A/N: Well, my dear, dear readers, this is the very last chapter! I know, it's a very emotional thing for me too. There will be an epilogue after this, and I think it will probably end up being a two part epilogue. The ending of this story marks the end of another chapter in my own life, because I started this story at the beginning of the school year, and I'm going to finish it a little after the end of the school year.

So, the acknowledgements will officially be in the last part of the epilogue, but I really really want to thank all of you lovely readers, alerters, and reviewers. You guys have kept me going during my rough patches, so THANK YOU.

And without further ado, please enjoy the last real chapter of It Start With A Text.


Chapter 9: In Which Life Cannot Get Any Better

Jing Mei couldn't breathe. The room suddenly seemed much too small. The walls seemed to be closing down on her as Anders walked to stand three feet away from her. His face had become even paler than his usual fair complexion. Eliisbet grinned manically as she sauntered up to Anders, batting her eyelashes.

"Now you know the truth, Anders, sweetie. How does that feel? Doesn't it feel nice to know that people around you have been betraying you? Do you know how many people have been betraying you lately?"

Anders stood there dumbly, staring at Jing Mei. Jing Mei suddenly felt the urge to say something, anything to stop Eliisabet from talking. She wanted so badly to make herself clear, to assert herself. The doubting voice in her head continuously tried to tell her that there was nothing that she could do now. Jing Mei wanted to stop being the nervous, scared little girl very much at that instant. She wanted to stop relying on other people. It was just so hard, watching Eliisabet tearing her reputation and character to sheds as she stood helpless as a gaping fish.

"I…I want to hear the truth from Jing Mei."

Jing Mei stared at Anders after his outburst. He stared back. Eliisabet chuckled, and shook her finger at him.

"Now, now. Not so hasty. How about some good, solid testimony from the others around you?"

Eliisabet swayed back to her laptop and clicked on a few items. Suddenly. Tiina's voice came out of the speakers.

"It's the perfect plan! Ber-Bear already gave Jing Mei some good tidbits. I'm hoping she'll put them to good use."

"I'm excited! Xiang, you are such a genius! This will scare Anders to death"

"Here, I have some good ideas too. The Danish idiot is going to freak out even more than before. This is the best show I've seen in ages."

"Are you wankers bloody sure this won't affect him? The giant loon looks like he might have a heart attack any day now."

"Pffft. Anders deserves this. I'll consider this revenge from the time when he hung up my toy puffin in the tree."

As the voices died away, Anders' stare had become increasingly depressed. Jing Mei wanted to give him a hug, like the ones that she used to give to Xiang when the other kids bullied him.

"Can't you see how your 'so-called,' friends are treating you?" simpered Eliisabet. "I could treat you so much better. Why don't you take me back? You know that I'll be such a better friend."

Suddenly, Jing Mei realized that something was wrong with those recordings. She couldn't place exactly what, but there was definitely something wrong with them. Was it Tiina's recording? Or was it Arthurs?

"I-I-"

"Yes?"

"I think-"

"That's a lie! The recordings are a lie!" burst out Jing Mei, interrupting Anders. The two blondes stared at her, one with anger and the other with confusion.

"What, pray tell, is wrong with the recordings?" asked Ellisabet icily.

"They're faked," replied Jing Mei with confidence. "They are definitely faked."

"How can you even prove that?" scoffed Eliisabet. "You can't prove that they're faked. They sound completely authentic."

"Mari hardly ever calls Anders by name. She likes to call him insults, because she's still mad at Anders for dating Nora. Nora would never say anything that sounds that excited. They would never intentionally hurt Anders in any real way. Harmless pranks, maybe, but they would never do anything that would genuinely hurt him. None of these people would ever do anything to intentionally hurt him."

"That's not good enough," taunted Eliisabet.

This time, Jing Mei smirked at her. "Yong Soo never calls Xiang anything but 'Xiang-muffin' or whatever other ridiculous nicknames he can come up with. And he will never say 'I'm excited.' Whenever he's excited, he lets out a Korean exclamation. I think I would know my own cousin well enough to know how he talks."

Eliisabet's shocked face was enough affirmation for Jing Mei to know that the blonde had set all of them up. She snuck a glance at Anders, only to see that his expression had now morphed into one of completely angers. A sigh of relief escape her lips as she realized that her part was done.

"You lied to me," said Anders quietly, glaring at Eliisabet. "You know how much I hate being lied to. That's why I was so devastated when you dumped me. You lied to me about cheating on with Toris when I first confronted you about it."

"I-I-I-"

"Why would you try to lie to me about my friends turning against me? You should know how scared I am that my friends are all going to abandon me."

"Let me-"

"You should know how hard it is for me to even think that my friends are all laughing at me behind my back. You should know how much I worry about what people say about me when I'm not there. You should know me well enough to know how much this would hurt me."

"An-an-anders, please, just-"

"WHY?" yelled Anders. "WHY would you DO THIS to ME?"

"I WANT YOU BACK!" screamed Eliisabet. "Dumping you was the worst mistake of my life! I just want you back! You never talked me to after we broke up!"

"I think," interjected Jing Mei, "Setting all of this up was the worst mistake of your life."

"I hate you," whispered Anders softly. "I never want to see or talk to you again."

Eliisabet ran from the rooming, sobbing hysterically at those words. Jing Mei and Anders stood in silence as she ran away.

"So…" mumbled Jing Mei after a long, awkward silence.

Anders laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"What isn't? Everything that's happened that has happened since the first day that you prank-texted me has been a roller coaster."

"Sorry about that."

He shrugged. "Now that I look back at it, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all. After all, I got to know you better." He paused to grin at her. "So can you tell me the story? From the very start? The real story? No more lies?"
"Why not?"

And so she did. From the very start, with no more lies and only the truth. And maybe they even talked a little more after that.

But that's all history.


A/N: Oh man, I hope that that wasn't too lame of an ending.

So I hope you ended this ending! I'll be writing a two-part epilogue for this story soon, so expect a little after story for everyone who had been involved in the prank. =P

Review! We're close to the end, and I'd really love to know how you feel about this story.