Temptation

-4-

           

We used to speak about the future, Sophie and I. We'd been lying on our backs in her bed, after we'd put our clothes back on, and she'd tell me about how she wanted to travel the world. We fantasized about kisses under the Eiffel Tower, going to Times Square on New Year's Eve, looking at the ancient pyramids together. Now, I didn't even want to take those trips – What would be the point without nobody to kiss when the clock struck twelve? The desert sounded a lot less fun and a lot more like a mouthful of sand when I pictured doing it alone. I wondered if she was already whispering sweet promises of a future together with her new man.

            I had pictured my future several times over the course of our relationship, but it had never turned out quite like this – With Brooklyn repeatedly poking my cheek and saying, "Rye, Rye, Rye, Rye," until I finally swat him away out of annoyance, and he says, "Andy wants to talk to you."

            I removed my face from where I buried it into my pillow, and he shrugged and let Andy take his place on the bottom of my bunk. He was carrying a little booklet with him, but I couldn't see what it was from where I was laying. He yanked me up, nearly ripping my arm out of its socket by doing so (but he simply rolled his eyes and said I was exaggerating when I accused him of that.)

            "I have a plan to heal your broken heart," he proclaimed proudly, still not showing me what was on the book.

            "Who put you up to this?" I asked, glancing around the room for anybody looking suspicious.

            "Nobody," He said, as if the answer was obvious and I should've known that already. "I just hate seeing you upset."

            "Its been less than a day," I said, pointing out the obvious, even though the day had seemed to drag on and on. The gym, the studio,  the gym again – I did what was required of me, but it was as if I'd been walking through the world with a filmy haze wrapped around it. I wondered if there was a set time, a free trial period, where I should be allowed to  be upset before anyone got annoyed or tried to move it along. Was one day really too much? The ache reminded me that it had happened – That everything, every part of us, wasn't just something that I'd made up.

            "Yeah, and I hate seeing you sad," Andy explained. "Besides, I think you'll like this."

            "And what is this, exactly?" I questioned, already tired of the conversation and wishing that he'd just let me sleep.

            He finally showed me the cover of the book – It was a notebook, with "30 Days of Dares" scribbled across the front of it.

            "No," I said, turning back around.

            "Please," Andy pleaded. "Trust me on this." I reluctantly turned back around to face him. "It'll take your mind off of things. It's simply something fun to do, something to do beyond the daily routine. You don't have to, of course. You can sleep on it, if you'd like. But I think that it will help." He looked at me hopefully, pulling out the puppy dog eyes that I could never say no to.

            "I don't know." I went for a neutral and he nodded, leaving me alone to sort things out within myself. Maybe there was some truth beyond his offer – What was I really getting from stalking Sophie's social medias, or staring at Netflix's home screen, a lump forming in my throat at the movie that I'd put in my watchlist for us to watch that night?

            I'd never been like the other boys that I'd seen, who could switch through girls as if they were interchangeable, without a single tear being shed in between. I'd always played with my heart in what could sometimes be a very heartless game. Andy was usually right on such things...Either way, my future sat, stretching out in front of me, vast and empty, blank pages just waiting to be written. Maybe this could change my story. Maybe it could be the start, instead of the end, of a good thing. Maybe a maybe wasn't a whole heck of a lot to hope for, but it was all that I had right now, so I slipped out of my bed and over to Andy's.

            "So. What's the first dare?"