Five Dares

by Eli Easton

  I’d definitely felt him pulling away from me during college, but there’d always been an excuse—we’d been busy, had classes, work, or finals. I’d felt us growing apart and tried to combat it, talking him into going out for pizza together or going to shoot some ball or take a run.

  Then I’d completely lost my mind and talked him into having sex, wanting to try it out, needing to know. Yeah, that had been smart. Now I didn’t even have my best friend.

  Maybe my dad was right. Maybe I was self-destructive. Maybe my wires were crossed in some vital way.

  It hurt. I walked around Harvard with an invisible knife in my gut. I couldn’t stop obsessing over what I should have done, or said, to reach a different outcome. What if this had happened? What if that? I should never have suggested Jake and I get each other off. Conversely, I should have refused to let him go.

  But this wasn’t the end of The Graduate, where Dustin Hoffman walked into the back of the church and stole the bride. They didn’t have to show you what happened next in a movie. But what happened next was really fucking important in real life.

  If Jake’s head had gotten screwed up during our summer at the lake, mine had too. I’d given in to curiosity and learned that, yes, I was bisexual. It turned out I loved having sex with a guy—or at least, with Jake. I loved how raw and real it was with him, no bullshit, no pretense, no hearts and flowers, just bodies and closeness and orgasms. I loved how every time I wanted it, he wanted it too. All I had to do was look at him a certain way and he was in the mood. I’d never experienced that with anyone I’d dated, never been so in-tune at a cellular level.

  I also loved how easy it was to be with Jake every minute of the day, how having sex only opened up even more time and more ways for us to be together. I couldn’t get enough of holding him, kissing him. With every girlfriend I’d ever had, I’d wanted to be with them sometimes, but I’d crave time apart too, time to myself, or guy time. Time with Jake was like a closed circuit. Being with him was so easy and natural and fun, it just made me want to be with him more.

  But it was one thing to be that way with Jake at the cottage. It wasn’t realistic to drag it into real life, not least because we both had things we wanted to do, had to do, in opposite corners of the world. And that wasn’t even the biggest problem. As much as I loved being with Jake, when I tried to project us down the road with him in the role of boyfriend, husband, co-parent, I just . . . couldn’t. That was not my life, the life I’d planned for years. My future included the whole picket-fence-wife-kids-dog package. Someday, when I was ready to settle down, it would be with a woman. Even in my weakest moments, when I held my phone in bed and fucking ached to call him, I knew I had to be strong. There was no future in it. Jake had been right. It was best to cut it off, make a clean break, feel the pain now, get over it, and then move on. And maybe when it didn’t hurt so damn much, we could be friends again.

  My classes started. I was taking Corporate Transactions, Antitrust Law, Boards of Directors and Corporate Governance, and Business Strategy for Lawyers. I’d known in advance it wouldn’t be very exciting stuff this first semester. Or ever. My classes were all geared toward my ultimate aim—corporate law. But even here, even at Harvard Law School, a bastion of secure and conservative career paths, I couldn’t help but envy the students who were actually excited about their classes.

  I’d hear them talking in the cafeteria or in the lounge at Hastings, my residence.

  “No, the Camarena case set precedent. You can’t force extradite someone from Mexico, not even for a capital crime!”

  “But Rodriguez was only seventeen, and he was brought back by a relative. Therefore—”

  Criminal law students. Social justice advocates. There were so many incredibly bright and passionate students around me. They were going to change the world, or at least contribute something meaningful. They were totally engaged. And I was . . .

  I was going to draw up contracts for corporate mergers, and pen terms and conditions that protected businesses from liability no matter how shitty their products were. I was as far from inspired as I could get.

  You can do other work in law if you want, just do it pro bono, like you mother does. I could hear my dad’s voice in my head. Once you’re established, you’ll have time to take cases on the side. But you have to secure your bread and butter first. That’s only smart.

  It had always made sense to me. Because, fuck, I didn’t want to struggle for money, to not be able to provide good health care or schools for my family. I didn’t want to retire on plan Z. I wanted the life my parents had. Security. Respect. Success. And I figured I’d still be able to do what I wanted some of the time, so where was the problem?

  Only now that law school had started, I could see the problem clearly. Or maybe it was the state my head was in after Jake. Maybe at another time, I could have powered through my boring classes. But I felt so awful and, frankly, depressed, that I had no reserves of patience, no energy left to power through anything.

  The truth was: corporate law was dry and dull and tedious as fuck. And if this was going to be my primary job, I’d be stuck doing it the majority of my working hours for the rest of my life. Was that how I wanted to live? It was one thing to think about that in the abstract, from the perspective of a high schooler with big plans. It was another to actually do it day by day by boring day. And yeah, my mother did it. I should be able to do it. But maybe I was too selfish or too spoiled. I didn’t want that life.

  Maybe I didn’t want any of it. Maybe the entire ten-year plan was shit. All I wanted was Jake. I missed Jake. Right then, at Harvard, it felt like I’d gotten on the wrong plane. It was like everyone else was in their seat, reading or chatting, content with where they were going. And I was roaming the aisle, lost and going the wrong way at hundreds of miles per hour.

  I kept telling myself it was temporary. I told myself I’d get over Jake, that I shouldn’t act rashly. Too much was at stake. Everything. Everything was on the line.

  If I just gave it a chance, maybe I could get engaged with my classes. The fault obviously lay with me. Two years from now, I might meet an amazing woman. Perhaps I’d enjoy putting on an expensive suit every day and going into a fancy high-rise office in downtown New York or Boston, having elegant lunches, and hashing out the fine print on contracts. I could live that life. For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t like it would be a hardship. Anyone should be so lucky to have a life like that!

  So why was my gut twisted up in a stubborn knot that refused to relax? Why did it feel like my heart was bruised and bleeding and shriveling up incremental bit by incremental bit, every day that passed?

  I watched my feet tromp over the smooth asphalt of the paths around the Harvard campus and wondered at how disconnected I felt from my own body, my own life.

  I wondered how long it would take until I could get through an entire day without once wishing I was dead.

  Jake

  Andy didn’t call me, and I didn’t call him.

  Four weeks passed. Very soon after leaving the cottage, I started work at Neverware. I’d been so desperate for a distraction, I’d flown to San Jose on Sunday, two days after Andy’s dad dropped me off at my house. By Tuesday, I was working a ten-hour day at Neverware. Talk about making your head spin.

  The company was cool though. I got my own desk in an open office space with about a dozen others. I received my own stapler, pens, notepads, and Post-its from office supply. I got a desktop computer with two monitors.

  I went through two days of training with the guy who was currently maintaining the code on the product database system I was taking over. He showed me all the modules and how they were structured and what they looked like on the user end and on the shipping and fulfillment end. He showed me a couple of case studies of how they’d added features and made adjustments for new clients who’d bought the database system. After that I was on my own with eighty bug reports in Java, two new clients coming on board, and a baseball-sized lump of terror
in my gut.

  But after the first two weeks, one hundred and three bugs successfully closed, a handle on new incoming ones, and a client meeting under my belt, I realized I really could do the job. Meanwhile, it was nice to go to lunch with Sierra, even if all she wanted to talk about was her upcoming wedding. And there was a group of about ten Neverware peeps who went out for drinks on Friday nights.

  I was living with Sierra for the time being, sleeping on the sofa in her one-bedroom apartment. It’d been fun for the first few days and then not so much. As much as we got along as brother and sister, the quarters were too close, and I wasn’t in the friendliest of moods. She’d decided that after she and Tom got back from their honeymoon, she was going to move into his condo in Palo Alto, and I could take over her apartment. I honestly didn’t care one way or the other. About much of anything.

  Outwardly, everything was good. But there was a black, empty space where my heart had once been. Being a contrary organ, it hurt a lot for something that had been removed. I would wake up three or four times a night on the uncomfortable couch and reach for Andy or imagine he was beside me, only to remember he wasn’t there. I even missed the cottage and the sound. I gladly would have burned my hands again for another two weeks with Andy there.

  It didn’t take long for Sierra to get me to spill my guts. I told her everything. She fed me Chunky Monkey ice cream, promised me I’d meet the guy or girl of my dreams before I knew it, and threatened to get me involved in making favors for her wedding when I acted too mopey. So like the sad clown, I hid my pain.

  It was a Friday night in mid-September when Andy called. It was late. Sierra’s fiancé, Tom, was out of town, so she and I had gone out with work friends for drinks, eaten Chinese, and come home around nine. We were almost done watching a movie when my phone buzzed. I looked at it, saw Andy’s name. I put the phone in the pocket of my sweatshirt, unanswered.

  Sierra glanced over at me. “Is it him?”

  I nodded, my gaze trained on the TV screen as if I actually gave a damn about the show. A moment later, my phone buzzed again. I had my volume turned on low, but you could hear the hum of the vibration setting. I didn’t bother to look at it.

  Sierra paused the movie. I could tell by the look on her face that she was going into full Big Sister mode.

  “You should answer it,” she said in a firm voice. “Jesus, it’s nearly midnight here. It’s like 3 a.m. in Massachusetts.”

  “So?” She was right, it was late there. But if he was calling me in a moment of middle-of-the-night weakness, that was a good reason not to answer. Still. I felt a trickle of worry.

  “What if he’s sorry?” she insisted. “What if he wants to get back together?”

  I snorted. “We were never together in the first place, so kind of impossible to get back together.”

  “You were together over the summer,” Sierra insisted. “At least hear what he has to say. What if his mom died or something?”

  I glared at her. “Yeah, let’s go with that hypothesis. What are you, Occam’s insane aunt?”

  The phone in my pocket, which had stopped buzzing during this conversation, buzzed again.

  “Obviously it’s important.” She pushed my arm. “Answer it, Jake! You at least owe him that much.”

  I wasn’t convinced Andy’s idea of important and my idea of important were the same, or that I owed him this. I’d been doing a bang-up job resisting the urge to call him. I knew I’d be undoing weeks of work if I answered the phone—like an AA member having that one drink. But now she’d gotten me worried and, worse, hopeful.

  With a sigh that could have leveled empires with its sheer attitude, I took the phone out of my pocket and walked toward the kitchen to take the call.

  “Hey,” I said as I walked to the sink. It seemed prudent to be next to a place where I could either puke or get hydrated. And I was also close to the oven, so I could stick my head in there if needed, another bonus.

  “Jake?” Andy’s voice was shaky. “You picked up!”

  He sounded surprised. Desperate. And maybe . . . drunk? There was a lot of white noise in the background. For a moment I thought he was on a subway or something. Then I realized it was wind. He was outside in a heavy wind. Was he walking somewhere on campus? I hoped he wasn’t driving if he was drunk.

  “Hey, what’s up, bro?” I asked. Somewhere in my head, a warning bell sounded, but what it was warning me about wasn’t yet clear.

  “I’m at Harvard,” Andy said, his voice too loud.

  “Yeah, I know that. Have you been drinking?”

  “Yeah. Pretty drunk. Hey, you should see it from up here. ’He campus. It’s fucking cold tonight. Yanno? But ’s pretty with all the lights.”

  My heart stopped. I leaned against the sink to try to ground myself. His voice. I’d never heard Andy sound quite like that before. It sent a chill up my spine. He sounded like a ghost of himself, fragile, broken. “Andy, where are you?”

  “Roof. At Hastings. ’S pretty far up. Way higher than Dunsbar. Steeper too. Hey, remember that stunt?”

  “Yeah, Andy. I remember.” My tongue felt thick in my mouth. Fucking hell. He was definitely drunk, and on a roof? “What are you doing up there? Is anyone with you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Is someone with you?” I said, louder in case he couldn’t hear me over the wind. In my peripheral vision, I saw Sierra in the doorway.

  He ignored my questions. His voice turned sad. “Miss you, Jake. Miss you so much. I don’t want this. ’S whole thing. I’m so stupid. I’m here, and it’s the best school ever. Right? Yanno? But I don’t want it. I don’t. Don’t know what to do, Jake. I hurt. So much. I thought it would get better, like pulling off a Band-Aid. ’S what I thought.”

  “Yeah.” I closed my eyes. Oh God. At his words, my own pain burst to life, as hot and harsh and deep as it ever had been.

  “Hasn’t gotten better.” It was barely a whisper. “’M so sick of feeling weak and confused and . . . Fuck. Jake.”

  “I know. I know. Me too.” My heart split open for him. I’d never heard him sound so low. He was scaring me. “But listen to me, Andy. What are you doing on the roof, man? Huh? You said it was cold. Don’t you think you should go inside and get warm? Then we can talk some more.”

  I looked up to see Sierra watching me anxiously, her arms crossed. I shook my head at her. It’s not okay.

  And it wasn’t. Because I knew Andy. And I knew, didn’t I, that when Andy was stressed or upset about something, that was when he was at his craziest. In the past, I’d been there, been able to keep him from doing anything too radical. I wasn’t there now.

  “Andy?” I repeated, when he didn’t answer.

  “You should see this roof, Jakey,” Andy said with a manic grin in his voice. “’S really steep. Like crazy steep. But there’s a smaller building next to it, yanno? Maybe ten-foot drop? If I had my skateboard, bet I could make it. ’S in my room.”

  I could hear that calculating tone in his voice, even though he was drunk. Drunk, risk-taking Andy terrified me.

  “Listen to me,” I said as firmly as I could. “You’re not sober. You’re not thinking straight right now. You can’t judge distances and all that shit when you’re drunk. Do not attempt a stunt of any kind. Can you please go inside now? Would you do that for me?”

  “’M tired, Jake.” Andy’s voice was so soft I barely heard him over the wind. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  Like a movie in my head, I could see him, balancing on the peak of a steep roof on some old New England edifice, toes over the edge. He’d be shit-faced and wobbly. And that wind, God! It sounded hard enough that a gust alone could send him flying. He was so fucking insane.

  He’d always had this death wish, I realized, something inside him that had its finger on the self-destruct button. He’d reined it in in the past, channeled it into daring feats that were, nevertheless, planned out and not as dangerous as they appeared. Now I heard the pain in his voice, the
loneliness, and I knew it wouldn’t take much for him to take that step into thin air. Oh God, I knew it wouldn’t. Andy Tyler, daredevil.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. I curled up a little, pain seizing my gut. My fist clenched around the phone.

  Sierra’s eyes were begging me, asking what she could do. I muted the call momentarily and whispered to Sierra. “Call Harvard. Tell them they might have a jumper and give his name. He said he’s on ‘Hastings.’ Probably his residence.”

  With a sharp nod, Sierra left the room.

  “Andy?” I had to keep him on the phone. “Hey, listen to me. Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah.” The wind howled as if angry that he dared try to hold a conversation.

  “Okay, just listen. You have options. All right? It doesn’t have to be the way you and your dad set it up. People change. Plans change. It’s as easy as . . . as sending an email of resignation to the school. Or changing your major. Or transferring to Stanford so we can be close.” Or coming out, I thought, but I didn’t want to freak him out even more. “Just think about it, Andy. If you don’t like what’s going on, we’ll fix it. Okay? We’ll fix it. That’s all.”

  “But . . . what else would I do? If I left school now the only thing I’d be qualified for is a law clerk or maybe a little league coach. I can’t survive on fifteen dollars an hour!”

  He sounded so anguished. Sometimes I really wanted to kill Mr. Tyler. His obsession with Andy’s future had given Andy a black-and-white, all-or-nothing perspective. I made myself stay calm though. What was important right now was getting Andy off that roof.

  “Hey,” I joked. “Law clerks can be hot. And famous too. Remember that movie with Julia Roberts?”

  “This is not funny, Jake!” Andy roared, tears in his voice.

  Okay. So humor was not the right way to go. Got it.