Confident, Challenging

Emily smirks at your answer. “So my intimidation tactics didn’t work did they? Hmm… What a shame. I was hoping you’d be too scared you wouldn’t do it and you could just move on. Oh well.” She shrugs. “Fine then. If you pick the challenge, you pick the challenge. I can’t make you pick the easy road. If you choose to walk the hard path, you picked this for yourself. Just remember that. I won’t feel bad for you in the future.” She warns one final time.

“I understand Emily. I just think even if it’s pretend, it will be a positive experience for me, and I’ll learn a lot being your fake boyfriend I’ll be able to take with me to the future. So that when I have a real girlfriend later on, I’ll be able to take the lessons I learned from you and treat her better.” You tell her your reasoning for picking this path.

“Hm. How heroic and thoughtful. I didn’t expect that level of thought from a boy, if I’m being honest. I have to say I’m mildly impressed. Just don’t take that to heart. That doesn’t mean anything.” She says seriously, but you know it does. You still have the ability to catch her off guard on occasion, and that’s something that not many boys can do, and that’s to your advantage. It’s one of the few tools you have left at your disposal. The element of surprise. Not a sneaky surprise, no, that time never came. The element of her underrating you surprise. Her grouping you in as some normal, la di da, dumb jock or ignorant nerd. You’ve never had a girlfriend before, but now you do. A fake one, but a girlfriend none the less, and you’re going to take it seriously. Not only because you have to, but because you want to, and that’s what she may not be able to understand. At least not yet.

“You ever have a girlfriend before Lucas? I need to know what I’m working with here.” She asks you bluntly. You tell her you haven’t, which doesn’t surprise her. “You seem like the independent type. Why I’m surprised you even considered this option let alone took it. Tell me, Lucas, what do you really think about this. Not just your heroic and grand I’m doing this to make the world a better place speech. For you. Yourself. Why did you consider this?” She asks bluntly.

“Well, to be honest with you, I think this is the most rewarding pathway for me. I don’t get anything from sitting in a cell besides boredom. I don’t really think I get anything from being your **** besides frustration and resentment. At least with this I’ll get an experience. Something I can actually take something from. It won’t be a waste of a summer. It may be a bad one, sure, but I’d rather lose a game on a last second touchdown than get taken out at halftime down 35-0. So yeah, does that answer your question?” You ask back, hoping that answer satisfied her.

“You’re not scared that this is going to be harder? You’re not worried about failing? You’re not nervous that this is going to be the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced? I just… Can’t believe you’re so calm about all of this, as if you want me to ruin you, to break you, like you want to be destroyed.” She asks.

“Well, once a building collapses and falls, a new one, a better one, can be built on top of it. If you destroy me, you will have earned it, and you will have cleared the way for a better building to be built in its place. If you can’t, then the foundation I have will have proven strong enough to stand even the toughest of challenges. If you can’t destroy it, I don’t know who can. You can shake it, you can rattle it, heck, you can break off bits and pieces and chunks of it, but if it still stands at the end… I’ll know it will stand through anything.” You say back. She nods, looking at you seriously.

She wasn’t expecting this much of a challenge from you. She thought she would be able to just threaten you a little bit, tease you a little bit, and you’d crumble before her like any other weak boy. Most boys when faced with a girl more dominant than them, more alpha than them, they collapse and fall apart right away, simply giving in and letting the girl win right off the bat. All the other boys Emily has experienced over the last 5 years of her life have all bored her to ****. It’s no fun if you ask a boy to reach to the top shelf to get you a book and he kisses your feet five times and says of course I will I love you you’re the greatest girl on earth, I will do anything for you my love before he gets the book. She wants the book. She isn’t here for the fluff. She wants a boy to obey her, to do as she says, not just because it’s easy, but because it’s fun and exciting. A boy who kisses her feet every five seconds? Boring. A boy who wants to constantly show he loves her and prove his affection through kissing her on the cheek and holding her hand? Annoying.

With you, she sees just enough fire to make this interesting. Just that little bit of energy to make this worth her time. That little spark in your voice, that little twinkle in your eyes, that little extra fire in your step… She can quickly tell you’re not a normal boy. She smirks.

“So what if I nuke you? What if your land is uninhabitable? What if the ground sinks in and it’s irreparable. What happens then?” She asks, smirking, hoping for some sort of smartass answer from you. You can tell she is, so you give her one.

“I don’t think you have that much power in you.” You say smiling just that little bit that’s enough to draw a reaction out of her. Game On.