Story Part X

Aside from the benefits of throroughly analyzing and articulating my feelings and actions throughout this whole ordeal, writing this story has also been a wonderful opportunity to re-familiarize myself with the Roman numeral system. And it is entirely appropriate that this segment of the story should fall under X.

It is the lowest point indeed; treasure was later found, but X did not quite mark the spot...

Before receiving Sebastian's descriptive and hurtful email, I had finally worked up the courage to take the Test. I must say, if I could only impart one lesson to all of my readers, it is that you should always spend the extra few dollars on a quality pregnancy test. It simply isn't the time to scrimp... After the first, generic pregnancy test came back indeterminate, I had to once again summon all of my will to march back into the pharmacy and buy another test (this time, I went with a name-brand). Upon seeing that most wonderful little negative sign, I immediately drank to my own happiness. And then drank a bit more.

Then, I received his email.

I immediately responded:

"No, she wasn't angry. She was confused and didn't feel you had been entirely honest in your explanation. So, she wrote a fake profile to see if the boy with razor-sharp perception would ever figure it out. Yes, she's a bit mean, though perhaps she wouldn't be if boys like you didn't keep coming into her life.

I truly didn't know how to respond when you didn't figure out it was me immediately. But I suppose you're willing to believe anything when someone is saying all the right things. I know I did.

Lexi."

Exactly three minutes later, I received a response which flushed my cheeks redder than a fresh-picked cherry, dropped my stomach to my toes and raced my heart like a mad jockey:

"I knew it was you all along. No woman enjoys that music. If she did, I would marry her. I must say, you far underestimate my music sensibilities. But also, a meta relationship? That one made me laugh out loud..."

The email went on to depict all the ways in which I had made it obvious that it was me; I suppose those 'mistakes' were borne from those periods in which I proceeded as though it were a joke. Or perhaps, in my rage, my rejection, my fear of being pregnant, my confusion...I simply didn't have the patience required of such a task. And to be truthful, I'm quite glad I didn't.

My responses to those emails are now hazy at best...they ranged in content from "You got me!" to "Wow, we're both a little crazy, don't you think?" to, finally, "I'm sorry." I know I sent quite a few...all of the swirling, contradictory emotions which had been seething in their dammed resevoir broke free in a torrent of words and mouse clicks. Send, Send, Send!

I know now that I simply hated the fact that I had absolutely no control over the situation. It was not necessarily Sebastian over whom I was obsessing, it was my compulsion to maintain control over the ways in which every person sees me; if I felt a person's impression of me was horribly wrong, I couldn't resist the temptation to try (repeatedly, if necessary) to correct those views. That flood of emails was an attempt in this vein.

But, no dear reader, I no longer write fake profiles for these ends. And this profile was not the one of which I spoke in Part I. But first, I will have to weave you through those intervening months. But breathe lightly, dear reader, this story is about to rise again from these, my most dark and insane depths.

You are about to find the treasure.