Try Me

Day 1

“Camryn! Camryn, wake up!”

I felt a hand violently shake my shoulder. It couldn’t have been Mom, so there was only one person left.

Emmett filled my field of vision, blurry and unstable. That’s the kind of image quality your eyes present you with when you’re rudely awakened in the morning. His face was so close to mine that I could hear him breathe and blink.

How many girls would have put up with seeing a pair of enormously flared nostrils first thing in the morning without whacking it smack in the septum? Yeah, I guess I was one of a kind. A fricking saint. But if I hadn't been feeling so sluggish, I might have done just that.

“Go away, Emmett. It’s Sunday, I’m not feeling well. Let me sleep,” I pushed his face away and turned to my left.

He placed his index fingers on my lids and pushed them up all the way towards my eyebrows. I closed them and he opened them again. Again and again – until I finally blew up.

“What’s your problem?!” I snapped at him.

“I don’t have a problem. In fact, I have now found a solution for all of my problems!” he exclaimed, spreading his arms out. “And you ought to congratulate me.”

He took hold of my hands, pulling me out of my bed. Emmett had strong arms – we liked to go to the gym together.

For some reason, people always thought we were a couple. They thought of him as “hot”, yet I had always thought that he was certainly “not”.

“Come on, don’t be so lazy,” he growled as I resisted his pull.

He took my half-awakened body to his room. His stinky, messy, dumpster of a room. It was a clutter of antiques and junk, both organic and non-organic, some of those whose origins could be traced all the way back to the 90’s. Needless to say, he’s always loathed spring cleaning.

At a glance, one would have expected Emmett to be a nice, neat, and smart young man. His dirty blond hair was always kind of neatly combed, his face cleanly shaved, and he always wore nice, hole-free clothing.

“Appearances can fool, so check a man’s den to know his real personality.” That one I quoted from Mom. Emmett was proof that it’s true.

He plopped me on the seat in front of his computer. Empty cans of soda, bags of chips, packs of chewing gum, and cups of instant noodles with chopsticks sticking out were all over his desk. Typical.

My head was so dizzy and heavy that I dropped it on his keyboard.

“Hey!” he shouted, lifting my head up. “If you break this thing, I’m going to send you back to bed!”

“Thank goodness,” I groaned. “Kindly do so. Please.”

“Trust me, you don’t want that to happen. You’ll definitely regret it.”

“So what exactly is this big solution of yours? The one that is so important that you can’t even spare me another precious hour of sleep?”

He turned my head to face the screen and turned it on. The bright light pierced into my pupils, causing me to squint with my half-open lids. “Behold, Camryn. I bring to you, the solution to all my so-called ‘idleness’ and financial problems!”

It was a website. Light blue in background color, white where the writings were. The layout was crisp and clean, just like the shirt he was wearing (credits to Mom). I read the words on the top of the page.

“Irvine Teens Kiss or Diss”

“The hell is this?” I asked, confused. "Kiss or Diss? Ew. How tacky."