Virtually Yours: A Virtual Match Anthology

by Kait Nolan

  When it was over, she surveyed the damage.

  Surprisingly it actually looked pretty good, just a red line drawn above her eyebrow. If she could keep it clean and dry, she suspected that it would heal cleanly.

  Her phone chirped.

  LUC: Update? I’m getting a little worried here.

  EVIE: All done. Thanks, doc.

  LUC: Well, good. I was afraid you had passed out from the blood. Was debating calling 911.

  EVIE: Nope. All good.

  LUC: Pic?

  Evie’s mouth twisted into a frown. Suddenly, with the panic of her emergency over with, her brain suddenly had space for all her insecurities to come flooding in.

  EVIE: Maybe I’ll call it a night.

  LUC: Are you sure? You know you get a phone call with the plan you signed up for.

  Her chest caved in on itself. Was he suggesting that they actually talk now? Wasn’t that something she had to plan ahead for? Make an appointment for? It wasn’t just a spur of the moment thing, was it? Or did he really want to talk to her? She sat back down, once again her head feeling as if she were floating through the clouds.

  LUC: Still there? We can talk later. Just wanted to make sure you don’t have a concussion. Do you feel tired?

  Yes, she thought. Yes, I feel tired. I feel confused. I feel dizzy. I feel I might be forming real feelings for someone who doesn’t technically exist.

  She held the phone in her hands, her thumbs hovering over the buttons for a moment, before deciding what she should say.

  EVIE: I’m fine. No need to worry. I’m just going to take a bath and relax.

  LUC: Okay then. Enjoy.

  LUC: Good night.

  Evie looked at the phone and then put it to silent before going back downstairs to finish her job.

  Chapter Six

  Evie was surprised at how many texts she actually got from Luc. Her plan indicated unlimited texts, but he really seemed engaged in their conversations, if they could be called conversations. She found that she carried her phone with her throughout the day, texting him here and there, even when no one was around to impress with her attentive new beau. It had all been a fun distraction, like a flirtation she might have had with the barista at the local coffee shop. A flirtation that both knew would not lead anywhere, but was fun nonetheless. A flirtation that had very defined boundaries.

  Except those borders weren’t so clear anymore. The night before, when she had split her head, Evie had reached out to Luc. He was the first person she had thought of. And that was what had scared her. She knew he wasn’t real. He was essentially a figment of her imagination. After all, she had invented Luc, chosen him because the picture looked like some guy in a random 80s movie.

  But last night had felt different to her. Evie hadn’t started this seeking a human connection, but she had found one. And that’s what was so terrifying. Anyone could be on the other end of the phone. She couldn’t risk getting attached to someone who was a fantasy—or something worse.

  And so her phone got put away, shut up in a dresser drawer upstairs, while she went about her business in the house. She puttied the nail holes on the newly finished crown molding in the kitchen, and she moved to removing the wallpaper from the front hall.

  The paper was a mess. The yellow damask print gave Evie a headache just looking at it. And it didn’t come up easily. Evie had read on the Internet that a mixture of fabric softener and water would remove even the most difficult wallpaper, so she was armed with a spray bottle full of blue liquid that smelled like cotton t-shirts.

  The work was just what she needed—long and mindless. Any time she thought of her phone—of Luc or her sister or her mother trying to get in touch with her—she would just work that much harder, spraying and pulling the paper until her shoulders ached and sweat beaded up on her forehead. It was cathartic exercise.

  She worked until the sun had begun to come down, bathing the ancient live oaks outside in an orange glow. She stopped her work, taking a cup of coffee outside to admire the view from the front porch.

  She wasn’t outside for long when something at the end of her drive caught her eye. Her driveway opened to a rarely used access road. The main road was about a mile from her actual house, so she never saw anyone unless she had invited them there. Lately, the only people she had seen were her sister and the contractor’s crew, though they had been coming less and less frequently as the cash for the renovations was quickly drying up. She’d been living off Henry’s life insurance, but that wouldn’t last forever. She’d need a real job out in the real world if she wanted to keep this house.

  Evie took the steps from her front porch two at a time, her feet hitting the stone walkway with a crunch. She ran about halfway down the front walk.

  “Hey,” she called out to the mass of live oak trees in the front of her house. She stood on her toes and did her best to peer through the trees, waiting to catch glimpse of whatever it was she thought she had seen. The scene that stared at her was just a normal one, another bright sunset on a humid Mississippi evening. Maybe she had seen a deer. They weren’t uncommon around these parts, maybe a bit smaller than the ones seen further north in the state.

  She squinted, shielding her eyes against the last of the sun’s rays, but didn’t see anything that would explain the movement she had seen—or thought she’d seen—down by the road.

  After a moment’s pause, she spun on her toes and started back up the stairs, but by the time her foot had touched the first one, she heard a rustling sound around the side of her house. Her blood turned to ice.

  She stood, a statue frozen mid-step, when she heard it again, a kind of shuffling sound, like dragging feet, followed by a soft whumpf.

  Her mind raced through the possibilities. Most likely, a raccoon had just ventured out a bit early for a snack scavenged from the trash can. She had taken it out earlier in the day because the leftover Vietnamese food she had picked up yesterday was stinking up her kitchen. The hot sun had probably not done much to help matters.

  The next most likely candidate was a black bear, possible this close to the Louisiana border, or even less likely, a lost gator, though she wasn’t close enough to the bayou for that to be real consideration. Her mind briefly flashed the thought of a man, crouching down in the bushes, waiting until full dark to make his move into the house. Her body tensed and she took a step, moving as quietly as she could. She took another step and paused, body suspended as she listened. Hearing nothing, she scolded herself for letting her fear overtake her. Then she ran up the rest of the stairs and into the house, locking the front door behind her.

  From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the form of a man at the door, shadowed with the setting sun at his back. Evie spun around, but he was gone. Or, she reminded herself, he was never there at all.

  Her iPad buzzed on the coffee table in the living room, and Evie jumped at the sound, laughing at herself for overreacting.

  She walked to the tablet to pick it up, still shaking her head at her own stupidity.

  LUC: Knock, knock.

  Evie thought she heard the metallic clanking of the front door knob turning, but when she spun to look, everything was still.

  The iPad buzzed once more.

  LUC: Play along...Knock, knock.

  EVIE: Who’s there?

  LUC: To

  EVIE: To who?

  LUC: TO WHOM

  Evie rolled her eyes.

  LUC: Please tell me you are laughing.

  EVIE: I don’t want to admit this, but yes.

  LUC: Awesome.

  EVIE: I’m a sucker for good grammar and all...but that was bad. Truly, truly bad.

  LUC: But admit it.

  EVIE: What?

  LUC: Your a little bit charmed by my knowledge of the English language.

  EVIE: *you’re*

  LUC: I meant to do that. I was being ironic.

  She laughed.

  EVIE: Of course.

  LUC: Damn autocorrect.
r />   EVIE: Good night.

  LUC: You’ll be okay, tonight? No head injuries?

  EVIE: I’ll be fine.

  LUC: Good night then. Sweet dreams, my girl.

  Her body warmed. It was nice to belong to someone, even if it was only because of some paid app. Still, she was more keenly aware than ever that she was still alone in the house. She crossed her arms over her body, craving the security, and went upstairs to bed.

  ~*~

  Evie woke the next morning, surprised that once again she had slept all night. She sat up and stretched, looking around at the morning sunlight filtering through the room.

  Her phone buzzed, and she smiled, knowing who it was before she even picked it up.

  LUC: Good morning, sunshine. Sleep well?

  EVIE: I did.

  LUC: Oh, dreamed of me, you say?

  EVIE: I didn’t say that. But maybe I did.

  LUC: Stop it! You’re making me blush.

  EVIE: I don’t believe it for a second.

  LUC: I am!

  EVIE: I need coffee.

  LUC: Can’t help you there. I’ll wait.

  She smiled and went downstairs. Holding a cup of coffee in one hand, she sat at the kitchen table.

  EVIE: K. I’m human again.

  LUC: What do you have planned for today?

  EVIE: Hanging curtains? I don’t know why, but I feel a bit exposed in this big house. No one’s around to spy, but the place just seems a bit too open.

  LUC: That sounds like there may be ladders involved.

  EVIE: I’ll be careful. Promise.

  LUC: I’ve got a better idea.

  EVIE: Why does that make me nervous?

  LUC: Well, you are still owed that phone call.

  Evie’s heart jumped into her throat, and the phone fell through her fingers, clattering to the floor. She bent down and picked it up.

  LUC: Well?

  EVIE: K

  Evie stared at her phone, waiting for it to ring, and still she jumped like a little girl when it finally did. Her fingers fumbled as she picked it up, but finally it was in her hands, and she hit the green talk button.

  “Hi,” she said, her voice breathy with excitement, even to her own ears. She closed her eyes and tried to will her heart to calm down, though at the moment, it was a mad man beating to get out of its cell.

  He laughed, a nice, deep sound. She took a deep breath and felt her body begin to relax.

  “I have to say that it’s nice to hear that you sound like a normal girl,” he said.

  “I’ve only said one word. You can’t possibly know if I sound nice or not.”

  He laughed again. “Well, that was a few more words, and now I know for sure that you sound nice. Sexy even.”

  “Well, that’s a lot to gather from a few words,” she said. Now she was the one laughing, more out of nervous energy than anything else. “I know what you mean, though. I once broke up with a guy because he had a bad phone voice.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, making a sound like a buzzer. “I’m calling time out. I’m going to need an explanation on that one. A bad phone voice?”

  “I know, it sounds ridiculous.”

  “It sounds made up.”

  “There was this guy. I was working as a bank teller—you know, in one of those stalls inside a grocery store. Well, anyway, he worked at the florist desk on the other side of the store. He would always stop and chat. Nice guy. One day, he sends over this bouquet of flowers, like, an obscene amount of flowers.”

  “Which kind?”

  “Wait. Why does that matter?”

  “Devil’s in the details.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “Star-gazer lilies. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Just that he’s probably overcompensating for something.”

  She laughed, this time a genuine, full-bodied laugh.

  “Let me finish the story.”

  “Okay,” he said. His voice had the kind of deep gravelly quality that made her stomach flip flop. “Finish.”

  “So I gave him my phone number.”

  “After only a display of flowers? Didn’t make him work for it, did you?”

  “Hey,” she laughed. “What exactly are you implying about me?”

  “I’m not implying anything. It’s just that a big bunch of flowers isn’t exactly hard for a guy at a flower shop to get. That’s all, nothing more.”

  “Well,” she said, trying to hold back her smile, “I thought it was a nice gesture.”

  “So you gave him your phone number. Then what happened?”

  “Rushing the story along, hmmm?”

  “I just want to know what not to do so I don’t drive you away like that poor schmuck.”

  Evie’s cheeks turned crimson and she cast her eyes down, covering her nose with her hand, even though she knew no one could see her.

  “So he called,” he said, prompting her after a moment of silence.

  She shook her head. “Right. He called. And he had a horrible voice. I can’t even explain it. It was so different than he sounded in person. At first, I thought I was actually talking to someone else, that I was being pranked. But it was him, only he sounded like a pedophile on the phone. All high-pitched and, I don’t know, just creepy.”

  Luc laughed. “And so you never went out with him?”

  “I never talked to him again. Forget a date. I would duck behind the counter whenever I saw him at work again. My mother thought I was being crazy. She actually told me that I needed to stop being so picky or I would never find anyone.”

  “So I guess this is actually a pattern with you, huh? Your relationship pathology.”

  Evie pressed her lips together. “What makes you so curious?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just like stories, or at least the truth behind most stories.”

  “So tell me something about you. I’m guessing Luc isn’t your real name?”

  He laughed. “No.”

  “So tell me something true about you, Mr. Not-Luc.”

  “Hmmm. Let me think. Well, I’m a writer. Or at least trying to be. I spend a lot of time writing stories.” He laughed at some private joke. “And editors spend a lot of time writing me rejection letters, so there’s that.”

  “And how exactly does a writer know how to superglue a head wound?”

  “Well, like I said, I’m not a particularly successful writer, so I have to make ends meet somehow.”

  “And you run a makeshift doctor’s clinic out of your basement where you have to superglue gunshot wounds of mobsters who can’t go to a hospital for fear of arrest?”

  “Wow. Um, no. I don’t even know if that’s really a thing, unless you are some kind of HBO character. I worked in a veterinarian’s office for a while. Every once in a while I got to assist when a particularly large animal needed to be restrained. As it turns out, the medical grade glue that is used in clinics like that is essentially just common superglue with an antiseptic added.”

  “Good to know. You certainly saved the day over here last night. I take it that you aren’t Doggie Doogie Howser anymore.”

  “No,” he said. “As it turns out, I’m allergic to cats.”

  “Well, that’ll do it. So is this one of your side gigs until the book comes along?”

  “Yes,” he said, after a prolonged pause. “Not to say that I don’t enjoy it. I really do. I like to meet people. Most everybody has an interesting story. You just have to listen. Most people have forgotten how to do that. It’s kind of amazing, but we have become a society that just doesn’t listen. It’s not technology that’s pulling us apart, that’s making it difficult for us to form relationships. It’s a general lack of listening. We all want to talk, we all want to spread our opinions, but no one wants to listen anymore.”

  “You make it sound like it’s some kind of disease that’s spreading.”

  “Well, it kind of is, isn’t it? I mean, the zombie apocalypse isn’t going to start because of a rage virus, but on
e of apathy. That’s what is killing us. Apathy.”

  “So you’re telling me that 28 Days got it wrong?”

  He laughed. “I assume you mean 28 Days Later and not the one where Sandra Bullock goes to rehab.”

  She inhaled sharply. “I mean the one with the zombies.”

  “I’m a little impressed that you know your zombie movies.” He paused. “And a little turned on.”

  A shocked cough escaped Evie’s lips, a kind of cross between a laugh and an expression of surprised disbelief.

  “On that note, I think it’s time I go,” she said finally.

  “You going to be okay? I mean, the head wound and all.”

  She smiled. “I think I’ll survive.”

  “Bye, Evie.”

  “Bye, Not-Luc.”

  She punched the red END button and put the phone down next to her and sat for a moment, her face spread wide in a goofy grin that just wouldn’t go away. She was just starting to get up when her phone beeped, telling her someone had texted her.

  LUC: One more true thing: I really liked talking to you.

  She smiled wider, shaking her head.

  EVIE: One more true thing: me too.

  She watched the little bubble with the ellipsis pulsate at the bottom of the screen and then disappear altogether. She frowned, biting her lip.

  She was foolish to be disappointed, she knew that. Better to forget him and move on. He was a fantasy, someone she had invented, nothing more. Standing up, she shoved the phone in her back pocket, going upstairs to have a hot shower—providing her water heater didn’t crap out on her again—pop an Advil, and relax.