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“Truth or dare?”
It was seven past one in the morning, and Amanda Wilson could feel the crud in her eyes building up every time she blinked, yearning for the release of unconsciousness. For all that her body wanted to sleep, her brain hadn’t been this active in months. School had crushed her, all exams and faces she forgot the second they were out of sight. Once the Summer came around, she’d promised herself she was going to give herself a break. Stop working extra shifts for her dad. Go on a girls’ trip with her mom. See her friends.
Especially Clarissa.
Amanda and Clarissa, despite everything, had never been to the same school. They’d always lived half an hour apart. It was mere coincidence they’d met. Clarissa’s mom, the quintessential New Jersey woman, had been loudly yelling over the phone to her late husband. Amanda’s mom had noticed they were the only two pregnant women on the subway, and sat next to her. It just so happened that she had underestimated her morning sickness, and promptly vomited all over Mrs Jenkins’ shoes.
Pretty typical stuff.
So their daughters, born exactly a month apart (Clarissa always ensured Amanda remembered she was older, despite her height disadvantage), were automatically best friends from day one (or day 31 for Clarissa). Whether it was fashion shows, making potions, walking the dog or poorly flipping pancakes, they would always look out for each other. Sure, they were pretty different- Clarissa was distracted, extroverted and boy crazy, Amanda was sarcastic, forgetful and a good listener, but they made it work. It just made sense.
It had been Clarissa who’d asked, actually. Junior year had been a tough one for her, losing her father and all. She tried to put on a brave face, but she was a bad liar on a good day. Amanda had tried her best to support her best friend, looking up mantras, reading mental health books, consulting her own parents for how they’d coped with her grandparents’ passing. It was hard to fill a hole that was black. Ultimately, she’d realised the best she could do was to be there, and try her best. It wasn’t like Clarissa expected anything else. And she agreed that a sleepover would be nice.
Amanda scrunched up her nose in thought. Clarissa looked relaxed, which was a nice sight after a lot of being worn out. Her hair was tied in a messy bun, her striped pyjamas were the same ones she’d had since she was eleven, and her reading glasses were at the tip of her nose like a judgemental librarian. It was at times like this she stared at her best friend, and thought about just how long she’d been seeing that face for, and how much longer she still had ahead. One day she’d been watching Clarissa get married. Hopefully as maid of honor, where it was easiest to see the light in her eyes. To hand her the ring.
“Truth.” Amanda responded, drawing out the words like she’d half forgotten they were playing a game at all.
Clarissa rolled her eyes. “We keep picking truth. It’s getting boring.”
“Fine.” Amanda folded her arms, her slightly ridiculous nightgown bunching up by her elbows. “I’ll pick dare this round if you do.”
“No. No, I was being mean. It’s okay.” Clarissa helped herself to a chocolate finger, talking with her mouth full in a way most people would hate, but Amanda managed to find strangely endearing. “You answer a truth, and I’ll do a dare next round. It’s fair that way. Uh… let’s see… I never know how to ask good questions. You’re way better at this. What would you ask me? Probably something about crushes. Okay, you’re gonna hate me, but describe your type. Make it as detailed as possible. We have mutual friends.”
Amanda scoffed. It was exactly the kind of ridiculous question Clarissa would have a perfect answer for. Actually, Amanda knew Clarissa’s type to a T. Tall, romantic, brave and willing to stand up for what he believes in, beautiful eyes, muscles if she could be choosy, and probably something most seventeen year olds wouldn’t be interested in- like a bald guy or a ginger guy. Clarissa liked variety. It was maybe the best thing about her- just how multi-faceted she liked to be.
She forgot one- Catholic. Clarissa’s type was Catholic, like her mother before her.
“I don’t know, Suzy.”
“How can you not know? You’re not ten– you must have liked enough people to have some grasp on what you want!”
It wasn’t a wholly unreasonable point. Amanda was gonna be an adult in less than a year. Soon, she’d have a job, a mortgage, a pressure to get married that was met with the legal possibility of it. Rather evidently, Clarissa would be married within a decade. She dreamt of marriage, doing better than her parents and making it. Why didn’t Amanda know what she wanted? She simply lacked something Clarissa had. Never once had she caught herself picturing marrying any guy in particular. It was always a man-shaped blob. Some man who probably complained that she was too tall to wear heels or she couldn’t have male friends anymore or just her dad in a way Sigmund Freud would beam at.
Most guys sucked. Why should she have to pick a preferable type? Why couldn’t they just overhaul and become more pleasant?
Instead of passing the question altogether, Amanda felt obligated to offer up some sort of response. Maybe list out features that she liked generally in people. Platonic type. That might be a good start. “Definitely someone nice.”
“That’s a cop out!”
“Fine! You’re impossible.” Amanda sighed, trying to focus on nice things. “I’m not fussy about height. You can be tall or short or whatever. You need to be exciting, I’d hate to date the kind of guy who’d never leave New Jersey. Or a really religious guy, I just don’t expect them to try as much. I already know staunch Catholics, and I’ve had enough of my mom for a lifetime.” She looked at Clarissa, trying to add anything more substantial. “A good laugh. The sort that sticks in your head when you fall asleep, and chases you in your dreams.” Beat. “Blond.”
“Blond?”
“I guess so.” It had been a thoughtless statement, really. She didn’t expect to say it. Yet, once it came out of her mouth, Amanda couldn’t help but agree. She did like blondes. Not that she could really name a particular example, it was more of an energy that she could vaguely put her finger on. Clarissa shrugged, seeming to accept an answer this specific, although Amanda could see a slight glimmer in her eye that suggested she wanted to ask another question. She merely swallowed.
“I guess I’m doing dare then.”
Perhaps it caught her off guard. Perhaps the aching tiredness in her bones had infected her mind. Perhaps it had been the onslaught of thinking about crushes and marriage. Or, bizarrely, it might already have been buried deep in Amanda’s mind somewhere, like a crouching tiger, ready to pounce and rip any semblance of rationality she had to bloodied shreds. For whatever reason, however much she resisted it, Amanda found herself saying to her best friend of seventeen years, “I dare you to kiss me.”
Clarissa Suzanne Jenkins was famous for talking. Since she could speak she’d garnered a reputation as a chatterbox, and later an oversharer. One time, she’d lied to Amanda about losing her necklace she’d borrowed when actually she’d broken it. Midway through the lie, she keeled over and dry heaved for a solid ten seconds. The girl could talk, and with a healthy supply of Catholic guilt, only ever truthfully. So if her best friend was to say something insane and uncalled for, she was expected to have an earnest reaction. Like laugh, or hang her mouth wide open like a fish, or simply pretend she hadn’t heard.
“Okay.”
Amanda wished she was already asleep. Honestly, she regretted accepting the invite. This was weird. Since her earliest memory, there had always been Clarissa. They’d used to pretend they were long lost cousins, whose great grandmothers had fought in world wars together. Kissing her should’ve felt akin to kissing her dog, a little disgusting and something everyone would much rather not be a part of if they could avoid it. Even the thought would be laughable, wouldn’t it?
Why didn’t Clarissa find it laughable?
“Huh?”
“What do you mean ‘huh’? You dared me!” After a moment, Amanda noticed Clarissa was laughing. The kind of involuntary laugh that sounds exactly like the word “haha”. There was red in her cheeks and the amber tinge in her eyes that was only evident in the almost pitch black. She recognised that it was probably out of the ordinary to pay such close attention to someone else’s every movements, micro expressions, sounds, it was just… she really liked being as close to Clarissa as possible. She’d crawl into her brain if she could. She was incredible to watch, to discover.
“I just don’t think you really want to. It’s silly.”
There were boundaries that were beginning to be drawn in Amanda’s head that she’d never properly considered. Things she couldn’t do. There was kissing her best friend on the cheek, calling her “honey”, “darling” and “sunshine”, putting an arm around her and specifically going out of her way to schedule in calling her after every single major life event, often before she’d even told her parents. All things that weren’t remotely questionable. Friendship things. And then there was kissing her on the mouth, carding her hands through her hair, holding her hand in a public place. Different things. Usually not things Amanda wanted to do with anyone whatsoever.
“You dared me to. I trust you. Simple as.” Which, Amanda realised, it sort of was. For Clarissa, at least, it was a thoughtless action. This was panning out to be a bit of a disaster.
“You’re sure?” Amanda wasn’t sure if she was asking Clarissa or herself.
“Of course. We’re best friends.”
Yeah. Yes. She was right. They were best friends, and plenty of best friends had done dumb, thoughtless things together. Girls kissed at parties all the time, whether it was just for laughs or to impress some bizarre internal desire of the guys present. Clarissa smiled at her, revealing her teeth that had, a few months prior, gotten braces removed. They were straight, and she flossed plenty often, so they were pearly white to match. Considering just how disorganised of a person she was, Clarissa Suzanne was exteriorally very straight-forward. Amanda was certain there was a pun about kissing a girl in there somewhere but she wasn’t confident enough to voice it.
Amanda decided since somebody had to take the lead, it might as well be her. She put an arm around her best friend’s shoulder like she did when comforting her. Her other hand went to her face, which was scarily smooth due to an hour long daily skin care ritual (as established, Clarissa was truly a woman of many dimensions). As she did so, Amanda could see Clarissa’s eyes gently following the movement, the hint of a smile on her lips. She was wearing gloss that smelled like coconut. The same brand Amanda had bought her for her eleventh birthday. This was odd.
“How are you taking so long?” Clarissa mused aloud. In her huff, she moved Amanda’s hand so it rested on her waist and pulled herself closer, so their noses were touching. It had an immediate effect on the both of them, shutting their mouths and eyes for whatever was to come. Amanda was having a slight sensory overload. Clarissa’s knee was bumping against her hip, her chocolate shampoo was proving surprisingly strong, her gaze was penetrating even when she wasn’t looking.
Clarissa closed the gap after a quick inhale, like she wanted to absorb the moment. Which might’ve been wishful thinking, but Amanda wasn’t really doing much thinking at all when their lips touched. Suddenly the only senses she had were touch and taste, and the only thing they were receiving was Clarissa, just Clarissa, and all that she embodied. The past seventeen years need not have happened, as this was perhaps the strongest feeling the two of them had ever shared. Clarissa’s hair had fallen loose into her hands, her shoulder blades were moving as she inched closer, her mouth was soft and her eyes remained firmly shut. Nobody needed to see this. Nobody needed to know.
Right as Amanda was about to lose her mind entirely and go further, Clarissa ended the kiss. Amanda’s eyes darted to the clock. It was still the exact minute it had been when they started kissing. At most, it had been fifteen seconds. Probably more like seven or eight. It was longer than most friends would do such a thing, but Amanda’s lips tingled and her throat was dry, and she couldn't help but yearn to try another time, just to see if it would be as good, or it was just a shooting star of a moment.
Clarissa wiped her lips and turned to Amanda with a grin. “So, truth or dare?”
The walls seemed to collapse in on her instantaneously. “Oh, the game. Right.”
Clarissa laughed, the way she always did, loud and unabashed, yet right now it seemed almost cruel. “Did you forget?” And, to really throw salt into the wound, she added, “Am I that good of a kisser then?”
Amanda hadn’t noticed how heavily she was breathing till the sound reverberated around the room. Down the corridor, Clarissa’s mom was many hours asleep, utterly unaware of just how loud the silence in her daughter’s room had become. To her credit, Clarissa was only slightly oblivious of the effect she had on other people, and had raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, her words stumbling like a small child at a relay race, “was that not an alright thing to joke about?”
“No- what? No.” Amanda cleared her throat, realising her hand was still on Clarissa’s waist and gingerly removing it. It ached, a homesick aching she loathed. “You’re alright. You’re always alright. You’re perfect, if anything, honey. I just got a bit distracted. Tired, you know how it is with me. I have all this sugar, we steal a bit of wine from your mom’s cabinet, and eventually I crash out. It’s all just fine.” Amanda began to recognise that she was rambling, and bit down on her tongue so hard she was worried she’d drawn blood.
“I mean, if you’re sure.” Clarissa undid her hair, which was already half-down anyways, and stared contemplatively at the clock. “It’s almost one fifteen. We can just go to bed if you want?” When Clarissa said “go to bed”, she always meant “turn off the lights and I’ll keep talking to you until you’re asleep”, but Amanda nodded. She’d take whatever she could get. Anything to stop looking at Clarissa. Right now, it felt akin to staring at the sun… except Clarissa was brighter. She couldn’t explain how. She just was.
In the brief silence allowed by the dark, Amanda managed to calm herself down a little bit. It was all a little bit suffocating. The realisation that they’d kissed, that she enjoyed it, and that she might die if she didn’t get the chance to do it again. Worst of all, the comprehension that what had been an earth-shattering moment for her was just another sleepover for Clarissa. She was just another friend to Clarissa. Her best and oldest friend, sure, but merely a friend all the same.
Right on cue (or at the least needed moment, depending on your perspective), Clarissa began her typical train of thought. “Why do they call it your dominant hand and your non-dominant hand? Shouldn’t it be your submissive hand?”
Amanda was fuming. Clarissa was saying stupid stuff. Talking out of her sleep-deprived mind. Any remotely normal person would listen to her and come to the conclusion that she was either strange or chemically unbalanced. Whilst they might be right, Amanda was smiling. Laughing a little bit. Like it was charming, almost intelligent, endearing. She found the whole thing adorable. And for that, she was beyond enraged at her own brain. About a minute and a half ago, she’d been wrestling with the possibility that she might be, in some sense, attracted to Clarissa.
It was beginning to become abundantly clear she was in love with Clarissa, and she had been for a while.
“I’m going to go to sleep now, Suzy.”
“Okay… if you must. Night night. Love you, Mandy,”
Amanda wanted to cry. “Night. Love you too.”
“Oh wait! Amanda. I wanted to tell you something before you go to sleep. Something very important. Dramatic, even.” There was a sudden burst of energy in Clarissa’s voice that made Amanda sit upright instantaneously.
“What?”
“So there’s this guy in my home ec class. His name is Mark. He’s not exactly your kind of guy, but he’s sweet. He was really nice to me a couple weeks ago about my dad. His mom died when he was eight, so we related a bit in that sense. He’s funny. He really likes the class, like he’s actually into DIY. And he’s ginger, with these big blue eyes that always seem to be staring right into your soul. Sure, he’s a little eccentric, and I saw him get really mad at one of his friends- but Mandy, you wouldn’t believe it.”
Amanda could not believe it.
“In summary, I might be in love with Mark.”
It was not a good night’s sleep.