Chapter Three

It had been three days since Eva had signed up to the dating website and so far no one had taken her fancy. She stared blankly at the screen, scrolling the mouse over the 'delete account' button. This was the most pointless waste of time ever. She sighed loudly to herself and moved the mouse downwards, staring at her profile. Eden? Why did Scarlett feel it was necessary that she called herself by a different name? She clicked on her inbox and scrolled through the dozens of weirdo's attempting to speak to her, deleting them in turn, the spelling on some of the messages was horrendous. She was hardly Tammy, but when people sent messages consisting of 'u k bbe,' there was nothing more to do other than pressing delete. The messages seemed to be getting worse, until she came to the final one that was, she opened the message up, not expecting anything remotely decent. She stared at the guy's profile picture. He was terribly attractive, tanned, with dark hair, exactly her type. She fixed her eyes on the writing and read the message quietly aloud to herself.

'Hi Eden, you're cute, plus you sound like epic fun.

The greatest combo.

We should chat and maybe more, reckon we'd have a laugh.

Send something back. Liam.'

She giggled uncontrollably at her computer screen. She really couldn't believe she was doing this, but what did she have to lose right now? She thought carefully about her reply, it was important to be herself, yet this alter-ego Scarlett had set up at the same time. She couldn't give too much about her real-self away though. She read her typed out message several times before hitting the send button and it wasn't long until 'Eden' and her new friend, 'Liam' were deep in conversation.

'So, what are you looking for on here?' The guy typed, quickly back after they'd sent several messages to one another.

'Something serious, yet uncomplicated, if that exists. Do you think it does?' She typed back, oblivious as to whom this mystery guy was.

'Perhaps.'

'Liam' didn't exist at all, alike 'Eden,' he was completely made up. At the other end of the internet, sat Luke, restless to be sat down for so long yet as determine as ever to get something out of this site. Eva's previous words a few days back had inspired him and coincidently he'd set up a fake account on the exact same site, despite it not being his usual scene. He knew he could get any girl being himself. But half the time his looks meant they'd want him for one thing and although he enjoyed that 'one thing,' it was time to start searching for something more than that, he always enjoyed trying out new things. Not only that though, he'd do anything to get over Tammy and having sex with thousands of different girls had stopped working. He sat there, on the couch, his laptop on his lap, as his head continuously wondered what the fuck he was doing.

'So, you're seventeen and on a dating site, won't you parents be pissed?' The words suddenly showed up on his screen, he knew this was a bad idea, worse than he'd thought, but he had to keep at it. For a few minutes he hadn't thought about Tammy and it felt great. Besides, the thought in his mind that the girl at the other end may actually be as awesome as she sounded was something to hold on to.

'I do what I want,' he wrote back, using the most honest words the girl had heard from him so far.

'Nice.'

'How about you then, babe? Being a girl and that, surely your parents are way more hardcore?'

'My parents aren't around and the folks I live with have realised they can't control me.' Eva couldn't believe that she was already spilling this 'family stuff' to some guy off the internet. Despite promising herself that she was determine not to be Eva, but Eden instead, it actually felt good. Sometimes speaking to people you didn't know was easier than speaking to your friends, especially when that was in person. And on the other side of the internet, Luke was thinking the same thing. He didn't have a reputation to keep up when he was on there, he could be whoever and whatever he wanted and no one would care. He had the chance to find someone who knew him for him, instead of what he was.

'Ok, so, my parents are actually dead, they have been since I was twelve. I don't like talking about it much, because people never understand, they just give you sympathy, 'special consideration' and whatever else. I don't fucking want all that. I want to be treated normally, you know what I mean?

'I get it. I'm sorry to hear that though, and me saying that isn't sympathy by the way. Actually, I think you're lucky in fact.'

'Why's that?' Luke asked, truly intrigued. Suddenly everything Eva had promised herself she wouldn't write was flooding out as she typed quickly on the keyboard, unable to stop her fingers from moving.

'Well, at least you had twelve years to get to know them. Sometimes I guess I wish I'd been able to spend my early years with my parents. I wouldn't like to now though, everything's changed, I'm actually happy without them. It must be special though, remembering your childhood and the good times you had with them.'

'I guess you're right, girl.'

The conversation continued and began to lighten up a lot more as it went on. The two hours spent just talking sped by quickly. Whether it was about their lives, their family or just casual flirting now and then, the two of them were already slowly beginning to become infatuated in their conversations with each other. When they spoke, nothing else mattered; all other thoughts flew out of their minds. Somehow though, without realising it, they'd managed to stay away from the 'friends' topic. If they hadn't then they'd probably had soon realised who each other were, now that would be embarrassing.