My 10 day writing challenge

Day 9

"Who are you really?"

A few years ago I met this guy on the internet, it started out us just chatting everyday with friends in the chat room then he started contacting me directly. We spoke every day and night online for months before exchanging numbers.

We started texting immediately, talking about anything and everything, dreams for the future, what we wanted to do when we finished school. He called me once, I was terrified to answer at the time, but when I did, I felt like I'd known him all my life. That connection we had when texting was still there when we spoke over the phone.

I discovered he was from Louisiana so travelling could be hard as I was from Ohio. He was one year older than me and wanted to become and engineer, he was in currently in college studying engineering, he seemed fascinated that I wanted to become a geologist, like him I attended college to study geography and entry level physics and astronomy.

During that time we had sent each other pictures of what we looked like. He always seemed weary of sending me selfies, almost like he had something to be ashamed of. After almost a year of failed attempts to meet and video chat I felt like I had no other choice.

I contacted the guys who run the TV Show Catfish pleading for help. The guys contacted me a few days later over skype, I gave them a brief summary of my life including how and when I met Jack. They flew out the next day from New York, I had provided them with an email with all of Jack's details and my address and contact number in case they needed to contact me before arriving at my home.

It was weird having them here the following day; it didn't feel real at all. It actually felt like a dream. I told them everything, showed them the few pictures I had of Jack and some of the messages we'd exchanged. I showed them his facebook and Instagram, his Instagram was full of images, projects he was working on with the exception of one picture of him which he'd sent to me when we first exchanged pictures.

With all the details I could provide them they left to go and investigate as they put it. With what spare time I had I decided to get some college work done, it seemed to be the best way to take my mind off the events of today.

Jack messaged me later that day after finishing today's class, speaking to me like normal. He even phoned me later that night when I decided to play some video game for a few hours, I didn't let it slip that I'd contacted the guys from Catfish, I thought that would be better to announce tomorrow when they try to convince him to meet up.

The next morning the guys phoned me to check I was available to meet up; I hadn't anything planned so I just told them to come round. I cleaned up whilst waiting on the team to arrive, they didn't take long and when they did I felt more nervous than ever.

They sat around my dining room table to speak to me, they set the laptop in front of me and proceeded to show me that Jack appeared to be real as they had found records from his school to show he graduated top of his class in engineering, they showed me that the number was registered to him and where it said he was living which was where he had told me.

They found something Jack had never told me, there was an article from a few months before we started talking about a house fire in the outskirts of New Orleans. A family of four were involved, the youngest child, a girl of only six died of third degree burns in the hospital, and the fifteen year son had been burned badly trying to rescue his younger sister.