Never Before Ever After

CHAPTER 5

A Real One



G R E E C E

Holy…

Holy crap.

Holy actual crap.

I literally dropped my phone as if it had static energy coming from it that electrified me. I was still tremendously frozen, staring at my desk filled with my notes and pens and highlighters and my iPad which had the other notes for my other exam later. But what the f**k. What. The. Actual. Freaking. f**k.

Since his name was on the notification bar on my phone, I am certain that it was him and that it was a direct message, but this was absurd. It is insane and utterly unbelievable to think about it once again. Since he has more than one hundred and twenty-eight million followers on Social Out, there is really and absolutely no way for it to be him. However, it is possible that it could be one of the news accounts I follow that informs his fans, including me, of updates about him and his whereabouts so maybe I am just overly overreacting.

I blinked my eyes for a while and just tried to let everything sink in and calm myself over how I reacted after seeing that name. Yes, maybe it was not his account and maybe it was another person’s because there is just no way that he would message me out of nowhere. But then, even if it was one of those news accounts that I follow, it made me realize that I have never actually messaged any of them about knock knock jokes.

Immediately, I pinched the skin on my arm to check if I was dreaming or if I had fallen asleep on my desk from studying. But as soon as I pinched myself, I yelped softly and immediately covered my mouth the second my roommate told me to stop being noisy since she was already getting more irritated. I apologized instantly as I grabbed my phone from the floor and inhaled deeply before releasing it through my parted lips. Then, slowly, I flipped my phone around to face the screen towards me and there I saw the notification. I made sure that every letter was right, every number of letters was correct and every order of the letter was correct, and damn, it was.

Rushly, I went to Social Out and went to my list of DMs, and there he is on top of every other account that messaged me and I have messaged with. It was definitely his profile picture and there was the blue check mark that shows people that it is his verified account. I could feel my entire insides sizzling in excitement and surprise and absolute shock that he was actually messaging me but my hand was covering my mouth and I wanted to scream so badly that this was actually happening. As a fan, this was tremendously huge!

I feel my eyes filling with tears the more I stare at my phone and I start to feel as if my tears are building more and more. I have never actually felt this kind of excitement before and this kind of surprise with so many other emotions that I can not even put into words. It is just too much that I am absolutely feeling it overflowing inside me. This was crazy and more tears were wetting my cheeks. I placed my hands over my eyes and cried softly while sobbing against my clenched fist, hell, I do not even know why I am crying but this is not something I should be sad about.

Another beep comes from my phone which caused me to pull my head up immediately since it was a familiar tone that I would receive from a familiar notification that I just received a few minutes ago. My eyes widened again as the notification was from Archer’s again and it was another direct message from which was now two messages.

I gaped as my tears were still overflowing my cheeks while I felt like I had stopped myself from breathing and moving a single muscle, as if the entire world had stopped from moving and that every single thing around me was dead silent. I could only hear myself whimpering softly inside my throat and my heart was beating much louder and harder, that I could feel it about to jump out of my chest.

Holy f**k.

My hands were still trembling heavily as I exhaled heavily and started wiping my tears off my face. Then, I courageously clicked on the direct message that he sent me while feeling a heavier pounding inside my chest.

@archerdbrvx: I see you have made my DMs your personal to-do list and shopping list.

I bite my lower lip and try to stare intently at the messages that he just sent because I still can not believe it to be actually real but then the proof is right in front of me.

I bit my lower lip as I responded: Are you real?

I even muttered that question in the back of my head and muttered under my throat the same words I typed. I anxiously waited since in the back of my head, I was ready to receive his response. I knew he was real because of his stupid blue check, I just want to make sure that it was really him.

Oh goodness, my hands and entire fingers are still trembling tremendously.

While I waited for him to respond, I fixed my attention on the phone's screen, but after ten minutes, nothing had happened. He had been online and had not opened the message when I briefly dazed my eyes away from my smartphone. As his status was hidden, I was unable to determine when he had last been online, but it would be wonderful to know that he would actually respond once again. I wanted to type more messages for him but then even though I had a lot of things I wanted to say and ask, I did not know what exactly to say to him because I honestly and absolutely do not know what to say despite having so many things in my mind.

I kept scrolling up to remind myself of the previous messages that I had sent him a few years back, and God, oh my goodness God, they were ridiculously ridiculous and totally embarrassing. I could not even fathom how it is absolutely terrifying to even read back to all these messages. I wanted to delete everything that I had sent him, but God, they were all too many that it would take me twenty-five years to delete them all.

Eventually, as soon as I started waking up from my alarm clock, I realized that I had fallen asleep and I was tremendously late for my class at ten o’clock. I cursed underneath my breath over and over as I was hurrying up and grabbing any kind of clothes that I could while putting it on me. I rushed my way out of the dorm room, grabbed my bag and got onto the bus stop where I had to rush towards the University of Greenville Columbus which was a bit far from where I live.

My hair was tangled and in a messy bun with a few strands poking out, but I always looked this way since I was the kind of student who was perpetually late for class no matter how many times I tried to set an alarm. I was dressed in a plain white v-neck shirt, a pair of black skinny trousers, and my scuffed white sneakers that I forgot when was the last time I bought it. I donned an enormous gray jacket over all of these items since it felt a bit chilly and I had the two incorrect books with me to class since I am as foolish and always in a rush picking up wrong books.

I got to class about fifteen minutes late but I have always been apologetic about it anyway.

As I almost dozed off in class, I was absolutely petrified the second my phone beeped from my jacket’s pocket, the same time I finished an hour and thirty minutes of Psychiatric Nursing. The second I pulled it out, my eyes widened as soon as I remembered that I had messaged Archer De Bereveaux last night and that I was waiting for his response. I saw a few notifications from the TouchBook group in the campus for the nursing department that I joined in and most of them consisted of posts about the nursing department’s activities or just random things that every student from the department would post about with the admin’s permission. Other than that or messages from classmates or my brother or my parents, there is really nothing else.

Right away, I unlocked the screen with excitement ignoring the other notifications the second I saw his message notification which he sent to me four hours ago. My eyes widened right away and fumbled through my Social Out account immediately trying to see the messages that he sent me.

@archerdbrvx: Are you?

@archerdbrvx: Because I am definitely a real one.

I squealed under the palm of my hand which garnered me a few attention from the ones in the hallway as soon as he sent a photo of his entire right arm tattoo which I knew was legitimate since they were all the same designs on his skin.