A Thousand Miles

Chapter 4

You can do this, Dec. Just be yourself.

I hit the Send button and my message immediately delivers onto Brittany's message box. My heart beats twice as fast as I wait for her reply.

In a few minutes, I get a new notification from Twitter.

"brittany messaged you"

Oh God. Here it goes.

"hiii"

And so we talk for a while, maybe an hour. I got her Kik since there's a character count in DM's. That way I can tell her what I really want to tell her.

A few messages later, things start to get a little personal. At first we were both just getting to know each other. Here are the things I found out about Brittany:

She's 17, which is a year older than me.

She's 5'7" tall.

She's pure American.

She resides in Colorado--which I already knew before we talked.

Her favorite color is orange.

She loves koala bears ... cute.

And here are the things she found out about me:

I'm 16.

I stand 5'10".

I'm pure American, too.

I reside in Los Angeles, California.

My favorite color is yellow.

I love sharks.

It's pretty unusual to have the girl older than the guy ... especially in my case. But it doesn't really matter. Oh, and by the way, she said I was really cute.

You will not believe how amazing that made me feel.

As I said, things did get more personal.

She asked me if I'm currently dating anyone, or if I was a virgin. I answered 'no' to both.

And so I asked her if she was dating anyone, or if she was a virgin too. She said she just broke up with her boyfriend of 2 years a few months ago ... and she wasn't a virgin either. Gosh, she might not be up for dating right now. Whatever, I'm going to respect her decisions. If she's ready, she is. If she's not, then she isn't. Done.

She asked me if I was straight ... which made me laugh. Of course I am. I'm in love with you ... I have been for five months now.

You guys are probably thinking, 'You can't fall in love with someone over the internet'.

Well, Brittany's different. I go on Twitter everyday, just checking her profile, her tweets, her pictures. I go on her Instagram everyday too. Her Facebook. Her Tumblr. Her Ask.fm. I'm obsessed with her.

Don't you ever get that feeling, like, you just wanna know how the other person feels? Or where they are? Or how they're doing? I just feel like ... like ... I wanna protect her. Even if she doesn't know I'm there.

Whenever Brittany feels sad, I myself feel sad too. And for some reason, I don't know why. I thought it was just a simple internet crush, or some Woman Crush Wednesday. But then it grew ... and grew ... and grew.

I grew feelings for her. I grew feelings for someone who didn't even know I existed. But today changed everything.

Today marks the day when Brittany and I first started talking. And I know for sure that this isn't the last. It couldn't be.

An hour or so after getting to know each other, and of course ... a few flirty jokes, Brittany had to go, and so did I.

But she promised that we would talk tomorrow. She knew that I liked her. She knew that I promised myself to her, and not to anybody else.

... even if I hadn't said so yet.

She just knew.