Truth or Dare
He and I had met before. We both attended the same preparatory school before college. Everyone knew he had a way of talking to people, there was something effortless in his sincerity. When you are young, you tell yourself that your emotions don’t make sense. It becomes inherent for you to convince yourself that the risky choice is often usually the wrong one. The complexity of relationships and where you truly feel you belong in them, is something very delicate. Like lace, twisting and turning around itself, looping and webbing in complicated patterns. Somehow, it embellishes truths, it compensates and enhances. It can cover and deceive. When you strip it away you see the truth. If you tear it, you feel guilty. When you are young you believe in the labels you have given to yourself and to your life. In this case, I was young and dedicated to my labels, I never questioned what I could be without them. My label at the time was, 19-year-old girl, in California devoted a long distance relationship that was barely afloat. At the time, I was wrapped intimately with guilt trips, expectations and lack of communication skills. I remained vigilant to this boy like a buoy attached to a basin, swaying around in circles carelessly bobbing around the difficult attachment. Prior to my first day at prep, I had spoken with him many times leading up to Day 1. He was the only person I knew there, he was a friend and I wanted to see his face desperately. We had never met in person until meeting there. He was the reason I was there, being the one who told me about it. He reached out to me and convinced me to take a leap of faith, and it wouldn’t be the last.