Now it was a high school party, a basement glowing with string lights. Music thumped through the floor. The air smelled like beer and cheap cologne. A dare spun through the air like a knife.
“Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” I said, my voice cracking.
“Kiss him.”
My heart sprinted. My palms sweated. I turned toward Dare.
He was right there, close enough to count the freckles across his nose. His lips parted just slightly.
I leaned in, and he jerked back. Hard.
“What the fuck, Tru?”
Everyone was staring, laughing, whispering.
“God, that’s disgusting,” he said. His face twisted, mean and embarrassed.
I shrank back, and the lights went out.
I was in my bedroom sophomore year. The space between us was a screen.
A blank text thread. One word unsent in the box: Why?
I sent it anyway. He never answered.
Days stretched into months. Seasons flickered by like film frames. Leaves fell. Snow drifted. I graduated. I moved. I started over.
He never answered.
And suddenly I was underwater, drowning in a silence that had lasted years.
I tried to swim up, to scream, but no sound came. Lungsburning, I thrashed toward the light. Dare’s face hovered above me, blurred and unreachable.
Then it wasn’t Dare. It was Jasper.
And then it was no one at all.
I woke at 4:17 a.m., sheets tangled, throat tight. The city still hummed outside, but in here, it was just me.
My phone glowed on the nightstand. Jasper’s goodnight text slid past beneath my thumb until I reached Dare’s name. No new messages.
The screen dimmed. I lay there, eyes open to the dark, and let the ache keep me company until morning.
CHAPTER 40
DARE
I’d start at the beginning again if it meant he’d meet me there.
I shouldn’t have looked.I knew what it would do to me. But I looked anyway.
It was a photo of Tru, lit up in that way he always got when he felt seen. Shoulders back, smile wide, someone’s arm slung casually around his waist. And that someone was Jasper. Fuckface 2.0. Open shirt, silver rings, smug smile.
The caption read:Celebrating launch night with my favorite crew.
My stomach twisted.
