Monica sipped her cocoa and laughed as Chandler made another joke. This was her perfectly typical Friday evening: she would cook, Rachel picked a movie (which they never watched), more often than not Joey brought a "lady friend", Ross shared useless information, Phoebe sang, Chandler made jokes, and they laughed the night away. It had always been like this and most likely always would be.
Not that she didn't enjoy this quality time with her closest friends, but she really couldn't wait for them to leave so she could check her email. She had a secret. One the rest of the people in this room didn't know about.
As soon as that thought crossed her mind Jeremy walked in the door. He strutted over to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. It had been seven months. Seven months and they were practically living together, yet they hadn't exchanged "I love you's." Phoebe and Rachel reminded her constantly that a long-term relationship with no love was doomed, and in her mind she knew they were right. The thing was, she constantly had such bad luck with love and relationships that Phoebe, Rachel, and everyone else in the room would never understand what it felt like to finally be in one with mutual respect, trust, and friendship, even if that meant it was lacking love.
Except of course Chandler. He had the same misfortune in the romantic area. He had just broken up with his 6th girlfriend in the year after he found her cheating. Cliché right? He was the one person with worse romantic luck than her, yet he was still so upbeat about it. They often laughed and compared their rough stories. He always "won". It was the only game she was okay with losing at.
Jeremy didn't stay for long, just enough to say hi, grab a bite, and let her know he was staying at his place due to an early workday tomorrow. About 30 minutes after he left everyone else started to file out, Chandler was the first to go, claiming he had an urgent email to send before the days end. "How ironic," she thought to herself, "me too, although I'm sure it's a much different situation."
It really wasn't in fact. Chandler walked across the hall, into his apartment, into his room and turned on his computer. He smiled to himself as he heard the three little words "you've got mail."
His heart fluttered a bit at that. For about five and a half months now he'd been exchanging emails with a mystery girl he met online at a random chat room. He was looking for a good easy recipe to cook for his (current, now former) girlfriend and she came on with a ton of suggestions.
They were strictly unspecific. No personal details, mainly poetic wonderings and kind exchanges. Every now and then she'd lend him a hand with a new recipe or they'd exchange advice. The only thing he know about her was that they were roughly the same age (late twenties) and that they both lived in NYC. He needn't know any more.
He pondered what to say for less than a minute before his fingers flew over the keys like the feet of a tap dancer.
"Good evening NeatFreak118, how is it that of all the people on the internet I met you. I could've met a 60 year old cougar, or an 18 year old gold-digger, but I didn't. I met you. Don't you just love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. If I knew your name and address I would be more than happy to send you a boquet of freshly sharpened pencils, so you could write me day in, day out, as we live our lives on the streets of busy New York. We could be friends, co-workers, aquaintances of any type and never know it. Not a soul I've met knows of this, so it's a definite possibility. Anyhow, so long for now NeatFreak, ill see you tomorrow…maybe."
Aaaaand send. He got under the covers and turned out the light, wondering what "neat freak" was doing this very moment, little did he know that she was across the hall, locked up in her own room at this very second, typing out the email he would receive tomorrow morning as he left for work. The very email that would get him through the day before he could write her back, and so on, and so forth.
Neat Freak was his best friend.
And NY20 was Monicas.
But neither of them knew it.