Dare Me to Live

Prologue

When I say I don't do anything half-assed, that includes cheating. And I don't mean cheating on tests, or plagiarizing papers, or conning some unsuspecting person out of what they're due. My moral fiber wasn't quite that poor quality. Cheating on my boyfriend though, well, I made sure to give it my all on that one.

Go ahead, call me the names. Slut. Bitch. Whore. You're thinking them anyway. And, maybe, they're a little true. There is, of course, the minor little detail that he cheated on me first. With my best friend, Charlotte. Right after my best friend Danny died in a car crash. A car crash that I had also been in. A car crash that had crushed my hip, lost me my spleen, and done irreparable damage to my soul.

And where was Chris? Screwing around with my supposed best friend.

Some sympathetic classmate had tipped me off. I can only imagine that they thought it a small mercy for the naïve, broken girl who had already lost so much. They had clearly never heard the phrase "ignorance is bliss."

The ensuing rage that had consumed me was misinterpreted by my utterly lacking therapist as survivor's guilt. I had let him recite every neuropathic, psychological mumbo jumbo reason why my brain might be angry that I had survived while Danny didn't and then lecture ad nauseam every patient with the condition he had ever treated while I used the time to plot my revenge.

It worked perfectly. Courtesy of a rumor mill fed by me, Chris found out within two weeks and confronted me after a dinner date meant to celebrate my three-month release from the hospital.

I could tell it was coming. All through dinner the anger simmered behind his brown eyes, leaked out through jerky movements and stiff muscles, and was poorly disguised by his attempts to keep up normal conversation. When we arrived back to my house, he got out of the car to walk me to the door; an act of chivalry he hadn't performed in recent memory.

It was a warm evening in late July, filled with the scents of freshly mown grass and summer's insect orchestra. The kind of night movie romances both old and new professed their love under freshly kindled stars. It would have been nice if not for the tension mounting like heat lightning in the air.

We only made it to the stone walkway before whatever wall he had thrown up came crumbling down.

"I know you've been cheating on me," Chris snapped, swinging around to plant himself in front of me. There was an ugly sneer on his usually handsome face.

"I know," I said.

"You're not even going to defend yourself?" he asked. He took a step towards me so we were nearly chest to chest. A mere hand's breadth of air separated us, an intimate space full of heat and lies and betrayals and memories. Once upon a time, his nearness would have sent my heartbeat fluttering, soft and quick as moth wings against my breastbone, and I would have picked myself up on my tiptoes to catch his lips in mine.

Now I held my ground, though not particularly defiant. He didn't deserve any display of what I actually felt toward him at that moment. He deserved exactly what he had given me during my long months of recovery. Nothing.

"No," I said. "Because you have no right to accuse me of something you've been doing all summer."

A flicker of unease crossed his face. He hadn't expected me to know about his little escapades.

Without giving him the opportunity to turn it around on me, I calmly listed every single place that he had been with Charlotte: in the dark, secluded backs of movie theaters, at her house when her parents were on vacation, in the messy back seat of his car, at a deserted park after dusk. As I spoke, he took a step back and the rigidity of his shoulders gave way to the hunch of defeat. He had obviously underestimated Charlotte's ability to keep her big, obnoxious mouth shut.

"We're done," I said. I sidestepped him and continued up the walkway to the front door, holding my tongue against the tide of obscenities I wanted to hurl at him and working hard to still the hand that wanted to slap him for good measure. Once inside I turned out the light without bothering to check if he had left and went upstairs to continue packing. I didn't see him for the rest of the summer.

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Update 1/24/17: This chapter was edited on this date. If you see any spelling/grammar issue after this date, please point them out :) 

September 29th, 2016: Hey everybody! So originally this "prologue" used to be a part of Chapter 1. However, because Chapter 1 is pretty long to begin with and this scene is set a bit apart from the beginning of the story, I've decided to separate them out. I'm not exactly sure what this does to inline comments, but I guess we'll see! 

Haha anyway, for those new to the story, I would be super grateful if you could tell me what you think of the beginning :) And if you really liked what you read, you can hit the shiny, little star button too! Either way, thanks so much for stopping by :)