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.

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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.