It All Started In October

“I dare you to kiss me.” I let my nerves wander all around my insides as I anticipated his answer.

Without much hesitation, James starts to get up from his laid down position on his couch and approach me. 

My eyes widen and I start to squirm in my recliner. “Hey, wait a second what are you doing?!” I shout.

He pauses in front of me but doesn’t make a move to touch me. “I’m going to kiss you.” He said threateningly.

I try to repress the feelings of excitement that surfaced when he announced this. No matter how much I wanted it to happen, it couldn’t. “Um No. You’re not. Go get the wine, you are not doing this dare.” 

“You wanna bet?”

We stay in silence for a few moments, neither one of us tearing our gaze from the other. Eventually he cracks and starts to pace. I feel superior watching him contemplate his decision. “Ha! I knew it! You can’t do it. Drink the wine.”

James stops his pacing and walks in front of me. His eyes held an emotion I couldn’t discern between confusion and fearfulness. We were playing Truth or Dare and took shots for the ones we didn’t want to do or answer

“I’m going to do it. Are you sure that you want to do this?” He inquires.

I cross my arms and repeat myself, “Drink the wine.”

“Why are you doing this, do you really want to lose your first kiss in a drinking game with me?!” He looks me square in the eye, waiting for a response.

I honestly didn’t know what I could say. If I said yes, he’d finally know about the feelings I had been repressing since he first told me he started dating my old friend Mackie sophomore year. I’ve liked him since freshman year, and now were in our senior year. I thought I had finally gotten over him and moved on, but he is always going around holding my hand, telling me things, hugging me, and giving me false hope that he could actually like me.

I ignore his question and say again, “Drink the wine.”

He crouches down in front of me and looks me dead in the eye.

“I'm going to do it. Do you want me to?”

“Dude, I’m telling you to drink the wine, you’re not going to do it.” We both knew he couldn’t do it. He had a freaking girlfriend! I just said the dare because I thought it would be an easy win for me. Now here he is, on the verge of stealing my first kiss and potentially cheating on his girlfriend.

He suddenly gets up again and brings the bottle of wine we had been taking shots of closer to us along with a shot glass.

“So you accept defeat?” I asked arrogantly.

“No, I brought it over for you when you lose next round!” he yells.

I roll my eyes and wait for him to come to a decision. It’s pretty obvious he wouldn’t do it, he loves his girlfriend too much. I close my eyes for a second and think about how I even got into this mess (because I couldn’t keep my feelings in check was a good answer).

While I have my eyes closed, I feel a hand gently touch my jaw and my eyes snap open to see him standing way too close to me.

“Are you sure?” He ask.

I stay silent for a moment before saying one last time, “Drink the wine.”

As soon as the words leave my lips, he dips down towards my face and presses his lips to mine. I feel my insides disappear as soon as we make contact and I panic; however, I don’t move. My lips stayed glued together and my eyes wide open. I don’t feel fireworks or the instinct to move my lips, I just feel blank from the sheer shock of this actually happening. 

After a few seconds he separates from me and I stay still even after he goes back to his previous spot.

. . .

It’s been two weeks since James kissed me and we haven’t said a word to each other in a week. I was in chess club trying get my mind off his lips and on the pieces in front of me. I moved my rook a few spaces in front of the king, only to have it knocked down by the queen.

“Hey Andrea, are you okay? You seem to be losing a lot more easily than usual.”

I stop myself from giving Rene a death glare and settle my gaze onto my remaining pieces. “I’m fine. It’s just an off day.”

“If you say so…”

As we settled back into the rhythm of the game, I found my mind drifting back to the last words we said to each other. 

. . .

“You can’t keep this a secret forever. You have to tell Mackie!” It was after school and I was chasing after James as he sped walked to his car.

“Mind you own business. This is between me and her.” He wouldn’t face me as he talked.

“James you cheated on your girlfriend! You have to be honest about these kinds of things. Are you really going to leave her I dark about what you did?” 

He suddenly stopped walking and I bumped into him. He finally turned to face to me but his face was ice cold. “You mean what we did. Don’t forget there were two parties involved in what happened. We could have easily avoided this problem if you had just stopped me.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, I shoved him hard enough to send him stumbling back a bit. “Are you kidding me?! I may have been the one to dare you, but it was your choice to do it! You were in control of what would happen the whole time. It was just a stupid game! The only reason I said it was because I didn’t think you would actually do it!” At some point I felt my eyes well up with tears but I refused to let them fall. I don’t think he noticed because his expression grew a little more intense.

“I asked you repeatedly if you wanted me to stop and you didn’t say anything! Why didn’t you say anything?!” He stared at my face, but I couldn’t bare to meet his gaze. I once again said nothing. Eventually his face softened a bit as realization dawned on him. “Oh my god. You wanted to kiss me.”

I continued to stay silent. I didn’t want to stand there and endure his gaze, but I didn’t want to run away and leave the way things are right now. I took a glance at his face and it looked like it was forming back into anger.

“You did that dare because you knew there was a chance that I would kiss you! You manipulated me! Why are you so selfish?!” I staggered back a bit as his voice increased in volume. “What did you think, that I would leave Mackie and be your boyfriend?! I don’t want to be with you and I never will!” 

It was getting a little tough to breathe and I realized it was because my tears had escaped my eyes. 

“I would never want to date anyone like you.” James reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. “Do me a favor and never talk to me again.” He turned his back towards me and left.

. . .

“Andrea!”

“What?!” I said it a little too loudly and it startled a few other members of the club around us. I looked at Rene and he pointed towards the chess board. 

“I won.”

“Oh. Congrats. Hey, what time is it?”

He looked at the watch on his left wrist and responded, “It’s three ‘o’clock. Why? Do you have somewhere to be?”

I started to assemble all of my belongings and zip up my backpack. “Kinda. I have to go home.” I swung my bag over my shoulder and got up from my seat. “I guess I’ll see you next week.” I was about to walk away when Rene grasped my hand to stop me.

He looked into my eyes and scratched his neck as he asked, “Hey, um, what are you doing this Saturday?”

He’s asking me out. This is a surprise. I’ve never viewed him as more than just a friend. 

My heart is still hurting from all the things James said to me. I’m a selfish person. Why did I think I could have ever a shot with him, or even still be his friend after all I’ve done? These past two weeks have been nothing but unpleasant. At this point, all I wanted was to get rid of my pain and sadness. I glanced at Rene and considered his question. Maybe what I needed was a distraction. 

I sat back down on my seat and answered, “Nothing much. Did you wanna do something?”