her. "I'm right here."
Ignoring him, Zoe sat up and surveyed the large room as she searched for someone.
"Who you looking for?"
"Tess." She faced Harry. "See? I know what you-"
"I don't..." He let out a sigh. "I don't wanna go out with her, ok?"
Zoe moved closer to him. "What's the problem? You worried she'll say no?"
I studied the expression on his face as he started to shake his head and deny her claim. While I was sure Zoe didn't notice it, I'd known him long enough to see when he was lying. He really was worried about the possibility of Tess saying no. Although a little bit of teasing wouldn't bother him, our playful banter was clearly getting on his nerves. The last thing I wanted was to hurt him from something we'd said in jest.
"Ok, we'll stop talking about Tess."
Harry and Zoe ceased their little bout and locked their eyes on mine.
I shrugged my shoulders as I began to unscrew the lid from my bottle of water. "It's your call, Harry, not ours."
"Thanks." He gave me an appreciative smile, while Zoe frowned at my action.
I grinned back at her and then took a quick sip of my drink. Lowering the bottle from my lips, I noticed Sean sitting a few tables away staring at me. Realising that I'd seen him, he smiled and nodded his head. I returned the gesture and continued to watch him as he interacted with his friends.
There was definitely something different about him, something he was hiding from everyone. The feeling of uncertainty had been niggling away at the back of my mind for months now. Maybe it was his sexuality or perhaps it was completely unrelated. Either way, my curiosity had reached its peak. I was determined to find out what it was.
My mind was a blur for the rest of the afternoon, my thoughts focused solely on the English lesson as I kept on replaying events over and over. While Sean had been on my radar for the past few years, I'd never really been interested in him on a romantic or sexual level. On the other hand, the ambiguity around his sexuality had always kept me intrigued.
I wondered if there was some way to find out, some way to see if I was right about him. Of course there was no easy way to determine someone's sexuality, otherwise I would've been outed long ago. The only way to be certain was to ask him, and that wasn't going to happen. Although we knew each other by name at school, even going as far to say we were acquaintances, we'd never spent a lot of time together. The Christmas project, while being a blessing in disguise, would only provide me with a fleeting opportunity to get closer, nowhere near enough time to gain his confidence and allow him to confide in me.
Sitting on my bed, I gazed down at the notebook lying in my lap, knowing it held the key. Sean's email address opened up a whole new world to me, one no longer constrained by the two-week holiday. I just had no idea where to begin. I couldn't mail him out of the blue and act like we were long-time friends. In fact, it was doubtful I could even use the address at all. It wouldn't take him long to figure out that it was someone from class who was mailing him.
I dropped the notebook to one side and climbed off the bed. It was a stupid idea to begin with, one that never had a chance of succeeding. Wandering over to my desk, I sat down in my soft, leather chair and woke my computer from sleep, seeing little reason to waste any more time thinking about Sean.
I'd been roaming aimlessly around the internet for about an hour when an idea suddenly occurred to me. Retrieving the notebook from my bed, I flicked to the back page and looked at Sean's email address. Turning back to the computer, I reopened the browser and began typing. I ended up spending the whole evening thinking it through before I finally had it all planned out.
Sean had actually made it easier for me as he happened to be a bit of an online celebrity, a pianist to be exact. I never knew he played the piano, let alone film videos of himself playing and then upload them online. After viewing some of the videos, I was quite impressed by how good he was. Not only did he perform covers of some recent songs in the charts, he also played some pieces that he claimed to have written himself.
Searching through his online profile, he also listed an email address, different to the one I'd written down in class. It seemed clear that he was expecting or at least encouraging people to contact him. So I decided to take him up on his offer and send him an email, only I had to get my own act together first.
Sending him a mail from my address was out of the question. If I wanted to learn the truth, I had to be someone else, someone who he wouldn't have to deal with in real life. I needed to create a whole new person, a virtual person; someone who only existed online.
I decided to start with a name, a task that ended up proving to be much harder than I originally thought. Heading onto Facebook, I scrolled through my friends list, scouring the names. Eventually I came across my cousin's name: Ryan West.
Ryan.
I had a name.
Clicking onto Ryan's profile, another idea came to me. Instead of creating a whole new person from scratch, I decided to adopt parts of my sixteen-year-old cousin's profile and use it as a foundation. Given the ever-changing stream of photos he'd uploaded, I even had a choice of images to use too.
I fired up Word and typed out a heading. At first titled The Sean Project, I decided to change the title to something less corny. I chose to simply go with Ryan instead. I spent the next hour creating a fictional biography. Although I was borrowing my cousin's name and image, I wanted to create a different person, one I had complete control over.
To start with, I had Ryan be an only child, mostly to minimise my workload, but to also aid in keeping things centred solely on him. As for interests, I had him wanting to be an architect. While architecture probably didn't appeal to Sean, I chose it to help portray Ryan as a serious person, one who had high aspirations. Finally, I had him live in Chelmsford. Thanks to my grandparents having lived there at one point, it was a city I was fairly familiar with, as well as being a two-hour drive away, ensuring it was out of Sean's reach.
It had been a difficult process, almost forcing me to abandon the entire project at least twice. But I pressed on, eager to find out where it'd lead me. Finally, towards the end of the evening, everything had fallen into place and I was done.
Sitting back in my chair, I read through all that I'd written and then reread it again, the smile growing on my lips as I stared at the completed profile. I did it. I actually did it. I'd designed and created an entirely new entity that existed online.
I made someone.
The only thing left for me to do was to send him out into the world.
Logging into Ryan's brand new email account, I keyed in Sean's address and then typed out a quick email to him:
Hey,
Just watched some of your videos and wanted to say that you're really good.
I've always wanted to play the piano. You make it look so easy.
Ryan
Moving the cursor, I scrolled upwards and read through the mail again, my mind questioning me over what I was about to do. Switching to the biography, I scanned a few lines, and then returned to back the mail.
It would've been easy to stop at that point, to click Delete and forget about the entire evening, but I'd come too far to turn back. I had to see what happened next. I wanted to know the truth.
Are you sure?
Nerves and excitement caused my heart to race as I clicked on the Send button.
Message sent.
I sat motionless on the chair for a few seconds, letting it all sink in, before I shut off the computer and then headed to bed. Lying down on the cool, crisp sheets, I was overcome by a fleeting sense of pride, a feeling of accomplishment. Only it didn't feel completely real. It felt like a game.
At some point I'd dozed off, only to be woken by a vibration in my hand, followed by a subtle chirp. Wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand, I stared down at the glowing display of my phone.
I'd received a mail. A reply from Sean.