About a week or so before she moved away, this guy started talking to me online. It was really weird how it all got started. One day I was just chatting to a couple buddies on AOL Instant Messenger, and this new person just POPS up, and says hey! So I say hi, you know like you normally would when someone starts talkin' to you. But this guy was different. I could barely type fast enough to keep up with him. He was so talkative and hyper, it was cute. He then explained to me how he got my screen name. Him and his brother had once had a buddy war, to see who could get the most buddies. Well, they were doing the buddy war, and his brother left to go somewhere at one point, so Cory (that's his name), goes and copies all the names on his brother's list and adds them to his list.

So he explained to me that for the longest time he had me on his list, and he was just waiting for the day that he decided to start talking to me. So he then went on to tell me how he had a g/f of over six years that got jealous when he talked to other girls, so he said that he had always made it a mission to explain his entire life in one sitting, so that his g/f would never get suspicious or jealous of who he was talking to. Well, by the end of our three hour conversation, and a conversation that had gone so well I might add, he promised me that he wouldn't just forget about me and that we would talk again (and again).

So day after day, Cory and I talked and discovered more and more that we shared the same views on a lot of different subjects. It was weird. He was WOWed by my pictures, amused by my personality, awed by my drawings, and put at ease just by talking to me. It was cool. However, him and his g/f, Tara, had been having problems for quite a while. The more Cory and I talked, the more angry she got, but really she had no reason to. We just talked. We were just friends. I even introduced him online to my friend Ann, the one that had moved to North Dakota. Tara got more jealous about him talking to her too. In fact she got so jealous as time went by, and everything she said didn't make any sense at all. The entire situation was a mess.

Cory's family didn't like Tara. His mom didn't like her. Neither did his brother. Or his sister. Even his friends disliked her. Now doesn't that say something? That no one likes her? There was definitely something wrong with the whole picture. Cory would talk to me online and she was never there at the house with him. She would go out with friends, sometimes for more than a day, and just leave him there. He was alone, and so unhappy being with her, yet he stayed with her because he didn't want to be by himself. So he would've rather been hurt than to be alone. Can't say I blame him completely, but she was just MEAN to him. She would get online under his name and harass Ann and I. Tell us lies about how happy her and Cory were. How they had been together six years and that there was nothing that could break the bond that they had. She said that we didn't know him like she did, and that there was no way that we were ever going to be able to STEAL him from her. We made it clear to her that we weren't STEALING him from her, we were merely his friends. We just talked to him. And were there for him so many times when she wasn't.

Time went on . . . and Cory and I would assure each other that things were always going to be ok. Ann and I told him that he didn't need Tara. That she was just using him, that she had cheated so many times (which she had, her brother told us that), and that he deserved so much better (which he did and he still does). I guess something about me intrigued him because he fell for me. In the words of his brother : "He didn't fall, he f*ckin' plunged!!" Cory started telling me how he never wanted me to hurt. That he loved me. Genuinely. That he would do anything for me. And he did. Days later, he broke up with Tara. She went off the deep end, and started popping pills right in front of him. They were harmless and she knew this, but he didn't. She was just trying to scare him into not leaving her. This was just last week. A couple nights ago she broke his mic on his computer so he couldn't talk to us. She threatened to remove some wires from his computer so it wouldn't work, therefore he couldn't talk to us.

Every night, Cory would get home from work, and end up leaving to go take a walk and get away from Tara. It was as if he had no freedom, and really he didn't. It just amazes me that even after HE broke up with HER, she still yells at him and controls his life. She is so wrong for everything that she has done to him, not to mention the fact that she WASTED six years of his life, and took away his innocence . . . literally. Jenny was his first and only. And it just breaks my heart to know that she used him like this. He has since recently decided to move in with his brother (which also makes his bro extremely happy knowing that he is doing the right thing finally, and taking control of a bad situation). After settling in with his brother for a bit, and catching his bearings, he plans on moving closer to me, and bringing Ann back home to Michigan (from North Dakota).

All this has happened in the past two months, and I can hardly catch my breath. I could write an entire book about this whole experience. And it's funny how Ann just keeps telling me about this gut feeling that she has. She tells me that she just knows that Cory and I are going to be together. It's just so amazing how everything has happened so PERFECT. Almost like it's meant to be. I mean, he gave up his entire life just for me. He split up with the only girl he has ever been with. He's dropping everything to pick up and move. He almost lost his job. Ann tells me I am his heart, his soul, his life, and that he would do anything for me. And I'm finding more and more, every time I talk to him, I'm having to pick myself up from off the floor. I just keep falling . . . deeper and deeper in love with him.

I wait for the day that we will finally get to meet. I have these expectations about him and I know he has them about me also, but I'm not worried in the least. He is a completely wonderful man. Any woman would be lucky to snag his heart. It just amazes me that he found me, and that I found everything I've been looking for in him. My entire life, I've been burned in love, and everything I looked for in every guy, I have never found. I found everything in Cory. He has that caring soul, giving nature, loving quality, silly attitude, truthful heart, and intellectual mind that I so admire and adore; Everything I could ever desire in a man. I dream every night about us holding each other, walking the sandy beaches under the moonlit sky, kissing with the ocean's mist upon our cheeks, drinking hot chocolate, cuddling up watching movies, going out to dinner, gazing into each other's eyes...all the wonderous adventures of love. I await the day I meet my soulmate.

"Shell"