Homecoming

“Dude, it was forty seconds! Forty seconds- new record keg stand, Connor. How can you not remember it!?”

“Because it was forty seconds! I probably went somewhere and passed out!” I reply to Andrew, a friend, at lunch as he recaps to me the less important things that happened at the party.

“Duuuude,” He exaggerates to Nate, sitting next to me, “That fucking party. I don’t even know how to begin to describe it! Awesome, amazing, fucking fantastic- they’re all understatements.” Nate rolls his eyes and chuckles along with the rest of the table.
After I’d gotten over the little…moment, we’ll call it, this morning, today was a pretty good day. And by good I mean nobody knew or remembered me and Nate sneaking off, and really, that’s all that matters because as far as I’m concerned, it didn’t happen. I look over to the boy next to me: His elbows on the table with his hands resting in his head as he listens nicely to Andrew talk and talk and talk, smiling and quietly laughing every now and then. He pushes black bangs out of his blue eyes and looks over to me suddenly, smiling. I wonder how the fuck he can be so nonchalant about what- what happened.

I mean…didn’t happen. Yeah.

But anyways- point is, it was a good day. That is until I got an anonyms text message. See, I have about a hundred and fifty or so contacts in my phone and the people at this lunch table: Nate, Kailie, Andrew, Hannah, Benny, and Tate, are my closest (actually, my only) real friends. Therefore, these are the only people who should have like…the audacity to text me first. And that’s how I first knew something was up as I pulled out my vibrating cell phone with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around Kailie and opened a seemingly innocent message saying ‘Hey Conner’.

Being the nice person I am I tried to just…play along. ‘Hey! Uh- who is this?’ I reply.
‘It doesn’t matter. What does though is that I know your secret.’ I tense for a second, but decide- no…they couldn’t mean… ‘Yes. I know you fucked Nate Ross. Or should I say he fucked you?’ I freeze. Everything freezes. I tense and gulp, unable to move, I think a cold sweat runs down my forehead and dampens my bangs. My mouth slowly opens and my eyes get just a little bigger. My heart starts beating fast and my stomach clenches and- Houston, we have a problem.

“Connor!” Everything slowly melts with my girlfriends words. I snap my head up from the phone to see my whole table looking at me.

“Ha- you okay, man? You’re not still out of it, are you?” Andrew asks while everyone else is anticipating my answer. I hesitate, “Yeah…” I answer lightly. Nate pinches my side and I know he wants to talk, but I ignore him.

My shock turns to anger and when everyone slowly goes back to what they were doing I furiously type ‘you fucking liar- Who the hell are you!?’ First, you always have to deny it.
‘temper temper, connor. don’t worry, I won’t tell your little secret. as long as you play a little game with me.’

‘NO! Fuck off you lying prick’ Second, you reject and deny again.

‘Connor! We both know I’m not lying now read these fucking words carefully or the whole school will know you took it up the ass by tomorrow. Every few days, I’m going to send you a dare, got it? Some will be for you and some for Nate too, only to be fair- but most of them you’ll have to do together…’ Another message comes- ‘you’ll get time to complete each dare and believe me, I’ll know if you do it and if you don’t. Each dare will get harder and harder and if you don’t do it, I’ll know, and I’ll tell. Believe me. Oh and don’t bother trying to find me, Connor.’

“Who are you texting?” Kailie leans over, trying to see my cell phone screen and I quickly snap my phone shut, and drop my hand. “No one, uh- my mom…she wanted to know what time I’d be home.” Kailie smiles and pecks my nose, “You’re such a mama’s boy.”
I look over to the lowered phone and reply to the sender, ‘Why are you doing this?’ Now I’ve gotten over shock, denial, anger, and here comes sadness. I swear my eyes are burning but I know- I better not start fucking crying.

‘Because not everyone likes you, Connor. Just because you wear a crown doesn’t make you king. You’ll get your first dare tomorrow.’

I pinch Nate’s side before jumping up and fast walking out the cafeteria. I speed all the way to the end of the hall and by the time I reach the bathroom I hear Nate following, calling “Conner!” I rush into a stall and with my hands in fist and teeth clamped together I recap the situation before deciding that yeah, I think this is a good enough reason to cry. I collapse to the floor of the stall, leaning against the door while silent tears run down my checks. In days, my life as I know it will be down the toilet in front of me. Everyone’s going to think I’m a fag. I rip of the crown from atop my head and toss it to the ground, curling into a fetal position. “Connor?” There are a few knocks on the stall door but I don’t reply to my best friend, in fear of my voice cracking. I take my phone out my pocket and slide it under the door, hearing it skid before being picked up, and then opened, then after a few silent moments- a gasp.

Everything goes silent again and I stop crying, wondering where Nate went at a time like this. I bring my head up from my knees and look down. I almost scream and jump up, surprised when I see Nate’s head, under the stall door. He smirks, “I guess someone really doesn’t like you.” I nearly smile before catching myself and glare at him and lightly kick his head. He lays on his back, having slid only head up under the stall door and looks at me with deep blue, concerned eyes. I watch as he shimmies under the stall door and stands up, not saying a word before wrapping his arms around me. I inhale and exhale before returning the gesture. “I doubt they’ll tell,” He tries to comfort me, rubbing circles into my back.

“How?” I mutter.

“Well…as long as we do those dares.” He pulls away to look into my eyes, which I’m sure are bloodshot by now. He pushes hair out my face and smiles reassuringly and for another few minutes in that bathroom, I believe him.

X

My phone blasts my ringtone at me and I shoot up out my sleep. It could not be time for school already. I rub my eyes and look to the cable box for the time: four am. I glare at the time and snatch my phone from the nightstand, prepared to throw it against a fucking wall before I see ‘one new text message’. Those words have never frightened me so much in my entire life.

I hesitantly open it, now wide awake- but still very tired. ‘Morning, Homecoming King!’ I wince, is that why their doing this? Maybe it someone else who ran for the title, but the person whose sending these had to have been at the party to see Nate and I and I don’t think he invited any of them…’Are you ready to play my game? You’ve got two and a half hours to finish this dare…’

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!? SAW?!” I scream, coming back into realization that it’s four in the fucking morning and someone’s blackmailing me. Back to the angry stage…