Name: Scarlet Hicks
Alias: Yes
Type: ESTP
Born: 1981
Base of Operations: Jersey Village
Occupation: Unknown
Superpower: Aggressiveness
Loss Vulnerability: Inconsistency
Short Version: Significant other (2002)
Long Version:
I met Scarlet in a chat room. She messaged me to compliment something or another I was doing (probably dressing down idiots with delusions of Being a Unique Individual, but I can't be sure). When she messaged me on AIM, I saw that she had a Cory Morrow quote on her profile. Naturally the subject of Texas country music came up. To test me, I suppose, she asked me to place some lyrics. It was a pretty easily Bleu Edmondson song. Feeling a bit cocky, not only named the song, artist and CD, but added "I have the CD. I have it signed."

That was the ultimate selling point for her. I was a bit harder to sell, though. She wasn't yet 21, which presented a problem for my social schedule. The fact that I saw it as a problem was a red flag that something else wasn't right (most likely simple incompatibility).

In any event, we met at a pool hall the next night. She was an award-winning pool player, but she let me win two out of three. Though uncertain, I laid on my goofy charm. We had a date the following week. Things went well enough that I loaned her my Bleu Edmondson CD and we were officially an item.

A couple weeks later I gave her one of the best gifts I've ever come up with: I bought her a copy of the Bleu CD and had it signed "Wish you were here, Bleu!"

It didn't take a month before things started getting odd. She started cancelling-and-rescheduling with unsettling frequency. I reasoned that it was understandable considering that she worked a couple of jobs and was attending college. I'd been there. But it eventually reached the point where she was going to need to make me a higher priority of we'd essentially have a long-distance relationship from ten miles away (and less than one mile from my job).

Then there was her family. I wasn't particularly interested in meeting her family (we weren't that far along), but the degree to which she kept me away from them was an oddity. When I ran in to her and her sister by chance, it seemed that she was in a hurry to get elsewhere. She said she was in a hurry and I bought it, or I would have if it weren't for the other pieces to the keep-RAW-away-from-her-family puzzle.

"You know," I told my friend Polly, "I'm beginning to wonder if she is seeing someone else." I figured I was being paranoid and didn't think anything of it again. After all, if she loaned my first Bleu CD to her father - and it was signed to me - then at some point my existence was acknowledged...

Not long later I ran into her sister again. When I asked how Scarlet was doing, she said, "They're thinking about moving out to be a little closer to us."

That made no sense.

She got a phone call on her cell and our conversation ended.

That night I saw that she was online. I messaged her to follow up.

RAW: So where is she thinking about moving?
Sis: They're talking about moving off Jester.
There's that "they" again.
RAW: Interesting
Though, theoretically, it can't be closer to her parents' place SINCE SHE LIVES WITH THEM!!
RAW: Well, at least it would be closer to one of her jobs.
At least, that's the assumption...
Sis: Yeah, but Larry is against it.
Larry? I know of no... Larry. I know her father's name, her brother's name, and most of her closest friend's names... SO WHO THE HELL IS LARRY!?!?!

Then, in the most infuriating moment of DSL connection ineptitude in recent memory, I got knocked offline.

I was off for about an hour.

She wasn't online when I got back.

But I already knew who Larry was. A quick tour of DMV records suggested that he fit the profile. At her address was not anyone with her surname, but a man named Larry Coburn. Twenty-six years old - she joked that I, four years her senior, was almost too young for her. Owner of the car she drives.

Our last conversation went like this:
"Hello?"
"Hey, it's Scarlet."
"Hey Scarlet, just who I was hoping to talk to."
"I don't think we should see each other anymore."
"I agree."
"Bye."
"Bye."

Shortly thereafter, I realized that I would have to buy another copy of that Bleu Edmondson CD since she had both of mine.

After telling him the story, Bleu signed it "Better luck next time!"