Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Here we have it,” I said. “Love.” For good measure, I drew a heart around it. Not the ventricled kind. The made-up kind.
“It exists in this pristine state, upholding its ideals. But then … along come words.” I wrote words over and over again, all around the dry erase board, including over the word love.
“And feelings.”
I wrote feelings in the same way, crisscrossing it on top of everything I’d already writen.
“And expectations. And history. And thoughts. Help me out here, Boomer.”
We wrote each of these three words at least twenty times each.
The result?
Pure illegibility. Not only was love gone, but you couldn’t make out anything else, either.
“This,” I said, holding up the board, “is what we’re up against.”