The Angel Challenge

I love Amy. When the boys started picking on me back in 5th grade, Amy was the only one who stood up for me. They pointed fingers and called me names and pushed me down into the dirt, but Amy stood over me and told them to stop it and they listened to her when they wouldn’t listen to me. That day, she took my hand and told me that she’d always protect me and she always did, every day for the past seven years. She holds my hand when there’s too many people and I get stressed. She orders for me when I don’t know what to choose from the menu. When mom gets too loud, I can sleep at her place and she holds me while we sleep and kisses my neck till I fall asleep.

Most days, I stayed behind in the class room during lunch breaks and ate at my desk. Mom never packed me any and I didn’t have the energy to make myself lunch that day, so Amy had bought me a sandwich at the cafeteria vending machine. I had put my head down on the empty sandwich wrapper and stared out the window. The clouds were big and fluffy and slowly drifted from left to right, like lots of sheep in the sky. Walking home in this weather was going to be nice. “Olive,” I heard Amy say. She tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up at her, sandwich wrapper stuck to my face. “I found something,” she said. “Wanna come over after school so I can show you?”

“Sure. What is it?” I kept blinking. Laying my head down and daydreaming had made me actually tired and a bit woozy.

“It’s a challenge game for couples.” She smiled at me real wide. I liked it when she said we were a couple. She did that so rarely. It made my stomach go all fuzzy, but in a good way. I nodded real hard. “Good,” she said and ruffled my hair a bit. I always wanted her to keep going, but never told her to.

* * *

Amy had opened the website on her laptop. It read ‘The Angel Challenge’ in big bubbly text with little wings on some of the letters. Right under that were cute drawings of couples, all boys and girls, holding hands and laughing, hugging or running around. They also had wings. “Lisa told me about it,” Amy said. “She and her boyfriend are going to do it.” We often went into town to go eat at McDonald’s with Lisa, but Amy never held my hand when we did. “She told me that you get sent these challenges that you have to do together. They’re supposed to, like, test your love and make you grow closer together as a couple. See, it says here ‘Test your devotion and see if your love can last forever.’”

“But what kind of challenges? Like, steal a shopping cart?”

“No. That’s only something stupid boys do. I think it’s gonna be more like trust exercises, I guess. Like doing something for each other. How else would you test your devotion?” She scrolled down a bit and showed me a form. “You have to enter your name and e-mail and then they start sending you the instructions once the challenge starts.”

I pointed at the screen. “But it says ‘boy’s name’ and ‘girl’s name’ there.”

“We can just put my name in the boy’s field.” She looked at me expectantly. I nodded and she typed in our names and her own e-mail. “I’ll tell you as soon as I get the first one.” I smiled. I was happy I would get to spend more time with Amy.

* * *

Three weeks later Amy texted me about the Angel Challenge again. I was in bed watching animal videos online when the notification popped up on my phone screen. “The first challenge is here!!!!,” it read. Below that was just a really long link, so I clicked on it. It sent me to that fluffy website again, although it looked a bit off on my phone. ‘The first part of The Angel Challenge,’ the title went.

I read through the instructions and texted Amy back. “Isn’t that a bit weird?” I asked her.

“Why? It’s just a bit of cutesy fun, right?,,,”

“But how is that gonna show that we love each other?”

“It’s gonna show that we belong to each other. That’s the point. It’s about devotion.. or your gonna ditch now?”

“No”

“Great!! Then let’s do it tomorrow before class!!!”

The next day, I went to school a bit earlier and waited for Amy, just like she had told me to. Still, I felt a bit queasy. Not because I disliked the premise, but because I didn’t want my parents to find out. They didn’t know about Amy and I and I didn’t know how they would react if they found out about us. But then again, it should be easy enough to hide. I didn’t have to wait long for Amy. Right away she took my hand and led me into the girls’ restroom where we went into a stall together. She opened up her backpack and took out a sharpie. “It’ll only take a second,” she said as she took the cap off with a pop sound.

“But isn’t it gonna last a really long time?” I asked.

“Duh, that’s the point.” She looked a bit annoyed. “Besides, its gonna wash off. Just because it says ‘permanent’ on here doesn’t mean it’ll actually last forever. It’ll probably only last like a week or so, at most. That’s not that long.” That did comfort me somewhat. “Now pull up your shirt. She squatted down and steadied her hand against my belly. After ten seconds or so she was done. I looked down and saw the big upside-down letters on my tummy that read ‘AMY’S PROPERTY’.

* * *

The first challenge wasn’t so bad. I could feel the sharpie at first, since it felt a bit itchy, but maybe I just imagined it. I kept thinking about it during class. Once I got over the fear that someone might see it, like during PE or in the locker rooms, it actually felt nice in a way. It meant that Amy really wouldn’t leave me, that I belonged to her and she belonged to me. Maybe this Angel challenge was going to be nice.

It seemed like the challenges were going to be uploaded weekly from then on. The next one arrived that Sunday evening and Amy sent it right to me. “They even uploaded our picture!!” she wrote. She had taken a picture of my tummy right after writing her name on it. “They want you to upload a picture as proof,” she had explained. ‘The results of the first challenge,’ the title of the website read. Underneath were lots of images of girls with the names of their boyfriends written on them, on their arms or thighs or bellies. ‘Mike’s girl’, ‘property of Josh’, ‘Andy’s toy’ and so on. Close to the bottom was our picture, a blurry photo of my tummy with Amy’s big handwriting. It still hadn’t come off all the way by that point, but I really didn’t mind.

I scrolled down further and found the instructions for the next challenge. They sounded even weirder to me than the ones for the first one. “But how is that gonna make us love each other more?” I asked her.

“It’s like a trust exercise, you know,” she replied. “I told you already, that’s the whole point. Don’t worry about it. I think we still have like some rope in our garage.. We’ll do it tomorrow morning before school again, no one will see it. They linked some videos on the website for how to do it, so I’ll just watch those to prepare.”

The next day, we met up early again and went into the restroom together. “How’s it feel?” Amy asked me after I had put on my clothes again. Doing this in a cramped toilet stall had been pretty difficult and the ropes did make it harder to raise my arms to put my top back on.

“It’s kinda nice, I guess,” I said. “It’s itchy though.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. That was the only rope we had. There’s probably better ones to do it with.”

“It’s fine.” It felt like one of Amy’s hugs, but I didn’t want to tell her that. I wore the ropes all day, bound around my arms and chest. Amy had told me to wear a really loose top, like a hoodie, and I was glad, because I didn’t want anyone to see it yet. This was between Amy and me; a private sign of our love for each other. It did start to chafe after a while though, especially when I raised my hand in class or dozed off at my desk. That’s what I told Amy after school was out.

“Then let’s see,” she said. She was practically glowing with joy. She took me into a stall in the now empty restrooms and made me take off my hoodie. After she took them off, I could see red marks all over my upper body where the ropes had been. I felt a bit sore. “Those look really good on you,” Amy said. She traced her finger along one of the lines down from my shoulder and it hurt a little, but not in a bad way. “Can I take a picture?” I only nodded. She took quite a few.

* * *

We kept doing the rope thing throughout the week, except for Thursday when we have PE. Amy wanted me to keep doing it and it felt kinda nice actually. I liked how enthusiastic she was and how she fawned over me when I showed her the rope burn marks at the end of the day. She even got better at tying the rope or maybe I just got more comfortable with it.

When she sent me the new link that Sunday, I was actually curious too. All the other couples doing the challenge had also posted pictures, but theirs were mostly cute posed photographs, with the ropes above their clothes and them doing poses together. Amy had uploaded one showing my burn marks. I scrolled down and read through the new instructions, but they didn’t sound quite as fun as the last ones. “Aren’t people gonna think that’s weird?” I asked Amy.

“So? Who cares?! This is about us. I wanna be able to show you off and the first two challenges didn’t really show people that we love each other right? This one’s gonna show everyone!!” It was true. I hadn’t shown the sharpie text or the ropes to anyone. And Amy had never really showed anyone that she loved me in public. She told me that she loved me all the time, but it was always just over text or whispered into my ear. She didn’t even let me hold her hand or hug her in front of our classmates. Maybe this was a good idea. I wanted people to know and I wanted her to finally show it. “I’ll bring the stuff around to your place tomorrow morning before school. I don’t think my dad will mind that they’re gone,” she wrote, followed by a bunch of hearts. I texted back with hearts too in so many colors.

Early the next morning, Amy texted me that she was at the corner by the playground, the way we always did so my mom wouldn’t get mad at me. I hurried out. Amy dragged me behind the bushes at the edge of the playground and unzipped her backpack. “It should fit you,” she said. “I tested it on myself last night.” She held up a black leather dog collar and leash. “I tried to clean it, but it might still have some old dog drool on it. Charlie’s been getting really old, he just drools on everything now, including himself. Dad doesn’t even walk him anymore.” She fit it around my neck. It wasn’t too tight and the leather got nice and warm and soft after a while.

“Do we really need the leash too?” I asked.

“It said so in the instructions that we should use one,” Amy said. “Unless you want to backpedal now?”

If it meant that everyone knew we were couple, then I was wanted to go through with it. “No, I wanna do this.” Amy beamed at me and threw her arms around my neck.

“You’re the best girlfriend I could ever have imagined,” she said and I think melted a little in her arms.

* * *

That evening, I buried myself in bed. I could still feel the collar around my neck, even though Amy had taken it off after school. It felt permanent now, like the sharpie. I cried. I had hoped that it would turn out all cute and that I would be happy with people seeing us together like that at school, but it turned out horribly. First, the other students whispered as we came to school together. Then they pointed and laughed at me and only at me. Amy didn’t even care. She tugged on my leash and dragged me into the classroom, where everyone saw. She unhooked the leash and hid it in her desk for class. I tried to hide the collar under my hoodie as best as I could. I wanted to cry so much, I just put my head down onto my desk and tried to hold back my tears. During lunch break, when she had attached the leash again, I told Amy that I needed to pee. “Where are we going?” I asked. We were going away from the restrooms.

“Outside,” she said. “You’re my dog for the week, right?” I didn’t understand. “If you need to pee, you’re gonna pee in the bushes, just like a real dog.” We went around to the back of the gym where no one could see us. She just looked at me expectantly. “Go on, we don’t have forever.” I crouched down in a bush. The brambles stung me even through my leggings. When I looked up at Amy, I saw her taking a photo of me. “For the website,” she said and smiled to herself. I didn’t go to school the next day and told Amy that I didn’t want to continue with the collar and leash stuff and that I was feeling sick, none of which was a lie.

* * *

That Sunday, I got the next update from Amy. There were lots of pictures of other girls again, all of them wearing collars and some also leashes. They all posed for their photos and looked so cute, I was really jealous. They all looked so happy too, smiling at the cameras and their boyfriends behind them. I read the new instructions. They seemed like quite a big leap from the previous ones. “Excited for this weeks challenge?!” Amy texted me. I hesitated.

“I don’t know,” I wrote back. “We haven’t really ever done anything like that before…”

“At some point were gonna have to.”

“Do we?” I asked.

“You wanna be a couple, right?? It’s what couples do.”

“Even that last part?”

“It’s about trust. It’s to show you that you can trust me completely. Don’t worry I won’t hurt you, ever!! Your my everything!!!” I only sent her some hearts and turned my phone off. I had a weird feeling in my tummy.

* * *

We had decided to do it that Friday right after school. After classes had ended, we went over to Amy’s house together, since she said her dad would be asleep on the couch anyway. We snuck through the hallway and up to her room. I had come here so many times before, even slept in Amy’s bed, but suddenly the room felt different, smaller somehow, less like home. I felt queasy again. Amy had to go to the toilet and so I sat down on her bed and thought things over. It’s not that I didn’t want to do it; I just didn’t feel ready yet. I had thought about this so many times. Every time I had slept in her arms I had thought about it. But after the collar and leash, I was unsure if I really wanted to go through with all of it.

“So, how about it?” Amy said as she sat down next to me. I felt a lump in my throat, so I just nodded. “Even that last part?” Her lips were parted in a slight smile, so that I could see her pointy canine teeth which looked so cute. I nodded again. We stared at each other. I thought this must have been awkward for her as well. Slowly, she leaned in and kissed me on the lips. It lasted only about a second and felt almost like nothing, but it was enough to untie the knot in my stomach and make me feel less tense. I kissed her back. Her eyes wandered all over my face. She pushed me down onto the bed and pressed me into the mattress.

“Are you ready?” she asked after we had been making out for a while. I said yes. Amy put her hand on my neck. I could feel her soft fingers searching up and down for a good spot, right at the sides of my throat. “It said to just press here,” she said more to herself than to me. I could feel her grip tightening. “I bet this feels really good.” Immediately, the blood rushing through my head became louder and I couldn’t focus so well anymore and it only got worse. I saw Amy smiling down on me. Then, she started kissing me again, her lips pressing down on mine. I wanted to tell her to stop, needed her to stop, I even raised my arm and tapped on hers but she didn’t stop and I felt really dizzy all of a sudden and I don’t remember what happened after that.

I woke up to Amy sitting next to me on the bed. She looked down at me with a concerned look on her face but didn’t say anything. My head hurt and I couldn’t stop myself from just crying.

* * *

I didn’t talk to her on Saturday. I barely left my bed either. I hugged my big rabbit plushie, but it wasn’t as warm as her, nor could it hug me back. I watched the sun rise from my bedroom window and later saw the sky turn dark again. I knew that Amy was texting me all throughout the day; she had texted me the minute I had left her house the day before, but I had turned my phone off and put it in my backpack. I had agreed to that challenge because I knew that I wanted to kiss her. She told me it was a trust exercise, but she didn’t even stop when I tapped her arm. All the challenges had only been about her. It was always her that got to do something and I always had to endure it. She wrote on me, she tied ropes around my body, she made me wear a collar and she choked me out. I wanted to be her girlfriend but after that Friday I felt only like her toy. I had made up my mind that I would tell her that I wanted to break up after the final challenge. I didn’t want to lose her, but in that moment being used like this felt worse than being lonely again.

Sunday morning, I turned on my phone again. Amy had sent me over three hundred text messages, most of them some variation of ‘sorry’ interspersed with pictures of sad-looking bunnies or cats. “It’s okay,” I wrote.

“No. It’s not. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have been so eager.” She sent me more sad animals. “Let me make it up to you! I could cook for you!!! Please!!!!” My heart ached. I could picture her crying and I cried as well. I agreed to it.

* * *

We were cuddling on Amy’s bed. She had cooked spaghetti and tomato sauce. It was okay—it tasted like school cafeteria food—but I told her it was great. She had kept apologizing and said she wanted to make up for it, all of it, all of those dumb challenges. I couldn’t have said no. I still held onto my plan, although Amy talking right into my ear made it very hard to want to go through with it. “…or to the zoo. Lisa told me they got a new polar bear after their last one drowned last year. You like penguins, right? They also got penguins there. I’ll even buy you a penguin plush, so Mister Ears and all the others can have a new friend. I’ll buy you the biggest penguin plush they have. I hope they have a really big one, like, bigger than an actual penguin big. Or we could go to the aquarium. Ugh, but we’d have to take the train for that. Or ask my dad to drive us. We better not ask my dad, actually. But we could get key chains with each other’s names there. I know they engrave them right there in front of you in the souvenir shop and you can watch them do it. I’ll get us some that say ‘Olive & Amy’ and have little hearts around it. I’m sure they’ll do hearts if we ask them nicely.”

“Amy,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I… I wanted to talk to you ab—“ In that moment, Amy’s phone vibrated. Neither of us said anything. We both knew what it was.

“Do we want to…?” Amy asked me worriedly. I agreed.

She opened the link in the e-mail she just got. ‘The final part of the Angel Challenge’ the website read. “Can you skip the pictures?” I asked her. She nodded and flew past dozens of images of girls being strangled all the way down to the instructions. We exchanged a wordless look.

“You can do it to me, if you want,” she said. “To make up for how I treated you. We’ll switch it up. You can be the one doing it this time and then we’ll just forget about it all, okay?” I could see her eyes glistening. I felt myself unable to go through with what I actually came here to do. I lay in her arms and she was so soft and warm and I knew I would never find anyone that would hug me like this again. I nodded.

* * *

Amy locked the bathroom door behind us. Her dad was asleep downstairs, so it didn’t matter much anyway, but it felt safer. More private. “Are you sure you want to do it like this?” I asked her. I didn’t want to do it. I just wanted to forget about these stupid challenges and get back to how it was before, but Amy insisted.

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. I’ve been a bad girlfriend to you for too long. This’ll really make us grow closer together. Show that we belong to each other. Not like some stupid sharpie squiggles or that dumb dog leash.” She fished around in her pocket and pulled out the box cutter that we’d taken from the garage. She broke off the first segment of the blade on the edge of the bathtub, then handed me the cutter. “You just write your name in my leg and we’re done. Then it’s permanent. You and me forever.” She held out her pinky and I shook it reluctantly.

“Isn’t it gonna hurt?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I guess that’s the point,” she said as she pulled down her pants. “I have hurt you too, so it’s only fair. Tit for tat.” We both sat down on the edge of the bathtub. The knife felt so heavy in my hand.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked again.

“Yes.” She put her hands in my free hand and looked me in the eye. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. Now do it.”

I pushed the blade out an inch and a half or so. It looked old and dull, but there was no rust on it. My hand trembled. The skin on her leg looked so soft, with all the little white hairs standing up because of the cold. I felt nauseous. “How do I—“

“Just do it! You can just do a diamond shape for the O.” She took my hand and guided it to her leg. I could hear her breathing unsteadily too. The tip of the blade touched her skin, which curved downward where it pressed into it. “Just get it over with,” she snapped at me. I emptied my lungs. I did one big cut right across her leg. She cried out. “Ow, not so deep! Oh fuck—“ Immediately, a big gulp of blood came flowing out of the cut and then another and another again, splashing down on the bathroom floor and soaking into the carpet. I panicked. I tried putting my hand onto the wound and pushing, holding it close, but it spilled all through my fingers and it just wouldn’t stop. Amy slid down from the edge of the bathtub and I held her so she wouldn’t fall over into the puddle in which we now sat. I kept holding her and hugging her and telling her that it would be alright, that we would go to the zoo together and to the aquarium and to all the other places she would take me now that we were real girlfriends, now that we got it all behind us and I still keep holding her now, even though the sky is getting dark outside and her body is growing cold.