Double Dog Dare Short Story

Ajera Burleigh
Fact to Fiction
The End of an Age

Double Dog Dare
I turned the lights off, faced the mirror and closed my eyes. I hesitantly began to chant. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. The sound of my friends giggling on the other side of the door mingled with the sound of my own harsh breathing. My hands trembled and my heart throbbed in my chest. Once more and I would die. He would come with blood trickling from his hook and a condescending smile adorning his face. I wanted to vomit and pass out all at once. Taunts soon intermingled with the sound of giggling seeping through the door from the hallway. The longer I remained in the bathroom the more they egged me on. Come on! Hurry Up! Are you scared? The sounds of their taunting
He would sit on my back patio and talk to me for hours, regaling me with tales of adventures that happened before I met him and I would respond in kind. We sat in grass covered patio chairs talking, or in companionable silence, listening to my mother tinkering around in the kitchen. I watched him lick his younger sister on the face, and be licked in return, because that was how they showed their affection for each other. The first time I saw it I was admittedly disgusted, but he licked my face one day and suddenly I was inducted into the family.
He was my first boyfriend. I was eleven then, boyfriend meant something completely different. I like you. Do you like me? Check yes or no, meticulously written on a neatly folded piece of paper passed underneath a chain of desks until finally reaching its target, whispered prayers forming an impenetrable shield around it so the teacher would not notice the exchange. I think we dated for one day, two at the most. He kissed another girl and I yelled at him as he ran down the street, but we stayed friends after the tumultuous
As a child it seemed unbelievable that someone my age could be there one day and then suddenly disappear. I knew what death was, Lion King was my sister favorite movie after all. Disney movies made us believe that the first close death we would experience would be one of our parents. Dying was for people much older than we were.
Before that I had only known a few people who died, however, I had only met those people twice. Once, before I was old enough to remember, and again when they were no longer alive to help me make memories. Those people were only connected to me by the prefix "great" attached to their names, my great-grandmother, great-grandfather, great-uncles and aunts. They were all separated from me by two complete generations, this was someone I saw regularly. When he died I knew there would be no more adventures, the great quest was over before it truly