(1) New Message

by Angelique Perricelli

Overview

Samuel Smith had been depressed ever since tragedy struck and had been staying inside his room, far away from the world. However, when his roommate forces him to talk, he finds a stranger on the internet and realizes that maybe he can take back control of his life and change.

Caleb Hughes was just enjoying his every day life when a random message appeared from a stranger, and it doesn't take long for him to realize that the stranger needs help. Over time, he realizes, it's not the stranger that needs help. Maybe it's Caleb that needs it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496963772
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	02/18/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	178
File size:	309 KB

Read an Excerpt

(1) New Message

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By Angelique Perricelli

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2015 Angelique Perricelli
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4969-6347-5

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CHAPTER 1

Do you plan on coming out today? I want to go see a movie. That'd be fun, right?

im not inn the mood

You don't even know which movie yet ...

do I need 2?

You could at least come up with a better excuse. Let me tell you which movie and then say, "Oh no, thanks. I'm not into it."

sounds liek alot of effort

Really, it's about as much effort as you put into spelling.

I dont want to

Fine. At least call your Mom or something, okay? Talk to somebody other than me. You need it, dude.

fine

Sam rolled over in his bed.

He had been lying on his stomach, arms under his pillow with his blanket falling carelessly around him. He wore nothing but his boxers as he tried to sleep time away. The room was hot and suffocating, but he didn't care; he had been trying to sink his way deeper not only into his bed but also into the blissful abyss of slumber.

Instead, he had received this text from Xavier.

Xavier roomed with him in their small apartment. They each had a separate room and shared a little dining room that was also used as the living room, a kitchen, and one bathroom. They had been living together ever since they started college together, realizing just how expensive it was to pay for room and board.

So, naturally, he couldn't just ignore his roommate even though he really wanted to. Instead, he ignored everyone else. There were a mass of text messages on his phone from friends and family that all went unread. There were many missed calls, and he didn't even want to bother looking at his Facebook or e-mail. There wasn't a point. He refused to answer.

That didn't mean he hadn't tried to ignore Xavier, too. He had tried many times, but when Xavier actually came into his room and yelled at him that if Sam didn't talk to him he would kick him out, Sam really had no choice if he wanted to continue to stay in his dark room.

He literally stayed in the dark room, leaving only to use the bathroom. He never got up to turn on the lights and hardly even moved in his bed. He just stayed in the darkness, hoping to waste away.

So when he did finally roll over, his body ached. He groaned, wiping his hand across his face and through his hair to wake up. It didn't do anything but make his hair even more of a mess than it already was, causing his brown almost curls to stick up in one direction. His body was covered in sweat and probably smelled like he could really use a shower.

His arms hurt from staying under his pillows for so long and had a soft burn that he chose to ignore. He looked around his room, his eyes trained to the darkness incredibly well at that point. He had blocked off the window with sheets when he realized his curtains didn't create the effect of complete darkness he wanted. His entire bedroom was clean, given that he no longer felt the need to get up and use anything in the room.

Sam knew it wasn't healthy. He knew that locking himself away and keeping himself from really living was probably more destructive than going out and trying. Never bothering with food was especially unhealthy. If it weren't for Xavier who brought something for him to eat once in a while ... But Sam only ate so Xavier wouldn't pester him.

He checked the time on the desk right next to his bed. It was nearing one in the afternoon. His body had completely lost track of time while he had been trying to sleep life away. And he wanted to get right back to doing exactly that.

Xavier had meant it when he told him to talk to someone: Sam could tell just by reading his text. He had been friends with Xavier long enough to understand exactly when Xavier was being serious in a text. So he had no choice. He needed to find someone to talk to.

Sam tossed his phone to the foot of his bed and forced himself to sit up. His back cracked and his muscles ached because he hardly ever used them anymore. He ignored them in favor of leaning against his head board and grabbing the laptop on his desk. It felt heavier than it actually was, which was probably due to the fact that he never used his muscles anymore. Clearly he was weak, but he successfully got the laptop onto his lap and plugged in its charger so it wouldn't die; but then again, it was probably already dead.

He opened the laptop and turned it on. Sam winced as the bright screen came to life, causing his eyes to burn so much he immediately closed them. His computer continued to boot as he struggled to open his eyes. He started by looking to a dark corner in his room so the laptop was only visible in the corner of his eyes; he squinted before allowing them to slowly open. They still burned but not nearly as badly. Slowly he started to look at the computer directly, taking his time so that he didn't go blind, and soon, his eyes adjusted.

When his eyes were finally able to handle looking at the screen, that was all he did. He just sat and stared at the screen, unable to figure out what to do. Xavier had said to talk to someone, but there was nobody he wanted to talk to. He couldn't talk to his Mom, he couldn't talk to any of his friends, and he couldn't even talk to Xavier and explain how he felt about everything ...

He just couldn't do it.

Procrastination always led to mediocre results. He was in university; he knew that to be a well known fact. So he decided to take the high road of procrastination and check out all of the places where people would try to contact him and delete all of the messages.

Facebook had a horrifying number of notifications. Instead of going through each individual message, he simply clicked on the notification for messages and left the site, causing the little red pop-up with that absurd number to disappear, never to bother him again.

Instant messages began popping up, reminding him that he had not marked himself as offline. People were shocked to see that Sam was actually doing something and were trying to contact him. He felt bad, knowing that they were all just looking out for him. They wanted the best for him and to make sure that he was okay.

But as much as he knew it was mean, he couldn't talk to them.

So he logged off.

He was getting thirsty, and the need to use the bathroom was becoming a pressing matter. That always made him curious: how his body would want more liquid when it was already trying to get rid of liquid, given that drinking more would make the need to get rid of his toxins even more urgent. Honestly, the human body made no sense, and that was why he chose to ignore his body's urges. Instead, he opened his e-mail account.

He paused at the sight.

There were a ton of messages from Elizabeth. He didn't really know the girl that well. What he did know was that Elizabeth was pretty without being too pretty—her dark straight hair falling down her shoulders and her big, brown eyes always either looking for a good time or looking concerned. She was nice; she was constantly looking after people. That was why it made sense for her to be messaging Sam. Especially since Elizabeth was so involved with ...

No. He refused to think about that.

As much as he was trying to block everyone out and ignore every single message in his inbox, he couldn't just delete all of Elizabeth's messages. That would be cruel. Especially when she had bothered to send him messages at all. She could have easily just left Sam to his own devices given that the two only knew each other through Xavier and had only talked in person once. It wasn't right to just delete them.

Instead, Sam decided to save the emails in a file he named "Read Later." It cleaned out a significant number of emails and left mostly spam and a few messages from his Mom and friends. He deleted the messages and logged out of his e-mail, which left Google staring at him as he sat, staring right back.

Now what?

Talk? Talk to who? And how the hell was he supposed to talk to them? And about what? What person would be easiest to say a quick hello and then good-bye? Which person would let him off easiest? Which person would make the conversation a simple one?

He groaned and let his hands collapse on the keyboard, smashing random buttons that meant nothing to him as his eyes closed.

What was he going to do?

That was the problem. He just didn't want to do anything anymore.

Sam opened his eyes and cracked his neck. He decided that he would use the bathroom and then get a bottle of water just to procrastinate even longer. And maybe if he made some food he could explain to Xavier that while he didn't contact anybody he had been out of his room.

Then his eyes landed on the screen.

There was a blank page. Blank except a small area at the bottom that was blinking, inviting him to start typing. It was all very simple and had no instructions, which piqued his curiosity.

Was he supposed to just type anything? What would it do? What was going to happen? Who would the message go to?

He looked at the URL and saw that it said type your message here. com. Well, at least the name was straight forward. It didn't need instructions because the URL was the instruction, but it still created so many questions inside of his head.

For one whole month he had sat in his room alone. He had stayed in his bed, doing as close to nothing as he possibly could. He never communicated with anyone that cared about him, and never really listened as they tried to communicate with him.

And yet ... He wanted nothing more than to type something to some random site.

So he did.

Server 1: hello

* * *

Caleb had just finished watching porn.

He was closing all the tabs and cleaning up because he had just finished doing what boys liked to do while watching porn as well. And maybe it wasn't healthy to be watching porn that much and doing what he had been doing as much as he was, but the simple fact was that it was exactly what he needed. He had finally come to terms with the fact that he preferred guys over girls, and since there wasn't really an abundance of gay men wanting to have sex with him, he had taken to watching porn instead.

That had opened up a whole new world.

So, he cleaned up his mess because, unfortunately, fun business was never really clean business. It didn't take long but all he really wanted to do was just lay on his bed doing nothing. His pillows held his head lovely and he sighed, feeling more than relaxed with how his body felt like Jell-o. A smile was permanently glued to his face as he pulled his laptop onto his lap.

His laptop let out a beep and it nearly scared Caleb to death. He hadn't expected any noises and so it was quite horrifying due to the fact that the beep was anything but quiet. He calmed himself down by whispering out a cuss before looking at the screen.

The picture of a letter popped up onto his screen. There was a little red number one surrounded by parentheses at the left hand corner of the letter, and underneath were bold black letters spelling, "New Message."

There was just one problem ...

Caleb had never seen that letter icon before.

When his e-mail or Facebook sent him messages, he'd receive simple little notifications. AOL had that obnoxious, "You've got mail!" Unless, of course, you didn't have mail. The silence while you checked would loudly declare that you didn't really have anyone to talk to.

But that wasn't the problem at the moment! The problem was that Caleb obviously had mail from some site he hadn't joined, and while he was sure that it was probably just a pop-up, he couldn't help but find it curious that the pop-up had failed to open a new window. Instead, the letter floated in the center of his screen. Just like a notification.

A notification as tempting as a big red button waiting to be pressed.

Caleb had no self-control. Besides, if it was a pop-up and he got spammed with a virus, then it wasn't all that big of a loss. With all the porn he was watching, he was bound to get a virus anyway.

He should really find himself a real gay guy.

Caleb shook his head to rid himself of his porn problem and decided to check out the message instead. It wasn't every day that something to entertain you just showed up on your screen! (Not including the porn.) He put the cursor over the letter icon and clicked. A window popped up with the URL saying typeyourmessagehere.com, a space for him to type, and a few words somebody else seemed to have sent to him.

Server 1: hello

Server 1? What did that mean? Did he work for the website? Was he trying to sell something? What was going on? And why didn't he use proper grammar? Was he even a he?

There was really only one way to find out.

Server 2: Hi!

Server 2? Apparently, that was Caleb's screen name. So maybe he wasn't talking to someone who worked for the website. Maybe he was talking to someone who had received a red letter icon, too.

Server 1: um ... do you know wat this site is exacttly?

Server 2: Nope! I just got a little red letter thingy, saying I had a new message.

Server 1: oh ... mine just kindof appeared nd told me to type ... w/o actually telling me to type

Server 2: So we're both just really confused?

Server 1: pretty much. I mean, why wouuld a site just randomly appear onmy computer and tell me to type just tosend me to urs?

Server 2: Are you indicating that you don't want to talk to me or that it is strange that a website is choosing two strangers to talk to each other?

Server 1: alittle bit of both, I guess

Server 2: Gee, thanks.

Server 1: srry! Im not tryingto be mean, Ive kindof been this way for a while ... I dont even relly talk to my friends nymore

Server 2: Oh man, why?

Server 1: u dont really wanna know and I dont really wanna talk about it ...

Server 2: Okay ... Well, whatever it is I'm sorry that you're so upset! I'm here if you do want to talk about it though!

Server 1: u really care about wat is bothering a stranger?

Server 2: Why wouldn't I?

Server 1: b/c u dont no me

Server 2: And that matters? Nobody really deserves to be sad. It upsets me when someone isn't happy. Everyone should have a reason to smile.

Server 1: I dont think u have any idea how very obnoxious that seems to sumone in my position

Server 2: Sorry? I'm just trying to make you feel better. I mean, life is tough and all and there will always be reasons to be sad, but there are even greater reasons to be happy.

Server 1: u dont even know me

Server 2: Do I have to?

Server 1: my own friends havent even been able to drag me out of my room

Server 2: Maybe you don't need someone to drag you out of your room. Maybe you just need to tell someone completely faceless exactly how you feel. Maybe it will help to tell someone who won't judge you.

Server 1: but I ...

Server 1: I dont want 2 remember

Server 2: That's kind of silly, isn't it? Considering you're going to remember anyways. The fact that you're so torn up is just proving the point that you remember. So why don't you just let it out?

Sam stared at the screen. The stranger was just so straightforward. There was no calmly trying to pry information from him while making sure he didn't break. There was no looking for ways to get him over the situation and to forget, but instead ... The stranger said things that actually made sense.

Server 2: Uh ... Are you there?

Sam's fingers moved before his mind was able to catch up.

Server 1: sum1 died

Server 2: What? Who?

Then his mind did catch up and at that point he realized it was too late. He not only opened the door to a stranger who could now step into his problem, but he also reopened his mind to the thoughts of what had happened. And unfortunately, there was no turning back.

There was no hiding in his room like he did whenever Xavier confronted him. The stranger was in his room.

Server 1: I met up with this guy at aparty. he was relly cute and we were both drunk ... we had sex 1st and then he started 2 talk to me nd he was so sweet. he told me everthing about him he could in the time we had. he was the best hookup Ive ever had and we both agreed that we wanted to date afterwards

Server 2: And he died?

Server 1: yea

Server 2: How?

Server 1: we ... we were running round, having a good laff ... we called a taxi so we could go 2 his place nd we waited outside ...

Server 2: Are you okay? Are you still there?

Server 1: yes ... its just ... it hurts 2 remember

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from (1) New Message by Angelique Perricelli. Copyright © 2015 Angelique Perricelli. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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