Caught in the Web

The phone screen lit up with another message. Neil's heart picked up its pace,thinking that somebody had finally found him. Somebody was observant enough, picked up the trails Neil accidentally left behind.

His mother would beat the living soul out of him for being this careless.

Flipping his phone open, he saw that the message was from him. The guy that he was talking to for months. The guy that was his only friend, his confidante. His partner in crime, even though he wasn't aware of it.

Hey.How are you?

That tiny message, those four words, sent flutters through Neil. He hated to admit it to himself, but he was having feelings for this boy. This guy he haven't even met yet. Haven't even heard his voice.

Hey.Everything is good so far. How are you doing?

The two of them have been talking for about five months.

Neil was going through his facebook, a fake page through which he could keep an eye on the men that was after him, when suddenly a message appeared, with a simple 'Hey'.

Neil's first thoughts were going through his profile page, looking for suspicious content, but there were three pictures. The guy's profile picture, in which he looked extremely chill, like he couldn't careless. And there were two other pictures in which he was tagged.

One was a photo of him and three other guys, in what seemed like a night club.Andrew looked really bored in that photo, too. The other picture, the one that made Neil's heart skip a beat, was a picture of an Exy team,where Andrew was tagged as the goalkeeper.

A trap. His mind reeled, coming up with situations where Andrew Minyard was just a fake page like his, with photos of the real Exy player, but a totally different person behind it.

Neil's next step was checking Andrew's friend list, where he found three people.The same three people he was tagged in that photo.

It was suspicious. Anybody can run four different profiles at the same time,especially the people who were after him.

But when Neil went through the profiles of those three people, they seemed legit. Like they were ran by real people.

So, showing the thoughts of his mothers scolding back into the depths of his brain, Neil replied to Andrew.

* * *

It was easy to talk to Andrew.

Neil felt like he found a true friend in him, even though he kept all his big secrets hidden.

He was careful, never letting Andrew know too much, always avoiding his questions that involved giving away things that would get him in trouble. Or killed.

 Whenever Andrew would ask him about the city he lived in, Neil would come up with a story how his parents had to move constantly, because their jobs were those kinds of jobs that required a lot of moving. The same excuse he used for why he didn't have many friends.

He always said he was in places far away from Palmetto, not giving a chance for Andrew to come out and meet him.

It was not like he lived close to him, but Millport was definitely closer than a small town in Utah, or Oregon.

 Sometimes he would use the names of cities his mother and him passed through,and then he would spend hours in the night thinking about it, and how stupid it was to drop clues so easily.

But Andrew kept talking to him, not really asking so many questions as the time went on, but Andrew wasn't giving away much about himself, either.