The Story of a Tattered Mind (ongoing)

Chapter 1 - Freshman Year

With shaky hands, because a guy never messaged me or paid me a second glance, I hesitantly tapped on the second notification I received from Benjamin Eaton in the last three minutes.

Benjamin Eaton: Heyyyy

Oh my God. Four Y's.

What do I say? What the hell do I say?

Haven Gellar: Hiiii

Four I's to match his four Y's. I hoped it didn't make me seem too desperate.

Benjamin Eaton: What's up?

Oh, so he wanted to start a conversation? With me?

It had to be some kind of sick joke, right? One of my old friends had to be catfishing me, making me believe this guy wanted to talk to me... They had the tendency to make my life a living hell in school already, why not make my life a living hell at home also?

At school, I'd get shoved by them in passing. To the regular onlooker, it would appear it was an accidental bump because the hallways were so crowded. Even if I was standing at my locker, I'd feel a shove from behind and when I'd look to see who the culprit was, I would spot Leah and Callie snickering and glancing back at me to see if I noticed. I noticed every time. It was impossible to ignore a hard shove.

What I didn't understand was how we went from being the best of friends to strangers to me getting picked on every day. "You only think of yourself," they had told me. But that wasn't true. Was it? Was I selfish? Did I make them hate me?

Although they had been cruel towards me, there wasn't any way they could have made a fake profile so quickly that accumulated the same mutuals as I had. Maybe Benjamin was just bored because of our snow day and he was looking to make new friends.

Haven Gellar: Laying in bed and reading. Wbu?

He was going to think that I was boring. I was sure of it. Who in their right mind read on a snow day? They were the days to play video games and watch television all day, maybe shovel a driveway or two to make some extra cash.

Benjamin Eaton: Niceee! Nothing much.

That didn't leave me with anything to respond with, so I went back to reading my fan fiction. And although I wanted to get back into reading it, my mind was distracted by Benjamin, and the small possibility it was my ex-best friends. Never before had I seen him around my school. He didn't even look familiar to me. I watched catfish enough with my mom and dad to know that I shouldn't be meeting people on the internet - even though, little did they know, I had an entire clique of friends I met through twitter that I spoke to around once a week.

I wasn't a total loner, but to someone on the outside looking in, it would appear that I was. All of my friends were on the internet in all different places of the United States. Never had we met in person or spoken on the phone. They all could have been catfishes for all I knew, but I didn't mind. I'd rather be catfished and have fake friends than none at all.

Benjamin Eaton: What grade are you in?

I clicked on his profile again to do more research, now that we were friends and more of his profile unlocked. As I looked through his photos, I could tell that he was older. Some of his pictures were of him and his group of buddies posing in front of their cars or in their garages. I mean - I suppose I could have suspected he was older because of his cover photo. His car. He had to of been at least sixteen years old to drive.

Would he think that an almost fifteen year old is too young for him, even though he was only about a year older?

His posts were nearly all the same. Mostly posted in the middle of the night asking if anyone was up, or doing those stupid "truth is" posts everyone did all of the time - though I was privy to those as well. (Don't shame me. I was an easily coercible teenager. We all were, once.)