Go on, I Dare You

I yawned.
This girl was frightfully boring. Her face was pretty enough, large brown eyes framed by straight blonde hair, which cut across her forehead bluntly. But, she couldn’t hold a conversation to save her life which didn’t involve herself.
I found my eyes flicking up to the clock to the left of her head. It was still 8:37. I could’ve sworn it had said that at least ten minutes ago.
“So, the Jen was like-” she continued, telling me a story which was so over-clichéd I began to doubt whether it was real or not.
I felt my eyes bug out as I tried to stifle yet another yawn.
“Listen, Mal, I’ve got to be going soon, I told my mum I’d be back to babysit so she could go out with “The Girls” tonight,” I eventually blurted out. I couldn’t take another second of her high pitched voice squeaking at me.
“But Asher! We’ve only just started to get to know each other!”
“I’m sorry, but I promised.” Lie. My mum didn’t go out. She stayed in and tried to keep me locked up with her. Ever since dad had left she’d become more and more dependent on me, and did her best to drill into me to treat a woman with respect, unlike how my dad had treated her. It was working; I’d never hit a girl, or lie to them. It wasn’t right. Unfortunately, my morals were well known, and Devon had decided to set me up for a blind date with a girl that had turned him down repeatedly. I could safely say he wasn’t missing out on much.
I saw her eyes fill with admiration. Great.
“Okay, I’ll call you then?”
“No!” I exclaimed, too fast, I noticed as I saw her eyes begin to water with shock “I-I’ll call you? My mum always says the man must call the woman...” I trailed off; we both knew that I was lying.
“Well, it’s been fun.” Mallory George said sourly, removing her coat from the back of her chair as she stood to leave. She had to pause a moment to shuffle her skin-tight dress down from her very-upper thigh.
“I suppose your mum also told you that men always pay the bill?” She spat as she stalked out, blatantly having no intention to pay for her meal. Oh well, she’d only eaten had a Caesar’s Salad.
I chucked two five’s and a twenty onto the table and walked out after her, being careful to avoid where I knew she’d parked her car. Thankfully, by the time I’d reached my bike she was already getting ready to reverse her Golf.
I was strapping on my helmet as she drove past me, being sure to stick her middle finger up in my direction through the window. How mature.
I kicked up the stand and revved the engine. Devon was going to be dead tomorrow; setting me up on this catastrophe.

***

“So, mate, how’d it go?” Devon winked at me the next morning as he walked into my front room, not even bothering to knock on the front door.
I glowered at him. He knew bloody well how terrible it’d been thanks to Mallory and Charlotte Lynchen’s very brutal conversation on Facebook last night. Apparently I didn’t know how to treat a woman and was the most unattractive, boring person she’d ever been set up with. Maybe if I’d been able to get a word in past your big-headed speech...
“HA! So it’s true!” he exploded with laughter, getting a bowl and some cereal out of my cupboards.
“The lack of respect you show my property is unnerving,” I commented as he kicked the fridge door closed having replaced the milk.
“I’m taking that as a ye-es.” He sang.
“Are you going to tell me why you’ve broken into my house or not?”
“Well, I wanted to inform you that you my friend have lost the bet. I’m here to give you your consequence,” He smiled devilishly at me. I groaned.
“What bet?”
“Oh, about a year ago you bet me that you could get any girl you wanted, even if you didn’t like them, and that they wouldn’t say a bad thing about you. Mallory George, my friend, has said plenty of bad things about you since last night, so...I won.”
“You remembered that? A drunken bet we made in a field?”
“Indeed I did. I have it videoed, in case you’re forgetting.”
“No, I remember.” Where was he going with this? We had had a few too many pints last summer, and were stumbling through the park on the way back to our houses, which were on the same estate, and he had bet that someone must have something bad to say about me and our date. Personally, I think he was just jealous that I had girls gushing about me all the time and the only girl he’d ever dated was Harriette Wilson and she had nothing good to say about him. It lasted half a date before she walked out.
Needless to say, I’d countered this. And now, here we were.

“Her,” he said near the end of lunch the following Thursday. I was half way through my Sport mock practical examinations, having just thrashed the other team at basketball; I was exhausted.
Devon, having noticed my mood, decided that today he would pick out my target. He had proclaimed my consequence rather high spiritedly – too high spiritedly – after recapping the story. I should’ve known it was going to be a brutal punishment.
“Are you kidding me? I don’t even know her name!” My gaze had followed his finger to see a girl with long; obviously natural copper coloured curls which spiralled to her mid-back. She was stood in the lunch queue – by herself from what I could tell – with her head hung, wrapping her arms around her waist; one hand held up to her face, covering her mouth.
My mind started to build a profile of this girl; self conscious and shy screamed at me immediately. No wonder Devon had picked her; she would be a tough nut to crack.
And to crack her was the aim of the game.
What a sick-minded person I associated myself with. Destroying someone so evidently already broken even more.
“I don’t care; that will make it more fun,” Devon exclaimed “So, you don’t know her name, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know her name.”
“What is it then?”
“No way, I don’t want a rumour to go around saying that I’m helping you with this.”
“A rumour? Are you kidding me? This is a secret consequence, you said!”
“Figure it out, Asher. You’re supposedly intelligent.” And with that Devon swiped his stuff off of the table and left; laughing to himself.