Role Play Isn't Just for Lovers

by Tom Forrister

"I have to take a leak," my buddy whined five minutes after we passed the last rest stop for sixty miles. "Can't you hold it?" I sighed, and he shook his head, so I pulled over into a field where we ventured out into the darkest storm, just the two of us, all alone. Lightning flashes illuminated a gun in his grip that was pointed directly at me. I dropped my car keys and raised my hands in the air, Caesar's last words (Et tu, Brute?) repeatedly stabbing like a knife in my head. "Hold it, HOLD IT!" my betrayer screamed when he thought I would run, his sweaty fingers click-clacking against the trigger so tremulously I couldn't hold it anymore. It was in this moment that the clouds emptied, buckets of rain washing away my shame, and I started to cry when my friend threw his unloaded weapon at my feet and held me tight, wrestling my ever elusive vulnerability.

6S

Tom Forrister is an aspiring writer living in Salem, MA with his wife and 2.5 ball pythons. White picket fence to be added later.