Meg Cummings - Storylines

Storylines

After leaving her fiancé Tim at the altar, Meg travelled to Sunset Beach to find a man she had been chatting with over the Internet. Without any knowledge as to that person's real identity, Meg slowly got to know the residents of the town, people who helped her when she fell off a pier after trying to catch a girl that stole her backpack. She took a job at a local bar owned by Ben, a lonely widower, and soon realized Ben was actually her Internet soul mate. The two began to fall in love, but things didn't go as smoothly when Ben's neighbor Annie Douglas (Sarah Buxton) decided she wanted Ben for herself, and was prepared to stop at nothing to achieve that. Meg also learned that her ex-fiancé Tim had followed her to Sunset Beach, though she had no idea that he was helping Annie to damage her relationship with Ben,

In one of their crazy attempts to break the couple, Annie and Tim lured Meg to cave that later caved in, without realizing that Ben had followed her. The couple made love for the first time, but Meg had no idea Ben was delirious, thinking that he was making love to his late wife Maria Torres Evans. Annie's plot revealed that Ben had no memory of making love to Meg, and a hurt Meg decided to return to Kansas. Ben refused to give up and he followed Meg, convincing her to return. Annie's scheming continued throughout the series.

While spending the holidays on a private island, Meg and her friends were attacked by a mysterious murderer. The murderer was revealed to be Ben, but once the terror was over, it turned out that Ben was being impersonated by his twin brother Derek Evans (Clive Robertson), who was holding Ben captive in an abandoned warehouse. Meg had no idea she was being scammed until she found a picture of Ben and Derek together. After a final showdown, Derek was presumed dead, and Meg and Ben resumed their happiness and started planning their wedding. However their happiness was short-lived, as Ben's presumed-dead wife Maria arrived at their wedding - alive, but suffering from amnesia.

"Meg, the suffering virgin, is in her early 20s. This is the Juliet role. Her primary function is to cry. She sleeps only with her intended. She has true friends and true love, but everything conspires to keep her from the bliss we want her to have. For example, her recent wedding ceremony was interrupted by the arrival of her new husband's presumably dead wife, a victim of five years of amnesia. Only Meg has two "normal" parents, who have trivial roles."

Ben struggled to decide between the two women he loved, a situation complicated when a strange woman, Tess Marin (Tracy Melchior), claiming to have been Maria's close friend during the years she could not remember, arrived with a child, Benjy, she claimed was Ben and Maria's son. DNA testing confirmed that Benjy was Ben's son, and for a time Ben, Meg, Maria, Tess and Benjy all lived under one roof. Meg eventually broke up with Ben, and found comfort in her close friend Casey Mitchum (Timothy Adams), who had recently broken up with her sister Sara Cummings (Shawn Batten). Meg and Casey eventually broke up, realizing that they were better off as friends. Ben then started acting strangely, committing to Maria and their son yet chasing Meg at the same time. However it was revealed that Ben had once again been kidnapped by Derek, and that Benjy was Derek and Tess's son, conceived as part of a plan to murder Ben and Maria and have Benjy inherit his money. Tim discovered Derek's identity, and was murdered by Derek. Maria was the second to discover Derek's identity, leading to Derek imprisoning her with Ben. During their imprisonment, they talked and Maria realized and accepted that Meg was Ben's true love. Next, Casey and Sara discovered Derek, and were duly also taken prisoner. Finally Maria's mother Carmen asked Meg for help, leading to her searching Ben's house and also discovering Derek's identity. Meg attempted to overpower Derek by pretending to seduce him in order to grab his gun, but soon found herself prisoner too. With Ben's help, Maria managed to escape and overpower Tess, leading to a mass fight between the two captors and five prisoners, which resulted in Derek being shot and killed. Tess was jailed, and Maria decided to adopt Benjy, the child she regarded as her own son. The series culminated with a romantic double wedding between Ben and Meg, and their friends Vanessa Hart (Sherri Saum) and Michael Bourne (Jason Winston George). In the final episode, Meg awoke from a dream to realize that she was still in Kansas and that her life in Sunset Beach was all a dream - then awoke in bed with Ben in Sunset Beach, and realized that that was a dream, and her life in Sunset Beach with Ben was reality.