The Virgin’s Bucket List Episode 12

📖 The Story Continues

The bottle remained pointed at Lindsay while the circle waited. She chose truth because a dare could mean anything in a room controlled by Alyssa. For one brief moment, she believed she had protected herself.

Someone asked her to name the last three people she had kissed. The question sounded ordinary enough to everyone else. For Lindsay, it opened the precise absence she had spent years trying to hide.

She could invent names, but Kyle and Phoebe would know she was lying. Wayne sat close enough to hear every hesitation, and for reasons she did not want to examine, deceiving him felt worse than enduring the laughter. Lindsay drew a breath.

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” she admitted. The music continued in another room, but the circle around her seemed to go silent. Several guests exchanged disbelieving looks before Alyssa’s laugh shattered the pause.

Alyssa announced that she had known Lindsay was a virgin but had not realized she had never even kissed a boy. The revelation became entertainment. People repeated it, magnifying Lindsay’s private inexperience until it felt like a defect on public display.

Lindsay fixed her eyes on the bottle and fought the impulse to flee. Her first kiss had once represented something hopeful and personal. Now everyone discussed it as proof that no one had ever wanted her.

Wayne did not laugh. He watched the hurt she attempted to conceal and remembered a younger Lindsay who had stood between him and cruelty without worrying what anyone thought. He wanted to stop the game, but he understood that rescuing her without permission might make her feel even weaker.

The next players completed their turns, yet Alyssa kept directing comments toward Lindsay. Every joke sharpened the dare hanging over her semester. If she could not survive one party game, how could anyone believe she would find a boyfriend?

The bottle returned to Lindsay. She reached automatically for truth again, unwilling to surrender another secret. Alyssa reminded her that she had already chosen truth and therefore had to complete a dare.

Excitement moved around the circle. Lindsay glanced toward Wayne, then hated herself for seeking reassurance. He leaned closer and quietly told her she did not have to do anything she truly opposed.

Alyssa claimed she had the perfect challenge. Since Lindsay had never been kissed, tonight should finally solve the problem. Her false generosity made several people laugh before she even stated the terms.

She pointed out that Lindsay was the only girl in the room wearing glasses. Then she indicated Jeremy, the quiet boy sitting at the edge of the circle, who was the only male guest wearing them. “Dorks have to stay together, right?” she said.

Jeremy’s face reddened as attention shifted toward him. He was not being offered as a person Lindsay might want to kiss, but as another object of ridicule. Lindsay recognized the same cruelty Alyssa had used when suggesting the heavier boy in class.

She looked at Jeremy and saw that he was as trapped as she was. Refusing too quickly would validate every insult directed at him. Agreeing would turn both of their first choices into Alyssa’s performance.

The room began chanting for a kiss. Alyssa sat back, confident she had designed a no-win situation. If Lindsay refused, she was a coward and a snob; if she complied, Alyssa could mock her for kissing someone she considered socially beneath them.

Wayne’s body went rigid beside Lindsay. He had brought her to the party, believing she wanted to know him, and now he was expected to watch another boy claim her first kiss. Jealousy collided with the need to protect her dignity.

Lindsay searched for another option. The rules offered none, and the eyes surrounding her made retreat feel impossible. She straightened her shoulders, determined that Alyssa would not see her break.

Alyssa repeated the dare: the only girl wearing glasses had to kiss the only boy wearing glasses. Lindsay turned toward Jeremy, unaware that Wayne had begun studying the exact wording. As she prepared to answer, he realized the challenge contained a loophole—and reached for the courage to use it.