Chapter 1
Hi, my name is Marnie, I'm eighteen years old, I'm from São Paulo, and... I decided to write my story. Not exactly a story about my life since I was born, but a story about me that involves a former friend.
Honestly, I feel very strange calling him a former friend, not because we no longer have ties, but because I was once able to be his friend. Those were intense and tense moments. I loved him a lot, as a friend of course, but everything crumbled from one moment to the next.
I'm only writing this because my therapist advised me to write, to write everything I went through, to organize my thoughts. I hope it won't be too painful, because I have to relive certain traumatic moments, but I think I can handle it.
Well, I'm rambling too much. This story began like this:
I was eleven years old when I met this former friend of mine; we met online. I used to play a lot of dress-up games with dolls wearing extravagant outfits and stuff. The thing is, this game was online, and I was connected with a bunch of people playing at the same time as me.
In that game there were parades, beauty contests, and everything else. With this "online gaming" thing, I didn't care that much; I knew I couldn't talk to strangers, and that this chatting could be very dangerous.
But then I ended up trying to talk to someone. Regardless of who it was, I knew it couldn't cause me any personal harm. I could prevent any harm by blocking the person or even uninstalling the game, at least that's what I thought.
I started talking to a "guest102365," I didn't understand why they hadn't used a real name to play. "She," until I found out it was a "he." We started talking because we seemed very good at the game, people at the same level, you know?
All I know is that we started playing together, we became friends through the game, until we went to the chat, and that's when I found out it was a boy. He was also eleven years old, according to him, because that could be a lie, I didn't know for sure, but I was letting it go for the moment.
He never told me his name, while I told him almost my whole life story. Eventually, I stopped doing that; it could be dangerous. We spent many moments together, but it wasn't forever.
We disconnected, we grew up, and at least for me, it wasn't as satisfying anymore. And I also had my "teenage problems," I went a long time without playing, I only talked to this "friend" of mine once or twice.
But there came a point when I uninstalled the game; I hadn't played in a while, so there was no need to keep it on my app list.
But this friend of mine, he was never absent; he always responded promptly when I sent a message, and said he had never stopped playing the game since the old days, that he played thinking about me, how sweet.
But after I stopped playing, I never saw him again for a while. Until I turned thirteen, I didn't expect to see him again...
