The Wattpad Game

1. Do you dare?

What if the greatest stories were just lies at the beginning?

*

I remember my first lie as if I were there. In theory, five-year-old me was there, frozen, with my mom's ashtray on the floor and its contents scattered over our sofa. I could feel her anger, ready to rage out at me. Her lips were about to part into a violent shout, and at this moment, I saw Fluffy, our dog.

And this was what came out of my mouth: "Fluffy, naughty dog. I told you not to jump on Mommy's new sofa. You know she doesn't like that, yet you always jump on it. I have enough of you!"

That was a good blurb about my life, right? Well, Mom's anger diverted on our dog, and Fluffy never looked at me the same way after this.

Hold on, guys; that was just an excerpt. Things got better as I grew older. You wouldn't believe me if I told you the following, but let me give you a good setting for my story first. This was the twelve-year-old me in my newer, sexier, deeper voice and still frozen like a fish finger. I was there, sitting in my chair right in front of my history teacher, Miss Raymond. Just another twist to the plot line: Ms. Raymond was every kid's nightmare. She was old—like older than your grandma. She never changed her clothes, always in a jacket, button-down shirt, and tie. Red blood lipstick on her lips, as if she ate children for breakfast, and tiny eyes in triangular frame glasses, as if she was about to strangle you! In other words, she scared the life out of me.

"I'm sorry," I burst out. "I'm sorry, Ms. Raymond, I always do my homework every night but yesterday." Tears fell down and my chin quivered too; you get the picture, but that wasn't my best act yet. "My dog died last night, and I couldn't stop thinking about him all night!"

Poor Fluffy, I killed him a second time there. Sorry, mate; you did pass away a few months later. Anyway, Ms. Raymond's face defrosted in my used excuse. She melted and took me in her arms. Apparently her dog died recently too, so she understood me. Actually, she wasn't that frightening at all, just lonely.

And as with all the greatest stories of our time, here came my downfall. I was twenty years old, shaking like a leaf at the police station. They didn't call my mom yet, but Mom would have died of a heart attack if she knew. The crime wasn't mine; it was my buddy Paul's; he slid that dildo into my pocket as a joke, and I got caught. The alarm rang, and I panicked. I pushed one of the shelves like they did on the TV show, and this was where they really caught me. A policeman was just leaving a donut shop, and I was there face to face with him. They questioned me for hours, and I didn't know what else to say, like:

"Do I look like someone who needs a dildo?" That came out wrong in front of the officer. Yet they let me go, and Paul, my dear Paul, waited for me outside until late in his brand new sport car. More than our skin colors, that was the difference between Paul and me: he was crazy rich, while I was crazy poor with a single mother.

"They weren't too tough on you?" He dared to ask while driving me back home.

"Dude, don't do that again!" I said, while he was cackling away. Everything was a game in Paul's life. He has everything he wants, and maybe that's why he doesn't care about anything anymore. "How is your story?" Anything other than his famous story.

"Good, I just added a new cliffhanger. A dude got caught stealing a dildo!"

The pun! I swear his characters are sometimes his real-life friends.

"You should try to put it on Wattpad." I dare him.

"For those miscreants to mock my geniuses. I'm not ready for it."

"You know, people just post their stories for others to read; they don't even get paid for it, but they do it anyway."

"My tastes are far superior to theirs."

"And so what?" I asked. Sometimes Paul's attitude makes me sick; he has no respect for anyone.

"Okay, Diallo, you're a good liar. Why don't you turn your lies into a story?"

"What does that even mean?"

"All the greatest stories start with a lie to ourselves. Mary Shelley told herself lies to comfort her solitude; so I dare you to write a story on Wattpad, and if you do, I will too. How about that?"

"Yeah, forget about it, Paul!" I answer. I mean, I'm a nobody; I can never write; I can't even write my surname sometimes.

"Let's play it with a coin!" He says. "Flip a coin. Face: our stories are put on Wattpad; tail: you'll be in jail by the age of twenty one. At the same age, I'll most likely die of an overdose." Paul then pulls his car over at a green light and looks me right in the eyes. "Do you dare?"