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I am in a room full of old couples, who are either faking to be head over heels in love with each other, or maybe true love actually exists. It’s a couples bonding exercise type of thing. It’s a show, which is broadcasted on a small local channel. Guess what the name of the show is? Spit or swallow. And no…it is not the type of show that.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Raven?” I ask her one more time.

“I’m totally fine with it. But if you want to chicken out, I’d totally understand!” Bruising my ego? She knows how to hit the mark.

“I’m going to make you spit out everything and make you spill your secrets.” That sounds gross. The theme of the show itself is gross though. Literally.

“Alright, couples, thank you for coming on Spit or Swallow, I am your host Jessi and I would like to welcome you all today. I will explain how the show works.” The host takes over. “In front of each of you is a disgusting concoction of juice in a shot glass. You have to drink it and keep it in your mouth while the other person asks the question and if you are willing to answer the question, you get to spit it out, or else you have to swallow the vile drink. There’s a twist this time…”

The oldies around us started to make some noise and hype him up. “We are passing out a refresher around each table. If you choose to spit out the drink, you can drink the refresher to cleanse your palate, if you choose not to answer the question and swallow the disgusting drink, you do not get to drink the refresher.”

The middle aged couple behind us screamed. And I see the man brood over his wife.

“Ooo Yes!” Jessi laughs. “The questions are whatever you want them to be. You get to ask 25 questions each as there are 25 shots of disgusting drinks in front of you. Ranging from soy sauce to clove milkshake to anchovy smoothies. Yuck! I know, right? And you cannot cheat. You have to drink the entire contents and hold them in your mouth. No cheating allowed on my watch!” Just what I needed! The shot glasses in front of me has liquid ranging from pink to blue to poopy brown to black. The smell itself is enough for me to throw up. There’s no way that I am swallowing any of this!

“This is fun, right?” Raven squeaks in front of me.

“I would have answered all your questions anyway. We didn’t have to come here.”

“There’s no fun in that! I’d rather torture you into answering. Bring your A-game baby! It’s war time!” She is so into this. I get my competitive spirit on too.

“Oh! Alright! It’s game time, Raven. It’s on!” I cracked my knuckles. I’m going to rain hellfire and win this game.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen! Let’s Spit or Swallow!” I will never get over the name of the game. They could do so much better.

“You go first. What do you want me to put in my mouth?” I ask her. She picks a red shot glass from in front of me. I take a whiff and it is so spicy, it makes my nose runny. Hot sauce! She’s pulling out the big guns right from the beginning… Alright! I can totally work with that. I chug the hot sauce and keep it in my mouth. It is so spicy that it makes my eyes tear and sets my face on fire. My ears are heating up and I start sweating.

“Okay…Who is the one person you hate the most in your life?” The list is not too long…Cole and a woman whose name I don’t know. I immediately spit in the bucket next to me and drank the cold refresher. It isn’t of much help, but at least my ears have stopped burning.

“I don’t know her name or what she looks like, but I hate her more than anything in this world. She broke my family…” I exhale. If she wants the truth, I am going to give it all to her. “My father once got drunk. Very drunk at one of his after-parties and this woman got all over him and he cheated on my mother with her. Someone took the photos and sent it to my mother who was distraught and…” I feel a lump in my throat and I feel a hand on mine.

It looks like she’s feeling guilty for having asked that question, but I want her to know. My past, present, all of it. “It’s alright. You don’t have to tell me everything.”

But I continue. “My mother and father got into a huge fight. Dad made sure that nothing was leaked to the press and he apologised to my mother too. He didn’t mean to cheat on her. He was very drunk, but still…My mother and he fought. It was his last game before retirement. And my mother said that she won’t go. I went with him instead of staying with my mother. She got into an accident on her way to the game and… So yes, I do blame that woman for everything and I hate her the most in this world.” I had never told anyone this, but with Riya, I know I can trust her. It is just her! It is just us!

“Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy. But I really appreciate it. My turn. What do you want to torture me with?” I shake away all those feelings. Somehow, it feels much lighter to share it with someone. “This one.” I pick the glass with lemon juice. “You’re a monster!” she complains.

I will agree, it was very evil of me to pick the lemon juice. And I cannot stop laughing. “You ready?”

“I hate you!” She picks up the glass and drinks it and keeps it in her mouth.

“Who was the boy who you dated before me, who broke your heart and what did he do?” I wasn’t sure if she’d spit or swallow. Because she never told me anything about any previous relationship. But it was pretty evident that she had gotten her heart broken by some bastard who didn’t deserve her and that’s why ‘she doesn’t date!’

To my surprise, she spit her drink out in the bucket and chugged the refresher making a yucked out face. “I hate you so much for making me put that thing in my mouth!” She squeezes her eyes shut and the glitter on her eyes shines beautifully. She is looking spectacular by the way. Jeans and a translucent white shirt with a black bra inside, high pony and glittery eyes and my favourite- red lips.

“You have to answer now!” I laugh. “Who was he?”

“How’d you know there was someone? I don’t remember telling you…”

“I took a wild guess. Come on, spill the beans, Raven.”

“Alright.” She adjusts herself in her seat. “He was my best friend. We dated in high school. He asked me to be his girlfriend after confessing that he’d liked me for two years. I said yes. A few months later, he broke up with me telling me that, ‘he didn’t see our future together.’ He hurt me. I hurt him. End of story. I am over him though.” Whoever that bastard was, was a fool. To let a beautiful girl like Riya walk away. I can understand why she tries to conceal private life and doesn’t share much about her with me or anyone. I understand her trust issues now.

“That’s why you should date men and not boys. He was a boy.”

“And you are a man?”

“I am not a man. I am the man for you, Raven.” I wink at her and she blushes. I am glad that whoever the scumbag she dated was out of the picture. His loss is my gain.

“My turn.” She picks the glass with raw egg. That is so evil! She is a monster! She put the glass in front of me and smirks. “Drink up baby!” she suppresses a laugh.

I drink the egg and try my best not to throw up. That slimy texture doesn’t help. I don’t even hear her question before I spit the egg out. I chug the refresher and glare at her.

“So, what’s your answer?” she asked me.

“You…”

“What?” She looks surprised.

“Can you repeat the question?”

“I asked, what is the one thing that you used to believe in or follow, but changed your mind about?”

“Oh! Yes. You.” I clean the edges of my mouth with the napkin while her jaw drops.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I used to believe that you were a sweet person, but you are so evil.” I laugh sarcastically and she glares at me. Maybe it wasn’t funny? I mean she is torturing me here. “Just kidding” I raise my hands to surrender. “I used to believe that I will never do relationships, but…You…made me change my mind.” I am not a liar. And one thing I hate is leading women on. I never do that. I say whatever I feel. Especially in cases like these.

Her face turns blank and unreadable. “What do you mean?” It scares me for a while. Because what if she doesn’t want a relationship or is not ready for one and I pushed her away?

So my stupid self clarifies it further. “I mean, I like you. And not just as a friend. And I would like to date you, if you’d want to date me…”

“James…I…You knew I don’t do relationships. And I…”

“Hey…It’s no pressure.” I hold her hand. “You can take your time and think about it.” The wait is going to kill me, but for her, I’d wait a lifetime.

“Alright.”

We continue the game. She’d asked me if I had to save one out of Dan, Sid and George, who’d I save. I swallowed the soy sauce and it burned my throat. There was no way, I could pick between those fuckers. No matter how much we bickered, they are like my brothers. I can never pick between them. When I’d asked her about the person who’d hurt her the most, she refused to answer and gulped the sticky aloe vera juice. It was so slimy, it’d make me want to throw up. But I didn’t want to push her for the answer. Also, it felt like I already knew the answer.

“Alright, couples…this brings us to the end of the game. Thank you so much for joining us and I hope you got some juicy answers out of your partners, or pumped some disgusting juices into them.” Jessi really thought that it was funny. But that was the worst joke I’d ever heard.

We head out to my car and I open the door for Raven as she gets in. It is still freezing outside, so I turn on the heat and the seat warmer. “So, what’s the plan for dinner?” I ask her.

“Oopsies…I thought that we would get full over here, so I didn’t make any reservations for dinner.” My eyes blink faster as I glare at her in disbelief.

“You thought that all those disgusting shots of hell were our dinner?” she shrugs casually, giving me the puppy dog eyes. “Buckle up, Sweetheart. We’re getting actual food. The soy sauce in my stomach needs something else to complement it. I think I drank enough salt for the rest of the month.” she laughs. I’m glad that she finds it funny. Because I am dead serious. I was surprised that none of the oldies there passed out or worse died of food poisoning given the disgusting food that was available there. Calling it ‘food’ is atrocious.

I take her to my favourite sushi place and when the server brings out our order of sashimi, she deliberately pours a ton of soy sauce in my dish. I cannot help but laugh out loud and that gets us creepy stares from other people in the restaurant. We dine and talk. Talking comes naturally when I’m with my Raven. I get the feeling that I want her to know every small detail of my life. I want her to know all of me. And I want to know everything about her too.

Her favourite colour- Yellow.

Her favourite place to go- The library.

Her dream- To help people with their mental health.

Her favourite person- Right now, it's her cousin Lara.

Her guilty pleasure- Me? No, I am just her pleasure. There’s no guilt here. But her guilty pleasure is shopping for designer goodies.

When she talks I am unable to focus on anything else. When she’s around me I don’t care about anything else. She has the power to constrict the entire world into her, making it impossible for me to focus on anything else. And I think I am way past falling for her stage. After tonight, I should give myself a medal for not sprouting out the words-

I love you, Raven.