Five Dares

by Eli Easton

  “You ate two last night?” I sputtered. “By yourself? What are you, Hannibal the bug cannibal?”

  Andy’s smile faded and his eyes softened. He punched me lightly in the shoulder. “I had to make sure they weren’t dangerous before I talked you into it. You know I’d never hurt you, Jake.”

  Oh fuck. The bastard. He played me like a snare drum kit. I was so going to give in.

  I looked away and stuffed my fists in the pockets of my jeans. It was suddenly awkward. Andy and I didn’t say gushy things to each other. Which was probably for the best. Because once I got started, I’d probably never be able to stop.

  “So are you in?” Andy urged. “Let’s do it at lunch today. It’ll be awesome.”

  “I dunno.”

  “I dare you. Come on, you saw me do it. It’s no big deal. Please?”

  Of course, I caved in like a cardboard truck run through a car wash.

  A few hours later in the lunchroom, I was nervous as hell. I forced myself to eat the corn and hamburger casserole the cafeteria was serving on the theory that it would be better to have food in my stomach for the caterpillar to mix up with than for it to be empty. I only hoped I wasn’t going to see that casserole again real soon in the bathroom.

  Andy stood up, his chair scraping loudly. A few people looked at him. We were just lowly freshmen at Dunsbar High School, but Andy was popular. His parents had money, he played every sport there was, got good grades, and was stupidly cute on top of all that. As his best friend, I did okay too, even if I wasn’t as big on team sports.

  He took the little plastic box out of his pocket, held it up with a flourish, and showed it around. The box was clear, so you could see the creepy crawlers in it even from a distance away.

  “Oh my God, what is that?” a senior girl said with horror.

  “I borrowed a few of the Lonomia caterpillars from Mr. Bademeyer’s room. Deadliest caterpillars on earth!” Andy announced. He took a step and, with a quick thrust of his arm, showed the box to the girl. She screamed, scrambled out of her chair, and backed away, her face pale.

  I hid a smile. Andy was right. This was awesome. By now every eye in the cafeteria was fixed on Andy.

  “Don’t worry,” Andy said. “It can’t bite you from inside the box. You’d have to hold it or something. Like this.” He opened the box, took out one of the bright-green caterpillars, and put it on the back of his hand.

  I’d seen the spiky green monsters that Mr. Bademeyer had, and these caterpillars didn’t look much like them, but no one seemed to notice or care. Based on the disgust, fear, and horror around the room, everyone was buying it. There were a lot of comments like Get those things out of here! And No way! And That is so gross! There was even a threat to call a teacher, but no one moved to go get one. Andy had chosen his timing well, because I didn’t see any of the usual lunchroom monitors.

  Andy raised one eyebrow at me. That was my cue. Now more excited than nervous, I stood up and put on a worried face. “Dude! If that thing bites you, you’ll be dead in, like, ten minutes. That’s what Mr. Bademeyer said.”

  “Really?” Andy shrugged, examining the caterpillar crawling up his wrist. “I thought that was just, like, old people who could die.”

  “No, man!” I insisted. “They’re more lethal than Cottonmouth snakes! Weren’t you listening when he told us about them?”

  There was a wave of gasps and groans and, en masse, the entire room of people backed up, trying to get a few inches farther away from Andy and that little green insect. Sheer sadistic delight bubbled up inside me, but I couldn’t let it show.

  This was brilliant! I could tell from the way Andy’s eyes shone that he was totally into it too.

  “Huh. Dare me to swallow it?” he asked me suddenly.

  “What?” I acted surprised.

  “Oh, hell no!” some guy muttered in a shocked voice.

  “Do you dare me to swallow it?” Andy repeated with a challenge in his voice. “Because I will.”

  “Andy, don’t be an ass!” That was Karen, a freshman cheerleader. A half dozen other kids agreed, telling Andy he was going to hurt himself.

  Andy ignored them, staring at me. “Dare me! If I die, I won’t blame you. I swear.”

  That made no sense, but it sounded theatrical. “Yeah, okay. I dare you! Swallow that bad boy. Come on! Do it.” I put my hands on my hips and tilted up my chin, egging him on.

  “I will . . . but only if you do it too.” Andy held out the box to me. “Dare you.”

  I tried to look cornered and like I was pretending to be brave even though I was scared. Oscar material, man. I took the box, my hand shaking only a little. Okay. Here was the not-so-fun part. But, honestly, with everyone staring at us, horrified and fascinated, some laughing, some with hands plastered over their mouths, eyes wide, it was surprisingly not that awful. What was swallowing a bug compared to that kind of attention? Hell, even the seniors were completely hooked. And people ate way grosser things on reality TV shows all the time.

  I opened the box and started gathering saliva in the back of my mouth. Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  Andy brushed his caterpillar into his palm and held it up to his mouth. “Ready? One. Two . . .”

  I put the second caterpillar in my hand, preparing to pinch it with two fingers and toss it down.

  Andy’s blue eyes, bright as rocket flares, stared into mine. I could do anything when he looked at me like that. I could fucking fly. My heart jackhammered in my chest.

  “Three!”

  We tossed them down.

  May 2017

  Jake

  Those first few days at the Osterville cottage, learning how to function without hands, were so frustrating. I couldn’t have coped if it had been just me. I would have been pissed off and depressed, a broody bastard, that was for sure. But I wasn’t alone. Andy was right there with me, and he managed to make it ridiculous, and dorky, and even hilarious at times.

  Shortly after my mom “got us settled” and left that first day, we wanted a beer. There was a six-pack with twist-off tops in the fridge, and Andy and I took turns trying to get the damn bottle caps off. We could move the bottles around by gripping them with our wrists, but we couldn’t get the caps off. We spent our first hour alone at the cabin trying and failing. I held the bottle between my knees while Andy tried to twist the cap with his elbows and then wrists, but it didn’t work. He couldn’t get enough of a grip. He wanted to try his toes, but I wasn’t having any part of that. He hopped around the kitchen chasing me until we were howling with laughter.

  We finally figured out if one of us could grip the bottle hard enough with his wrists, the other could twist the cap off with his teeth most of the time, unless the cap was particularly stubborn. By the time we got two bottles open, we were sweaty and exhausted from laughing so much.

  Everything, every stupid little thing, was a total pain in the ass like that. But Andy took each problem as a challenge. He’d get that focused look, lick his lips, and try to figure out how to get it done by any means. He wasn’t afraid of looking ridiculous, or crossing a line, or being disgusting. He cracked me the hell up. I could tell he was being over-the-top crazy on purpose. Like he was trying to cheer me up, take my mind off the pain that still radiated through my hands, and off the sheer hellacious inconvenience, my delayed job start, and everything else.

  I appreciated that. I really did. There was no one else I’d rather be in a shit situation with. Andy made it all bearable. And that made me think about how, over the years, Andy had made a lot of things bearable for me. Issues with kids at school. My worry over grades and money. The way my dad had left us.

  Fuck. That still hurt. I didn’t want to think about that.

  Over the first few days, we figured out the basics needed to survive. We had help. Emily was a cute redhead in her late twenties, married, and a bit motherly. She came over to the cabin in the morning and made us breakfast. She left us food for the whole day in contain
ers covered with foil wrap that was easy to nudge off. Andy had gotten us these tools that clamped around our forearms and had stiff plastic arms. On the end you could attach various little gadgets, like a spoon, and that was how we ate. Emily also left large travel mugs filled with iced tea and lemonade, complete with straws. She did the dishes and laundry, made our beds, and picked up the place. Usually we had a list of things we wanted her or Bob to do that we couldn’t manage, things like changing batteries in the remote, opening a window, or moving the chairs on the dock.

  Then there was Walter, our nurse. He came at ten every morning, about the time Emily left. He gave Andy and me a shower—separately, of course—and got us dressed. He shaved us, changed our bandages, checked the burns, and put antibiotic ointment and numbing cream on our hands. He laid out fresh clothes for later in case we wanted them. He fed us our daily antibiotic and checked our pain meds. After the first few days, I was down to one Vicodin before bed and prescription-strength aspirin the rest of the time. I hated feeling spaced out, but the pain was bad enough that I couldn’t sleep without help.

  By 11 a.m., Walter was gone, and it was just Andy and me. We had our phones in case we needed help fast. Siri could dial anyone by name. But we never called anyone. We got by on our own.

  I shouldn’t have liked that as much as I did. But, honestly, it was nice. The weather was gorgeous, that rare perfection of late May when the days were sunny and warm without being humid and stinking hot. There was a breeze over the sound that ruffled our hair as we sat out on the dock in folding chairs. The cottage was on a little cove, so there wasn’t a ton of traffic, just a motorboat or small yacht now and then. The water was usually quiet and peaceful.

  I’d always loved the cottage. I mean, who wouldn’t? It wasn’t a huge mansion like some places along the shore, but it had blue shingles with white trim, a cute-as-fuck front entrance with a vine-covered overhang, three bedrooms, and a bright kitchen with white cupboards and a big window that overlooked the water. The pine furniture was supposed to look rustic and “cabin-like,” but it probably cost a mint. There were plaid fabrics everywhere, a woodstove, and a big-screen TV.

  Not that Andy and I had spent much time in the cottage. We were always on the water, or at least we had been before this trip. They owned a canoe and a speedboat, jet skis, and any other water toy you could possibly want. Andy and I had come down here a lot in middle school and high school and hung out, spending all day playing on the sound. But I’d only been here twice since we’d started college. It was a five-hour drive from NYU, and my summers had been spent working in Boston, trying to sock away as much money as possible. There’d been hardly any downtime.

  So to be here in Cape Cod, just Andy and me, with nothing to do except appreciate the fucking amazing scenery and rest, was actually pretty sweet. Neverware had agreed to move my start date to September first, and they’d been really nice about it, even sending me a get-well card. So I couldn’t complain. It was a free vacation, and after busting my ass for the past four years, it was nice to just chill for a while. As long as my hands healed without any permanent damage, I figured I was ahead.

  Except—there wasn’t a whole lot we could do. We couldn’t get in the water, because the doctor didn’t want us exposing the burns to the salt water. God only knew what was in there, what with all the Canadian geese and boat motor fuel and pollution. If I was going to pick up a flesh-eating bacteria anywhere, it would be in that water. We couldn’t manage the boats by ourselves either. We couldn’t play b-ball, tennis, or even badminton without fucking up our hands. Andy was a sports fanatic though, so we spent hours lazily kicking a soccer ball around on the green lawn that ran between the cottage and the dock. We couldn’t run because our hands would start to hurt—probably because of the blood pressure or just the jarring motion. But we took long walks along the beach or around the shoreline neighborhood to a local park.

  When Andy would let me sit still for a while, I could get by on my computer, phone, and Kindle using voice commands and light taps with the tip of my bandaged hand. Thank God for accessibility. But it was too cumbersome to spend hours writing or surfing the web.

  Mostly, we sat on the deck, sunbathed, and talked. At first my mind was restless. I was used to being constantly bombarded with demands and distractions and shit I had to get done. But Andy was chill, and by the third day, fuck, so was I. It felt wonderful. It felt like I’d been on a rocket for the past four years and hadn’t even realized it. It was such a relief to just slow down.

  Slow down—and hang with Andy. When was the last time Andy and I had just hung out together and done nothing? Sure, we’d roomed together all through college, and we’d watch movies sometimes, or go out together on a Saturday night. But we’d both been so busy we’d rarely had a whole day together. I’d worked twenty hours a week at the language center as well as taken at least sixteen hours in credits. And Andy had been busy with his pre-law classes and girlfriends.

  But now, with our bandaged hands, no school, work a distant cloud on the horizon, and no friends or girlfriends or family around, we only had each other. I liked it. Probably too much. There was no use in getting more attached to Andy than I already was. We’d be living on opposite sides of the continent soon. And I’d started to disengage myself emotionally years ago—had to. But being at the shore reminded me of how it felt to just exist in Andy’s space. It was as though there was a positive energy current between us, like two poles that magnetically attracted and boosted each other to a higher level. It was just good mojo to be with him. I’d almost forgotten how warm and amazing it felt, why we were best friends in the first place, why I’d never been able to pull free from his orbit.

  “Tell me what the campus is like at Harvard. You’ve been there, right?” I asked on our third afternoon at the shore. We were sitting on the dock in two lawn chairs.

  He nodded. “Yeah. My dad and I swung by last summer when I was making my final decision. But, actually, we went to see it years ago.”

  “Yeah?” My chair was near the edge of the dock, and I trailed my toe in the water.

  Andy cleared his throat like he was about to go into a story. “Yeah. When I was twelve, I guess it was just before we met, my dad took me on a road trip over a long weekend. We visited MIT, Yale, Harvard, NYU, and a couple of other schools.”

  “You never told me about that.” I wasn’t surprised though. Andy’s father was the ultimate stage dad, only in his case, it was all about schools and his career. “Holding out on me. That is so secret agent of you.”

  Andy chuckled. “Oh yeah. It was very secret agent-y. Seriously, Dad made a booklet with the features of each school along with their ranking stats in medicine, law, business, engineering, and finance. It was pretty impressive. The campuses. The buildings. The pomp and circumstance. Especially when I was twelve.”

  “No shit.” Even the name Harvard impressed me, and I was twenty-two years old. I could imagine what Andy must have thought at age twelve. I was proud as hell of him for having been accepted there.

  “It was a good weekend,” Andy mused. “Just . . . thinking about all the possibilities. Getting excited about it. Hanging out with my dad. Feeling all grown-up. You know? Oh, and we went to a football game at MIT. That was sick.”

  I felt a twinge of jealousy. My dad had never spent that kind of time with me when I was a kid, and then he’d left us entirely. “I still think you should have played some football at NYU. You would have loved it.”

  Andy only shrugged. “Nah. I wasn’t good enough to have a shot at the pros, and as a casual thing, college football wasn’t worth it. Too much risk of injury and too much time taken away from my studies.”

  It was weird. Sometimes I could practically hear Andy’s dad talking through Andy’s mouth. I decided to drop the football topic. “So you liked Harvard the best then, even on that trip?”

  He leaned back in his chair, all loose-limbed and sprawling. His eyes were closed and covered with sunglasses, face tilt
ed to the sun. Not that I was looking. “I don’t remember having a strong opinion at the time. The schools were all impressive. Though I liked NYU the least. All the traffic and inner-city stuff.” He smiled at the irony.

  Yeah. NYU had been overwhelming to me too, the first time I’d seen it. Still, I wouldn’t trade my four years there for anything.

  “Wish you were going with me to Harvard,” Andy said, out of the blue. His voice was serious.

  I gave that a moment of due consideration. I would have loved to get a master’s in computer science at a school like Harvard, but I didn’t have wealthy parents to pay my way. “Yeah, well. Not all of us can be you, all Damien Thorn and everything.”

  “Shut up. Still wish you were going.”

  Andy’s voice was sincere. I felt a tightening in my chest. Was he saying he’d miss me? I gave him a nudge with my elbow, then drew it back onto the arm of my chair. He nudged me back and left his elbow on my armrest, just barely touching me.

  A swamping heat blossomed in my stomach, and it had nothing to do with the sun.

  Damn. I wasn’t supposed to be sitting here on Nantucket Sound with my best friend and getting all wistful about us. I was supposed to be starting a new job in California, a new life, my adult life. I was moving on.

  “Name ten things you’re looking forward to the most in California,” Andy prompted me in an upbeat tone. I swore, sometimes it was like he could read my mind.

  I settled back with a sigh. “Right. Um. The happy cows? Isn’t that a thing?”

  “Dude. Seriously.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The beach?”

  “You gonna learn to surf?” Andy sounded eager. If he were the one moving to California, he’d be on a surfboard by the end of the first week.

  “Maybe once I get settled into my job and apartment and all that. Locate a laundromat. Adopt a stray cat. But Cupertino isn’t that close to the ocean, you know. I think it’s at least forty-five minutes away.”