Fake Profiles: A Story of Love

Short Story Fiction. Epic Tragedy.

Hannah logged into Facebook Messenger to see the last time that Tim had logged in, noticing the date was from yesterday. It was important to keep tabs on him because he had a history of being a liar. She had caught him so many times in the past telling her that he was in one place when he was actually in another. How did Hannah find this out? She actually drove to his work one night around midnight, to prove that he was not, in fact, still cleaning the kitchen, but the restaurant had completely closed. She was not happy to pull into that dark parking lot to find him nowhere in sight, but still texting her that he was trying to get everything wrapped up to come home. Or how about the night that he didn’t answer his phone until 5 a.m., claiming that he had fallen asleep at Carter’s house, although Hannah new he was with her. Tim was with his ex-girlfriend, lying and cheating, trying to have two women at the same time.
This time Hannah was not going to be a victim of Tim once again. She vowed that she would never let anyone break her heart the way he broke hers into five million pieces. She not only cried herself to sleep many nights after catching him red-handed with her, but also increased the need of booze and pills to be able to function on a daily basis. Some nights she couldn’t even sleep, replaying the details of him kissing another woman, when she knows that she was the best thing that ever happened to him. His ex-girlfriend just casted him away, labeled him as a loser. Hannah was there to pick up all the leftovers and turned him around. Cleaned him up. Made him presentable and respectable again. Then here She is, swooping back into take Hannah’s hard work and claim it as her own.
Hannah typed, “Good Morning Lover”, into the Facebook Messenger chat box, then closed the app. It would be there waiting for him when he woke up, knowing that it would make him feel loved for the day. It annoyed her that she knew he would be checking the message while in his other girlfriend’s bed, but Tim didn’t know that. Tim didn’t know that she knew where he was. Hannah had taken on a new life form, one that she carefully learned from watching Tim over the past year in their relationship. Hannah wasn’t Hannah.

Six months prior, Crystal sat on her front porch stoop, smoking menthols and drinking Bud Light Platinum from the shiny blue aluminum bottle. She was lonely and hurt. Hurt more than she had ever felt in her entire life. Thoughts of hopelessness swarm through her head as she tried to understand why Tim went back to Her. Crystal compared every aspect of their lives, from the jobs down to the cars that they drove. Crystal was winning in every area. His ex-girlfriend was a sad and pathetic excuse for a person, coming back in with the allure of an oxycontin prescription she got after she had her wisdom teeth pulled out.
Crystal pulled up Facebook on her phone, and visited both of their pages. She was still blocked from both. She was blocked after tagging them in posts, airing out their dirty laundry for their families and friends to see. She didn’t want it to end there though. She really wanted him to feel what he did to her. How he ruined such a bright and vibrant girl, that never experienced what it felt like when real love was snatched away from her. So she created Hannah.
Crystal had never made a fake profile before, nor had it ever cross your mind to act like a crazy, stalking ex-girlfriend that wanted to toy with emotions. She was nothing like Tim, someone who was a true chameleon, who could shape-shift into a different person from minute to minute during the day. During the night. She wanted the Facebook page to look as real as possible, so she typed “hot girl” into the Google search engine and went to the third page. Finding an Instagram account named “cutiemoddelwitabootay”, who had hundreds of bikini-clad photos and filtered shots of her enjoying margaritas, she found the perfect lure for her heart-breaker fishing pole. She looked like she could be a Hannah. She looked charming, and like she had a million Tim’s, a million fuck boys, that she would string along for the ride of her life. She made sure to make Hannah five years younger than she was, along with tagging her as single and bisexual. Tim would definitely love that. Before Crystal even realized it, Hannah’s profile was actualized and had made 42 friends that she had never met a day in her life. Now that the profile looked somewhat real, it was time to get dirty and deceitful. She pulled up his profile in Messenger and shot off the first message, unsure that he would even check it.

THU AT 5:37 PM

Hannah:
Damn you look good

She sat with the Messenger open, waiting for him to open the chatbox and start talking to her. Nothing. Had he seen her message and just closed it out? She knew that he couldn’t resist a gorgeous blonde with bright blue eyes, and was stupid enough to take the bait. Every time Tim would come over, he would scoop pieces of Crystal’s blonde hair into his fingers and interlock them, coming close to her face, saying, “I get lost in those blue eyes”. She made sure to put Hannah’s location in Orlando, 30 miles away from their suburban community, but close enough to where she was in reach.
Crystal’s big plan was to catch screenshots of Tim flirting with Hannah, then send them over to the Ex. Just like the ex-girlfriend had done to her when she found out that they were still together.
Crystal set her phone down and tipped the Bud Light Platinum back as far as it would go, draining the last bit of drops into the back of her throat. She went to the fridge for another one, then returned back to the stoop to light up another cigarette. She started to regret the idea of making the Hannah profile. He may know it is a fake profile right away, and not even entertain her message. She started friending random people like crazy, hoping if the number went up, it would be even more believable. Then, added another bathroom selfie of Hannah wearing a yellow Brazilian bathing suit from the back, with caption, #sunsoutbunsout. She wondered if she should change this to the profile photo, from the black and white close up selfie of her making a kissy face. Anxiety started to rise in her chest as she pondered the idea, then set the phone down. He will answer. Give him time. Crystal took another swig of her beer and decided she needed music to calm her nerves. “Bloop” the phone alarmed that a Facebook message came through.

THU AT 5:54 PM
Tim:
Do I know you?

Hannah:
No
I saw you in people you may know
You look too cute to not be my friend ;)

She saw that Tim had looked at the messages, but had not responded. She needed to do something more, something that would make her seem just thirsty enough to grab his attention and keep it. She attached a photo to the messenger and sent it through. It was a photo of Hannah in a black string bikini, with a flat bill NY Yankees hat, aviators, and the dueces sign. Crystal sat in anticipation, draining the beer down her throat. Finally he commented back.

THU AT 6:09 PM
Tim:
Wow
You got my attention girl

Hannah:
So, your girl gonna be mad that I slid in the DM?

Tim:
What girl?

Hannah:
Good. Single and ready to mingle

As the hours passed, Crystal continued to flirt and build her new, budding relationship with Tim. He was so easy to talk to, but he was always like this. He had a swagger that made Crystal melt, and made just the right amount inferences to rap lyrics that made her swoon. Before she knew it, she had close to a 12 pack of blue aluminum cans lined against the stoop, and Crystal was drunk. She left the cans on the porch, and walked to her lonely bed, falling asleep so fast that she didn’t even notice how lonely, for the first time in weeks.

Crystal woke up the next morning to a pounding headache, still drunk from the night before. Her stomach churned as she reached to put sunglasses on in her own dim room. She surveyed the room, unsure what time it was, or without a clear recollection of the night before. Then it hit Crystal. She had been messaging all night with Tim. As Hannah. She jumped up to find her phone, and came crashing to the floor, tangled within her bed sheets, as the sunglasses flew off of her face. The thud against the floor intensified her headache, moaning out loud at the dissatisfaction of her drunk clumsiness. She crawled out of her bedroom into her small living room, unable to find her phone. Crystal slowly went over the course of the evening to remember where that phone went. She couldn’t remember anything beyond sitting on the stoop, and was reminded that she had smoked almost a full pack of cigarettes by the taste of the dirty ashtray within her own mouth. Overturning the pillows and reaching between the couch cushions returned zilch. No phone. Her heart began to beat fast; She didn’t know where to look next. She stood in the middle of her living room, surveying back and forth, hoping that the phone would just pop out of thin air. No such luck.There was only one place left to look. She opened the front door, which was left unlocked, and found the phone sitting next to her empty beers. The anxiety fluttered in and out of her chest quickly. She was excited to find the phone, but not so hyped about pulling up the messages with Tim. As she picked up the phone, she realized it was completely dead. Her legs moved quicker than her brain registered, in a rush to plug in the phone, kicking over the beer cans, causing more of a ruckus than that kick should have caused. She plugged in the phone, knowing that it would take a few minutes to get it charged enough to even turn it on, walking back over to the front door, closing it, with all the beer cans strewn about the stoop. Crystal was too drunk to even try picking those up, and too drunk to care about her neighbors judging her extracurricular activities.Her stomach continued to churn and ache for sustenance that it was missing. Her mouth filled with a salty bile as she thought about eating eggs, probably not the smartest choice after a night of drinking. Popping in two slices of bread for toast, Crystal meandered over to the small, sage colored love seat and laid her head down. She was unsure if the need for food, the hangover, or the spinning room was the culprit to her feelings of wooziness.She fell asleep and didn’t even hear the toaster alert her of the breakfast, ready to go.

Crystal woke up, feeling much better than her first attempt to waking up that morning. She walked over to the toaster, tummy grumbling for the toast she had made hours ago. Shoving the dry toast into her mouth, with no topping, she choked it down while she brewed a fresh cup of black coffee. She let the smell of coffee fill her small apartment, happy that she had decided to lay back down to rest. Her first go at the morning definitely needed a re-do, and seemed to be going smoother this time round. After the Kuereg spat out her morning brew, she wandered back over to the love seat to check her phone. The phone was turned off, completely charged, plugged in and resting on the arm of the love seat. Crystal started to have memories of the evening before, and the messages between her and Tim.
Crystal held the power button, and sipped her coffee while she waited for the phone to fully boot. She was surprised to find that she had been flirty and playful, actually turning down his request for naked pictures. What if he asked again? She thought about how she could possibly send him some sexy photos, possibly using herself as the model. That idea became silly instantly after she reminded herself that Hannah was about 40 pounds smaller than her actual build. Naked pics will have to be absolutely out of the question. Reading over the conversation started to remind Crystal of how good it felt to be on Tim’s radar. He had tried getting more information out of her during the few hours of back and forth, and somehow Hannah was able to stay guarded and seem mysterious. Nothing of how Crystal actually was in real life.

The next few weeks were similar to any internet dating relationship. They would message each other all throughout the day, making sure to be sweet and funny, which involved into a full fledged status of bf/gf. Tim would ask to speak to Hannah, but she needed to buy a new phone, the mic was “broken”. How long could this continue without him never actually speaking to her? Without him not seeing her? He was already trying to set up a real date, and Crystal knew that Tim was growing tired of all of Hannah’s excuses. He was available all the time to speak to Hannah, something he didn’t do for Crystal. It was the emotional part of relationship that was lacking when they were together. He maintained that he was single, although she knew that he was still with Her. Where else could he have lived or been? He would say that he rented a room from a childhood friend, an easy fib that could be validated by his sheisty compadre if needed. She fell back in love with Tim all over again, and found her self forgiving his lies, and the hurt that he had caused in her life. She was completely accepting of him having Her there, because he never mentioned Her. The Ex didn’t exist in this new world that they had created together. It felt good to be his number one girl, and felt like he was giving her all of his attention. They would blow off appointments, work, everything, just to spend time together on Messenger. It was the closest step that Crystal could make to have Hannah and Tim in a real relationship. He would tell her that he loved her. It was everything that she was missing at that point in her life. She felt needed by him, to make it through this everyday hell that he had created by returning back to Her.

Crystal started to feel, deep down, that Tim had to know that Hannah wasn’t real. Hannah had to be Crystal. He had to have seen the similarities that they had in the text messaging, jokes, music references. He couldn’t be this stupid to think a woman just popped up out of thin air to want to throw game his way. She used this as an excuse to continue with the relationship. If he had found out, he couldn’t be that mad at her. It was pretty clear in her assessment of the situation that Hannah wasn’t real. He would be a fool to think she could be, and he deserved what was coming to him anyway.

Now, six months later, Hannah was a real woman, who was in somewhat of a real relationship with Tim, who lived just a moment away. By now they knew each other inside and out, fears, loves, hates, hopes, dreams, and everything in between. They had planned their first date, a trip to the tattoo parlor together to get matching tattoos. After the tattoos, they would drive down to Cafe Tu Tu Tango, and enjoy shared tapas and happy hour drinks. They both spoke many times about how they had never had anyone actually share something in their lives,a ll others having motives and selfishness in the background. No one had ever wanted the same ideals in life, and used them along the way to have their own dreams met. Together they could build each other up, having the perfect relationship that Crystal thought she would only read about in fairy tales, and watch on early 90’s sitcoms that would come on Friday night TGIF. A love that involved no real life expectations, just making love, giggling, and exchanging rap lyrics while intertwined in her bed. Crystal had completely forgotten that the point of starting this relationship was to tear apart Tim’s life. She had not taken one screen shot, nor even thought of sending one to Her. Over the past six months she had lost all of the feelings of wanting to see him hurt and alone, happy in a haze of love that she allowed to engulf her, not even putting the details together that Tim still didn’t love Crystal. He loved Hannah. Or at least he loved the idea of there being a Hannah that would always be available when he needed someone in his life. Crystal was content in being Hannah to him, and would shock herself when she would have any type of bad thoughts creep into her mind about her relationship with Tim. He was forgiven, and all was forgotten.

FRI AT 9:32 AM

Hannah:
Good morning my love

FRI AT 1:14 PM
Tim:
GM babe

Hannah:
You mean good afternoon?

Tim:
Ha
Yeah
I had to work late last night again

Hannah:
It’s all good. You have sweet dreams of me?

Tim:
I always do
When can I have sweet dreams in your bed?

Crystal felt her teeth show as she started to smile at the thought of Tim being back in bed with her, touching her hair, his body pressed against hers. She let her mind wander to a fantasy of him laying in his own bed, needing to be with her. It wasn’t only his bed though. It was Her bed too. Her smile immediately turned ugly as she scrunched up her face at the thought of him laying with Her. Those feelings came flooding back from six months prior. His love for her was as real as made-up Hannah. Her nose started to ache as she felt hot tears glazing over her eyes. She was continuing to torture herself into a belief that Tim would want her, after he had already proved from the past that he was happy right where he was, with no intention to make a move. She had not even seen him since then, wondering what damage had been done to all the work she put into him when they were together. Crystal sat down her phone and though about what her plan was now in this moment. She started to feel like a psycho, and knew that she would look like just that if she tried sending screen shots of their all night sexcapades through message to anyone. This didn’t work out how she wanted, or how she planned. Crystal was back to square one, with a broken heart, and Tim in love with someone else.