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.

The trees were absorbing and pouring pinhole beams of sunlight into the main courtyard. The cool blanket of the night was beginning to creep around the mountain as the sun went down, my parents had gone by then. He still hadn’t arrived. I waited until having to retreat to my cabin with the other girls. Desperately I tried to quiet my anxious thoughts. Thinking to myself, I wondered if he would like me once he met me, I wondered how he felt about being there. I wondered why he didn’t show up at the same time as everyone else. The first morning one awakes beside strangers will always be weird. I brushed my teeth and changed beside Alyssa my neighbor, one of my first official friends there and eventual confidant. Dazed from minimal sleep, I chose my first business casual outfit for my introduction classes. Here is where I finally had the chance to eat breakfast and meet the very people with whom I would form unbreakable bonds. As I nervously made a bowl of oatmeal I deliberated where I should sit in a cafeteria full of strangers. Scanning the cafeteria, I was starting to think he had decided against coming to the school. And then I saw him approaching my table with his tray and his apple juice. Alyssa joined our table, introductions were made. He and I greeted as two old friends who had simply forgotten each other’s faces. It was surreal knowing that I was sitting beside the person who had spoken encouragement into my life, without even really knowing me. We became each other’s sounding boards. Looking back on it all, he was one of the sweetest memories about that place. Our conversations of leadership, greatness, excellence and integrity remained ever valuable. Our talks about life, pain, loss, heartbreak and relationship gave me comfort. It didn’t take very long. My trust in him only grew stronger. Soon, I became concerned, my labels, my commitments, my integrity was threatened by his very conversation.

If you have never felt this before, I am genuinely sorry. There is a feeling that consumes your body as that person is speaking their truth to you and it emanates beyond your control. As they speak to you, you connect with it intimately. So intimately in fact, that just talking can equate to an intoxicating elixir. You become absolutely addicted to hearing their ideas. I don’t know how else to explain it, but his humor fit mine like a puzzle, an interlacing match. It wasn’t identical, it was complimentary. His presence in any setting was one that only ever added to my own purity and wholeness. The ability he had to entirely transform my disposition, was riveting. Turning good days into the best ones was his specialty. One of my favorite things about him, was how I saw him light up an occasion, or a table to energetic discussion. I was drawn in by him and there was no part of me that wanted to admit it. I suppressed this energy as much as I could. I fought internally, I convinced myself that perhaps if it were meant to be, I wouldn’t be in a relationship already. Restlessly, I began to crave classes just to see him and potentially be near to him. There were days were I would catch myself jealous because he talked to a table of girls and hadn’t acknowledged me yet. I would attend study halls, where he would bite his pencil and I would feel my chest burn. It became much more than a menial and innocent crush for me. At this point, my guilt was all-consuming. Choosing to stay safe, I played it cool. One night, my circle of friends, including him laid out under the stars. We pointed out constellations, played music and challenged each other to spin as fast as we could while looking at the stars. They would become single lines of light circling over our heads like halos. No part of this event was innocent for me, it was an excuse to be near him. It was a precious memory I would hold onto. Helplessly, I would let myself become captured by his smile. When his laughter would shake his shoulders and his face would show it all, I knew I was hooked.

There was a day, I was sitting in Chemistry, he sat directly behind me in the back row. We had recently done a lab in this class and we were told to finish our calculations. Chemistry is namely my worst subject, he had finished lab and I asked if he knew how to do that question. Bobbing his head to the side he playfully stood up and began walking around the long table between us. I turned away and went back to my calculator to check my math. He suddenly appeared and was directly behind my right shoulder my chair sitting at an angle to his. I felt my back brushing slightly into his chest and everything started to hum. I felt breathless and his face was close enough for me to feel the air as he spoke, his face angled close to my ear as he read over my shoulder to see my work. In this simple and juvenile scenario, I realized I was in deep trouble. I was burning for his slight brushes past me, our knees touching, his hand on my shoulder. Halloween came, and we watched Monte Cristo together. I sat close to him on the couch and when his arm rested next to mine, I didn’t pull away and we sat contentedly. Abruptly, he left as soon as the movie ended. I was confused as to why. This all came to a head, on the last night at the prep school, we were all going our separate ways in the morning. This inherently meant late night buffoonery. In the extra cabin, we set up a circle of us around a flashlight. We were playing truth or dare. It came time for him, and he asked for a dare. A few others had been dared to kiss, they dared him to kiss me. He refused, and I was crushed. I had made a vow to myself that night, that if it were meant to be, we would kiss that night, because it was our last chance. He absolutely refused and that’s when I tried telling myself, it was simply not meant to be.

The next morning, he left without a goodbye. I got on a bus and listened to Coldplay all the way down the mountain to the airport. I told myself I would never see him again and that he didn’t care. That Christmas he told me loved me, and I knew I loved him. Our circumstances, our reservations and our fears didn’t let this change anything.

Ten years flew by like leaves on a breeze. Long distance ended up not boding well for me and my partner I kept during prep school. We were better at a distance than we were in the same place. After a long argument and irreparable words, I was single again. For the first time in a very long time. I decided to accept an invitation to speak at the prep school about my career and about the Academy I was accepted into. Here was where it all started so many years ago. I arrived to the courtyard and walked into the cafeteria, and there he was. Surrounded by people, with a smile that draws you in. He saw me and walked over. “Has it really been ten long years, and you still look like this? I am unworthy.” His charm would’ve been enough to stifle any greeting I could’ve come up with, but instead he just grabbed me in his arms and held me. We both started laughing and he let me go. “You know, we need to catch up, you still never told me why you refused to kiss me on that truth or dare.” I said to him, trying not to get emotional. “I’d love to, tell you what after this, I have a glass of merlot with your name on it.” He smiled and headed up to the podium to begin his presentation. My first date with the man I loved for ten years was here. I would love to tell you that the strong connections you make with people can disappear with pure will or “self-control”. But they don’t. We are cosmic, we are timeless. We are made from the star dust, and I believe he and I were made from the same batch. The connection we had lasted, despite broken goodbyes, toxic relationships, time and circumstances. We let each other go and when the time was right again, we returned.

We walked to his rental car and sure enough, he had a bottle of Merlot originally intended to share with our group of peers. We stole the classic blue Dinex mugs from the cafeteria, the same ones I used to make my tea in. Like two 19-year-old kids, we strolled behind the school on the back trails we used to run. The same woods we used to jump around in, climbing trees and dreaming. The same mountainside underneath the old billboard we watched the sunsets together on. And here we were again, returning to our place in the universe, sitting on the Pride Rock. Overlooking the city as the lights started to illuminate and twinkle and the sky began to dim. He poured our mugs, and for the first time in my life I was not limited by my past. I wasn’t limited by my labels, or my mistakes. I was with him, drinking wine, as the sky was transforming over us. We tell ourselves lies to stay where we are comfortable, but in that place he and I were on the edge of the world. He didn’t know it, but when he kissed me for the first time that night, he was finishing the dare he originally didn’t take, he was asking me to take a leap of faith, and just as he had before; I was ready for it.