The Masks We Wear

Michelle frowned. "Bragging? Craig, did you watch the video?"

"No."

"You should."

"Look, I don't need to swallow any more of that bile. I get it. She won. I'm a joke. Whatever war she was waging, she won."

"This whole thing did a number on you, didn't it? Watch the video. She didn't create Casey to tease you or to make you out to be an idiot. She did it to find the courage to say what she couldn't otherwise say. You're Roxane. She's both Cyrano and her own Christian. Please, watch the video and try to imagine how much courage it took to make it. When this all started, she had to create a new identity to be honest with you and now she's out there in front of the world as herself admitting how much she fucked up. That's a huge step. It was live streamed, but I have a copy."

She sent me the file, I grabbed a box of Pop Tarts, went to my room and watched while I ate. Things...shifted. I was still angry, but now it was more with the situation itself than with Madison. Don't get me wrong, I was still pissed at her, but now it was mixed with either compassion or understanding. And what was up with her hair? Why did she always cover her face with it like that? She, well, she wasn't ugly or anything. She was actually... whatever.

I started it again. Her pain was palpable, and I grew irritated as I realized I felt bad for her. She created this! I was the victim, why should I be feeling bad for her? No wonder I was so easy to fool, it turned out that I was a complete idiot.

The third time I watched it through something odd began happening. The memories of the other two videos changed. It was no longer Jennifer Connelly's face I was seeing in my mind; it was Madison's. I'd pictured Jennifer as we texted and now that changed as well. It was Madison making me laugh. It was Madison talking about her father. It was Madison, always Madison. I sighed and refused to watch it a fourth time.

This whole situation was a big bag of crazy.

They were sitting together and watching me as I came out of my room. Tim was about to speak when Michelle put her hand on his knee. He turned to her as she spoke.

"Craig, you need to talk to her."

I sighed. "I know."

Going through all of our old emails, I finally found her address. It was drizzling out, but that was fine. It fit my mood. I knew that her grandmother had left her money, but damn. This was a hell of a lot nicer neighborhood than I thought any UofC student could afford. Oddly, her door was open. I realized why when I saw all the stacked boxes. Movers were likely on their way.

She was in the living room and I could see her packing from the door. I walked in, got within about a dozen feet and spoke to her back. I guess I was quiet when I walked in. Madison tensed as soon as she heard my voice.

"I... I need help understanding this. I need to see you as you explain. Look in your eyes. Madison, can you tell me why?"

HER

The muscles in my throat closed so quickly that I could barely breathe, let alone tell him why.

It was physically painful to turn around. I didn't want to look in his eyes. I didn't... couldn't. I couldn't do it.

But he had asked a direct question, and direct questions should be answered. Promptly.

The most I could do was straighten up, every muscle in my body screaming as I stood. Turning towards him was like learning to walk again. The movements felt staggered, like someone was guiding my legs with a remote control that had a low battery. I stared at the floor, but he said he wanted to look in my eyes, so I forced my neck up from its bowed position.

Craig was in my apartment. Craig had entered my apartment, closed the door, and was standing in my living room. Craig was in my apartment asking me to explain why I was batshit fucking crazy.

I met his eyes for all of a millisecond before shutting down. My teeth smashed together to keep my chin from shaking, my hair fell in front of my face like a shield, and I folded my arms in front of me, as if that was the thing that would keep me from falling apart.

The silence was awkward as he waited for a response, but I couldn't.

"I don't think I'm asking much, all things considered," he finally said.

He wasn't asking much at all. He had every right to ask. There was just no way of... Casey was the one who could talk to him. Sure, I'd made a video as myself, but there was a big difference between a camera and a real, live person.

"Look, if you're not even going to... I thought, after seeing the video, you'd... this was a mistake." He could barely hide the disgust in his voice.

A strange noise emitted from my throat as I tried to force myself to speak. A mix of a whine and a groan, it was horrendously embarrassing, and I cut it off with a gasp as my face went red.

"What... what was that?"

Disgust was joined by thinly veiled confusion.

I tried again, and that time the words made it through, albeit softly.

"I'm fucked up."

"Madison, I can barely hear you."

"I'm fucked up. I'm fucked up, okay?!"

Once the words started, they wouldn't stop. I still couldn't look up, still hid behind the curtain of hair, but I could sense him. I could imagine the revulsion on his face as he looked at me. I couldn't bring myself to look up and actually witness it.

"I'm fucked up. I'm weird. I'm crazy. I know it, you know it, the whole campus knows it now. I messed up your life and you want to understand why. I want to tell you why, but I can't, because I don't understand either. All I can tell you is that I didn't laugh. It wasn't a joke. I... I didn't lie to you about anything. I mean, I did. The whole... I just, I didn't lie about... about the real stuff."

My voice cracked as I trailed off, the words starting strong and becoming softer and softer until the nonsensical statement that I didn't lie to him was barely audible. I cringed beneath my mask of hair at how stupid I sounded.

"Would you look at me?"

A single, choked grunt of a sob escaped my throat.

"I need you to look at me."

His voice was far more gentle than I deserved, insistent but patient. He should have been demanding I look at him, insisting on an explanation, berating me for how stupid I sounded. That was... that was what men did. Some men.

Not him, though.

Inch by inch, I forced my neck to tilt up. My hair still covered my cheeks, a security blanket, and I didn't open my eyes until my chin was straight. When I did, I looked at his chest, and then his lips, and then, agonizingly, into his eyes.

His expression was guarded, still hesitant, but his eyes were warm. Whatever he saw in my face, he must have decided I was telling the truth, because he sighed.

"You know, this would be a hell of a lot easier if you'd done it to fuck with me. 'Least then I'd know how to feel."

"W-What?"

"I don't know how to feel. I'm pissed. Well, I was pissed. And hurt."

I bit my lip, tearing my eyes away from him.

"I should be mad. And I was mad, I was beyond mad. But now... I'm just confused."

"Why?"

"Because I shouldn't still like you, and I do. More, actually."

I laughed. I don't know why that was my response, but a sharp squawk of laughter echoed through the mostly-empty apartment before I stopped myself.

"You're crazy," I said. "I mean, I'm crazy, but you're crazy."

"You're not crazy. You're just..."

"Crazy," I said. "You don't like me. You like Casey, and Casey isn't real."

"You are Casey."

"There's something wrong with me, Craig." My voice came out stringy, wavering as I spoke. "I couldn't... I could barely talk to you when we were friends. It took making up a whole entire person to be able to even get to know you. That's not normal."

"It's not, but neither was how your dad treated you."

I stared at him for a long moment before realizing I was making eye contact again.

"That was true, wasn't it?" He looked nervous.

"Yes," I whispered.

"And besides the name, the video, and telling me you had an appointment at lunch, everything else was true?"

I nodded.

"Madison, I... I can't explain it any better than you can, but I still like you. I understand why you needed to do it."

"You don't like me," I said again. "I'm not her. I can't be like that. You liked Casey. She was hot and smart and funny and—"

"An illusion. She was the illusion I was infatuated with. I was falling for the woman behind the mask, and I didn't know it until you took the mask off."

"You shouldn't say that." My voice broke as words came tumbling out again and I bowed my head, shrouding myself in the safety of my hair. "You shouldn't. I hurt you and I can't blame anyone but myself for this entire mess. I just, I liked you... still like you, but I mean, that's... that's not the point. Normal people don't make Deepfake videos and buy burner phones so they can text someone they like, normal people just... just tell them, and I couldn't, and that's not your fault, it's my fault, because I'm fucked up. I told you, I'm fucked up. This isn't—"

I was still rambling as he crossed the apartment, three long strides bringing him in front of me. It wasn't until he brought his hands to my cheeks, pushing my hair out of my face before tilting my head up, that I lost track of whatever I was saying.

There was a pause, a single moment where our eyes met, my lips parted in the middle of some unimportant word, and then his mouth was on mine.

He kissed me.

I mean, he kissed me.

A million things flew through my head. None of them mattered. All that mattered was the lips that were pressed to mine, the warmth of his breath and the softness of his mouth and the sudden, intense flow of energy that crashed through my body.

And just like that, it was over. He pulled back and I inhaled, trying not to make a noise. His hands left the sides of my face, hovering as he hesitated.

"Uh," he said. "Sorry. I should've probably, um, asked first."

I responded by not asking before I brought my hands to his head and pulled his face back to mine, kissing him again.

I mean, if either of us should have asked permission to do anything, it should have been me, but he certainly didn't seem to mind as he kissed me again. Nor did he seem to mind as his tongue pushed its way into my mouth, or when his teeth gently grazed my bottom lip, or when his hands stopped hovering and found my shoulders, and then my arms, and then wrapped around my waist.

And I definitely didn't mind when his hands started wandering, fingers spread against my back before tentatively moving to my sides. I touched his cheek softly, then his hair, and it was only when the tips of my fingers trailed to his neck that he pulled back again, this time stepping away from me.

"Maybe we should... Should we slow down?"

"No."

He laughed.

"Unless you want to."

He shook his head. "This is crazy, but I... definitely want to be here, with you."

I bit my lip as he trailed off.

"My bed isn't packed up yet if you want to... to go somewhere more comfortable."

My cheeks were red, I knew that. And my voice was shaking as much as my hands were. And that nervousness is probably what reminded him of the admission I'd made in the video.

"Aren't you... uh... you know, a virgin?"

I nodded.

Craig grimaced. "We don't have to do this. I don't want you to think you have to—"

"Don't."

"What?"

"Don't say that, please," I said quietly.

I knew what he was going to say, because I'd already thought it. He was going to say he didn't want me to give up my virginity in some absurd apology for everything I'd done, that he didn't want to feel like I was trying to sleep with him to make up for my actions.

That wasn't why I wanted to sleep with him.

The fact that he was questioning it was just more proof of how truly good Craig was. That after everything, he wasn't the kind of guy who would do that, the kind of guy who thought he was entitled to sex with me as a kind of sick compensation for what I'd done.

I didn't want him to say it because I felt like I didn't deserve that kind of consideration, and I didn't deserve to be with a man who would be so compassionate in the face of everything that had happened.

If he said it, I'd have to tell him that, and I really, really just wanted him to continue kissing me and touching me and... well.

Craig looked torn between finishing his thought and asking me where the bedroom was. I decided for him, taking his hand and turning on my heel without another word, leading him down the hallway to my room.

It was sparsely decorated, most of my possessions in boxes in the living room, but the bed was still neatly made. Once there, I closed the door, then turned to him.

"Madison, are you sure?" he asked, his voice dry.

I responded by taking my shirt off.

"That's a yes, then?"

I nodded.

"You know you can talk, right?"

His gentle teasing made me laugh.

"Yes," I said.

Despite his comment, we didn't do much more talking. We did a lot more kissing, and a lot more exploring. When his shirt had joined mine on the floor and his hand had slipped into the waistband of my jeans, there were a lot more noises... just not, well, talking, per se.

When he had removed my jeans, and his jeans, and every other stitch of clothing either of us were wearing before parting my thighs and gently, slowly sliding himself inside me, I made a soft noise that wasn't quite a cry, but wasn't quite anything else, either. He kissed me, murmuring soft words that comforted me in a way I didn't deserve, but that he was good enough to give me. He brushed my hair away from my face, insisting he see me, lips touching my cheek and nose and forehead and eyelids as he took me.

And when we finished, laying on my bed, sweating and naked and trembling, he took me into his arms again.

"Are you really going home?" he asked.

"Guess so."

"Why?"

"How can I stay?"

"After doing all that to get my attention, you're just gonna leave?"

I blushed, knowing he was joking, but unable to find the humor beneath the knot of anxiety in my stomach.

"Everyone knows it was me. I can't show my face on campus. People will..."

He thought for a moment.

"We'll tell 'em it was Deepfaked."

"What?!"

"Yeah, that someone Deepfaked the confession video to make it seem like it was you. We'll blame, I dunno, Mandy."

"Mandy?" I said indignantly. "No one would believe that. She wouldn't even be able to figure out how to turn the camera on, let alone Deepfake anything."

I couldn't help but laugh as he did, until we were both giggling maniacally as we held each other like the crazy, awkward, ridiculous people we were.

Craig didn't go home that evening, much to his roommate Tim's concern. Or pride. I still wasn't entirely sure what Tim thought of everything, especially after Craig had packed up his possessions and brought them to my apartment. We unpacked our things together, putting my belongings back and making room for his, as though it were truly the start of something new.

Tim didn't mind losing his roommate too much, from what I could tell. Ms. Uber Popular, who was actually just about the sweetest person I'd ever met, was spending a lot more time there in Craig's absence.

We handled the fallout from the videos by not handling it. When people whispered or pointed, we ignored them. I knew what they said about me.

I didn't care.

Three weeks later, Craig was lying beside me, brushing the hair off of my face as I lay on my back, sheets tangled around us as we caught our breaths. He toyed with it, twisting strands between his fingers.

"What's on your mind?" I asked.

He leaned forward, kissing my neck softly.

"You know those summer internships they do at Google?"

"Yeah."

"I got one."

"Really? Wow. I didn't even know you applied."

"You should. They'd take you, for sure."

He pulled his face away from my neck, looking into my eyes as I stared back at him. I didn't say anything, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Even if you don't want to apply... would you come with me? I mean, for the summer?"

"I'd go with you anywhere."

And it was true. Anywhere, anytime, I would go with him. He had me, all of me, and I would never hide that from him again.

Bebop3 would like to note that MsCherylTerra will be participating in blackrandl1958's upcoming "Highway Song" story event. He was privileged to have read an early copy of her story and was blown away.

Randi always does an amazing job creating and curating these events. Tune in for some wonderful stories by some of the best writers on Literotica. St. Patrick's Day, 2020.