Love's labors lost... The story of Marc and Rosalind

This story is based on the perception of the author of actual events, as well as the author's imagination. In certain cases incidents, events, characters, timelines, and communication have been changed for dramatic purposes. Certain characters, and the actions of said characters, and events, may be composites, or entirely fictitious. Any similarity to any actual event, person or animal living or dead is merely coincidental... just in case there is a Marc, or a Rosalind, or an Ophelia, or an Inigo Montoya, or a Hans Christian Anderson, or a flying pig named Sally somewhere in this world who might read this and want to sue said author for libel or slander.
It is after all, a story... a tragedy, a comedy even, and yes, definitely a drama. This story begins in a small town far across the ocean. It was not long long ago though. This is a story about love. Oh... but it's a tragedy... It's a story about love gone awry. Oh, and a comedy... I think I'll make it more of an ironic comedy. So... as I was saying... Once upon a time not so long ago in a land far across the sea there lived a boy. Let's name him... James... no... let's name him... Marco... hmmm... close.... but not quite right. We'll name him Marc. That'll do. This is after all, Not a fairytale. Now the girl in this story.... let's give her a Shakespearean name just to add the drama... which play.... hmm, how about 'As You Like It', that's a good one.... and the girl we'll call... Rosalind. Yes... that'll do nicely. Oh, and just so we're clear, she's not a princess, just a girl. Now, on to the story! Now, first things first you must understand that Marc is the kind of guy who likes to act well in most situations, and likes people to think he is a good guy. And why shouldn't they? Marc is a good guy. A good guy that has some very odd and socially unacceptable ways of showing his affection for those he claims to care most about... one of them being Rosalind. Marc wooed Rosalind for a time... wait... this is modern... they dated a while and (here's where it starts to get modern crazy) after a week or two Rosalind noticed that Marc was making a bit of a habit of going through her phone and reading her incoming and outgoing texts... a lot... but she didn't really care because she had nothing to hide and wanted him to know she didn't. Oh, I should add for added drama that Marc was also about a year out of a divorce at that point and it had given him some crazy trust issues. Rosalind knew that and tried to be accommodating. She thought that showing him there was nothing to fear would be helpful. (I didn't say this was a conventional story)... anyway, before too long, he and she started fighting... they started yelling fighting about every little thing. When Rosalind would talk to a guy or mention an old friend who is a guy, a fight always followed... but because she knew Marc had issues with trust, and she did have a lot of guys in her life, she let it slide. Her sister Ophelia told her that it was bad news that they were fighting so soon and encouraged her to end the relationship. Rosalind thought about it, but thought Marc just needed some time, and told Ophelia so. Ophelia agreed to support her sister, and without another word tossed her purple hair over her shoulder and rode away on the back of a white monkey. Rosalind took the consistency of the "debates" as Marc called them, into consideration and after a couple weeks of him going through her phone Rosalind told him he couldn't any longer… and he stopped. Then all of a sudden, her computer started getting hacked. (I told you this was a modern day tragedy didn't I? :o) Her e-mail and her popular social networking site were being hacked and everything that came in and went out was being forwarded to alternate e-mail addresses that were oddly similar to her own! The comments she made were being tracked, and she was being cyber-stalked! It was terrible! She changed settings and deleted several fake e-mail addresses, but she would frequently find new ones doing the same thing! She thought on it a while, and eventually figured it must be Marc because of the timing of it all, and after all, he had told her in one of the first conversations they'd had, that he'd hacked his ex-wife’s popular social networking site after she left him. Marc later denied it to Rosalind, when she asked him about it, saying he had known her password… and then she wondered why she would remember something he hadn’t said. But then, she had nothing to hide from him so she figured it would just calm him to have the access. She didn't really care if he read stuff... and then some time after that they decided they would probably not fight so much if they were just friends, so they decided to end the relationship. Rosalind was a reasonably pretty girl, and never had trouble getting dates, so... it happened that shortly thereafter, she went out with, and kissed, this guy we’ll call... Hans Christian Anderson... named after the famous story teller. :o) (Trust me this is going to be a twist in the plot later... it's pertinent) She told Marc truthfully when he asked if she'd kissed him, and she sure got reamed for it. Now, Marc and Rosalind were no longer 'together', but he thought it was too soon for her to be off forgetting him in a new man's arm... and ok... it was, so we'll call it a rebound. After giving Rosalind a thorough tongue-lashing Marc seemed to drop the issue. About a week or so later Rosalind got some very hurtful anonymous letters on her popular social networking site and had little reason to think it was Marc because when they spoke he was just as nice and normal acting as he’d ever been. About a week later, after having been hacked frequently and repeatedly for about 3 months Rosalind (who was getting quite sick of all of it by this point) went into her settings and, as was becoming routine, found that everything was being forwarded to yet another alternate e-mail address. She, in an almost jest, wrote the address back. She had done so before with no response and did not expect one now. To her surprise, she got one the next morning! It started out “Lololololololololol>>>>>>>>>and she caught on people>>>>>>” Initially she thought it was someone we’ll call Inigo Montoya (because he's a cool dude from Princess Bride whose name is stuck in my head). Inigo was known to always write letters with a gazillion of those '>'s between words and a string of lololololololololololols instead of just lol, or haha. Inigo had been Rosalind's 'non-boyfriend' earlier that year and they hadn't spoken in a few months and so when Rosalind thought it was Inigo, she was of course upset that he would take the time, effort, and interest to go out of his way to hack her… which was uncharacteristic of him, and something she never thought he would do for a second... until she read words that appeared to be so obviously him. Rosalind sent a letter back to the fake email address saying that she knew who it was and how she felt about it. Then she forwarded it to Marc... the guy she trusted... He said he was so sorry that Inigo made her feel that way, and expressed his concern for her sorrow. The very next morning she got another response that made it seem even more like it was Inigo, except this time it came with a threat against her. Now, Rosalind was the kind of person who had no problem going to the source and having a chat in person… especially with someone she knew well, like Inigo, and especially when a threat was involved. So.... Rosalind text Inigo and told him she wanted to talk to him over dinner. They talked for 4 hours as she listened for inconsistencies, and watched his every facial expression and scrutinized his body language. She came away with a lot of new information, but nothing definite. Even so, that night, when Rosalind came home she told her roomie that even with the letter that appeared to be from him, she trusted Inigo more than she trusted Marc and she said that she knew it made no sense, but she really felt that way. A few days later Inigo and Rosalind went to the library because Inigo wanted to help her, and she wanted to find proof that it was, or was not, him for sure. They discovered that it had to be either Inigo or Marc. With names like these, I think this all took place in a beautiful little town in Spain. Anyway, the same computer had accessed Inigo's e-mail account, Rosalind's real and fake e-mail accounts, and Marc's real and fake e-mail accounts. It had to be one of them. So, when Inigo got back to work and Rosalind got home, she asked Inigo via IM and Marc via text to send her their computer IP addresses... it's a kind of social security number for every computer, and allows all activity to be pin-pointed to a specific computer. Inigo handed his over without a second’s hesitation, as Marc simultaneously flipped! He started texting her saying she was such a bad friend for suspecting him and how dare she think he was involved after he had been nothing but good and kind to her the entire time he'd known her, and she was sticking a knife in their friendship over something Inigo had done, and how dare she believe his silver tongue and all this kind of stuff. At that point Marc became very very suspect in Rosalind's mind, and since she had no way to confirm anything to convict him or release him from suspicion by what he had sent her, she decided to confirm her thoughts with the one person she knew who would know the information she needed. Marc's ex-wife. Rosalind was unable to reach her directly, but did speak to her best friend. Rosalind asked her if she might possibly know for certain whether or not Marc was capable of what was happening. She told Rosalind she had just one piece of advice for her "Run Like Hell" and told her that he was absolutely capable and had done it multiple times in the past. That was enough for Rosalind. All she needed was to know he was capable because in carefully looking at things, she understood his motive, and it all fit together quite nicely except for his repeated claims that he didn’t know how to do such a thing. Rosalind decided to wait and see if Marc was going to come clean on his own… she set up times to meet together, and texts asking him to call her. He was strangely entirely too busy all of a sudden. He had nothing apparent to be doing all day long, but somehow he came up with excuses that filled the entire duration of the week! Leaving early in the morning, and completely unavailable even after very late at night! Rosalind knew she could use his belief that he was an honest person to get him to meet her, and so told him she desperately needed the money he owed her and he replied that a few days later would be the next time he would be able to bring it by… but very late… and he’d just leave it under the mat. Wanting to avoid further possible trouble, and knowing he just didn't want to see her, Rosalind told him she would be up waiting and to make sure he placed it in her hand. Late that Sunday night Marc walked through Rosalind's door and true to his word, handed her the money. See, he is a good guy... like I said in the beginning (in case you were starting to wonder why I mentioned that). Rosalind was less than warm and inviting, but it was cold outside and she wanted her answers so invited him in. She sat, and he across from her, and started the conversation she knew would lead to showing him the absolute proof she had gathered against his claims. Rosalind asked him some simple questions and they got harder as she continued. Marc sat across from her and lied to her face for 45 minutes telling her that she was wrong in thinking that way, and giving her stories of how he was the victim too because he’d gotten anonymous letters too, and there was an alternate e-mail address close to his name as well. Rosalind was not a dumb girl, as he hoped she was, and she wasn’t buying any of it. Her face showed none of the sympathy he was expecting, and he kept trying to making his story evoke some of that emotion he was sure she must have for him. The proof just kept playing through her mind like a tape on replay. Rosalind asked him things she knew the answers to and watched him as he lied to her time and again. Her expression was that of a parent who is annoyed that a young child is blaming the missing cookies on a purple dragon that came and stole them. Oh? Really? Is that what happened? Awwww, and you were scared of it? Awwww. Wellllll…. And then she got tired of hearing about the big scary purple dragon. She got tired of listening to the lies that kept pouring out, one after the next, after the next. It was now Rosalind's turn to pose a question she knew he could not explain away. The second letter she’d received mentioned that she had “kissed Christian and bragged about it” to her friends”. Well... that's what the hacker thought anyway. But that's not what really happened (here comes the part the hacker didn't think through very well). Some months before meeting Marc, Rosalind had taken a picture next to Hans Christian Anderson and her cousin had made a comment that the two of them “should hook it up” because he was so cute and this and that. Nothing happened between Hans and Rosalind until that night they kissed after she and Marc decided to be friends. Rosalind wrote her cousin a letter after the kiss saying something like “Remember that guy in the picture that you said I should get together with?” Rosalind's cousin would not have known who she meant if she’d used his name and so Rosalind didn’t because of it. Now, when Rosalind read from the hacker about "Christian", she thought it was odd, and the hacker had to be someone who knew of the picture, or of Hans, or of the kiss… someone who could have made that connection between the three. Then when she went to dinner with Inigo she mentioned “Christian” and he said “Who?” Rosalind said, “Hans Christian Anderson” He said, ‘Why did you call him Christian? His name is Hans.” That made her think more on that than she otherwise would have. To be sure of her hunch, she went to the source. Rosalind text Hans and asked him if he knew of anybody who calls him Christian. He said there was nobody he knew of that did. Then she knew it was just a matter of finding out if Marc called him Hans or Christian, because Inigo clearly didn’t. So, back to Sunday night’s conversation, after 45 minutes of hearing lies Rosalind led the conversation toward that kiss and she said “about that note that I kissed Christian” and Marc spoke at almost the same time and spoke in almost unison with "you kissed Christian. Rosalind, not wanting to have room for error, thought that could be misconstrued as leading so she let him continue the conversation and let him talk, (she had discovered that when he was nervous or lying, if she just remained silent he would just keep talking without any prodding and say things he hadn't thought through) he continued talking, and subsequently called Hans by "Christian" twice more in the following few minutes. “…Wow!” she thought, as her eyebrows raised and she leaned back in her seat to collect the fact that she was now 100% instead of 99.5% certain it was Marc. Rosalind let him finish and couldn’t help but laugh and shake her head in sheer disbelief and incredularity at the fact that it really had been him this whole time, and that lies were still falling so effortlessly out of his mouth. When he finished whatever it was he was saying, Rosalind decided to end the charade. It was obvious in her mind that he was caught and equally obvious he had no intention of coming clean on his own. So she said, with a barely contained smirk on her face, “Ok! Then riddle me this…” and she explained in some length and detail that Hans was never called Christian and that Marc had just referred to him by that 3 times not hesitating or thinking twice about any one of them. About then he started talking, saying “No, stop, wait, I have something to tell you!” Rosalind paid him no mind as she continued laying it all out for him, knowing he could not now deny it if he wanted to. He continued saying “Wait, don’t finish, please just stop talking, I want to tell you something! Wait, stop, it was me! It was me all along! I did all of it please stop!” Rosalind finished and then said… “I know it was, I have known it for days.” She demanded that Marc tell her everything from the beginning, how, why, how long, what on Earth he was thinking and what made him think that it all could have possibly turned out well! Marc told Rosalind what he’d done, and the screwy logic behind it. Marc said that he could tell that Rosalind was getting annoyed by his constant need of affirmation of their relationship, and so he thought a much better course of action would be to hack into her personal correspondence and find out for himself what she was saying to others about the relationship. That was what she had thought at first, and she was largely ok with it until he lied to her, tried to incriminate an innocent bystander who had no part in it, and threatened her. He said he did it because he loved her and he didn't want her to hate him for what he'd done. Marc wanted Rosalind to think it was Inigo and threatening her would make it more believable. Marc didn't know though that Inigo is not that kind of person, and that a threat is totally out of character for him. Marc also didn't know that love is not what he had for Rosalind because as anyone who has experienced love for another knows, love is not deceit, love is not underhanded, love does not attempt to hurt the object of it, love is none of the things Marc displayed to Rosalind, and she knew it. Rosalind didn’t make any of the process easier for Marc. She asked all the questions he didn’t want to answer and sat there glaring at him just taking it all in, listening to what he was now saying. She could tell there were some points he was trying to avoid and soften, but by the time he finished it was very late and he was not yet willing to confess to the things he didn’t “technically” do. What he’d skirted around still bothered her the next day, so she sent Marc a text telling him that she was giving him one last chance to come clean on the issue she knew he was still lying about and to stop thinking she was stupid. Rosalind got a text back a few minutes later from Marc, saying he did have something to confess about it. He said he didn’t write the hurtful letter that came first, but his friend did and he was standing there not stopping it and knew it would hurt her. Well, there ya go, Rosalind thought, mystery solved. Everyone told Rosalind that she should turn him in to the authorities for the crime he'd committed, but she didn't. She didn't want to have it put on his record and follow him around as a criminal the rest of his life. She thought she was doing Marc a favor. She thought she would spare him the embarrassment of some stupid acts. She later thought she might have been wrong in letting it go because he had already done it twice, to her knowledge and didn't seem to think there was a problem with doing so. They spoke about the situation at length and a few days later Marc asked her if she thought they might just "move past it" and continue on in their relationship. He told her she needed to focus on the good things he did... the positive in the relationship... That only further proved to show Rosalind that he clearly had no idea of the reality of what he'd done. The deception, the anxiety he had caused her, the loss of trust in 'the system', and the sheer depth of what he'd done was clearly unrealized. Marc maintained ever after that he came clean to Rosalind of his own accord because when she said 'Riddle me this...' his mind "went blank" and he "couldn't hear anything she was saying" and he "just knew he had to tell her", so "she should give him credit for confessing". Rosalind thought that was probably the most ludicrous and asinine thing she'd heard since the last time he'd opened his mouth. She was getting used to hearing some pretty ridiculous things come out of his mouth that he expected her to just take a s truth, but she never did. She attempted to give Marc a chance to make things right, and all heard was how he was "going to do something" and how he hasn't yet because she needed to decide if she was going to take matters into her own hands or let him make it up to her. After several weeks of hearing nothing but garbage come out of Marc's mouth she told him she was done and that he could keep his hollow words. So, the storyline boils down to this... Rosalind was duped. Marc sold himself as something good and she bought it... then he rotted. Marc thought that by Rosalind telling her friends what happened, and what he did was ensuring justice, exacting her vengeance, and going for blood. Several weeks later, Rosalind got a text from Marc and she called him about them because they made no sense, and he told her that someone was hacking him and he wants to know if Rosalind had anything to do with it. Well, Rosalind thought that was quite laughable. "Well, you know what they say", she told him, "What goes around comes around doesn't it" she said as she smiled and she searched way deep inside and found that she didn't feel even the slightest bit sorry for him. Rosalind then came to the realization that Marc's ex-wife, whom he had told her had mysteriously just left one day absolutely unannounced, must have been completely frustrated and stifled and trapped having to live with a man such as Marc day after day and year after year. Rosalind all of a sudden got it, felt relieved for that poor girl, and grateful that she had side-stepped that roaring semi, and felt a bit of sorrow for the next girls. She got off the phone and as she looked out the window she saw a pig with wings flying around outside the trees in the yard. It was a cute, fat, pink thing with little white wings that flutter as fast as a hummingbird's. She said hello to it and it came over to her and told her that her name was Sally. It was Amazing! Rosalind soon forgot about the pig, but not before she put the silly, immature, ever-the-victim, paranoid, psycho, posessive, controlling, imbecilic, ridiculous Marc completely out of her mind entirely. The End

Well... what do you think of my story? Maybe I'll not pursue storytelling and stick to just telling what goes on in my day to day life. Hahahaha