We circled each other for another fifteen minutes in silence. Until my big mouth blurted... “You ever think about that night in the closet?”
The second the words left my lips, I wished I could snatch them back. My chest cinched tight, like I’d swallowed barbed wire, and it caught on the way down.
Dare froze. Not a muscle moved except the slow pull of breath in his throat. Then, almost as if it hurt to admit, he said, “Yeah.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine as he stepped forward, closing what little space was left. The air between us buzzed, alive and dangerous. One wrong move and we’d both burn for it.
“If you could go back and change what happened…” His voice came rough, half-dare, half-prayer. “What would you do differently?”
My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my fingertips. Candlelight shivered across his face, gilding the sharp lines of his jaw. “Everything.”
Dare didn’t even blink. “I wouldn’t change a thing.” It wasn’t a declaration. It was an eruption.
My heart crashed and burned in a fiery death spiral. For one breathless heartbeat, I almost believed him—believed that thecruelty and the silence and the years of pretending hadn’t been hate at all, but something twisted around love until neither of us could tell the difference.
Then doubt slid in, quiet and cold. Was he talking about the kiss… or the destruction that came after?
With Dare, every truth has splinters.
I swallowed hard. “Even if it ruined us?”
His voice cracked like thunder. “Especially then.”
He stared at me as if he was standing on a cliff’s edge, wind in his hair, seconds from falling. “That night… It’s the only thing I’ve never regretted.”
Something inside me bloomed—hope, heartbreak, both at once.
My hands shook as I grabbed an empty cup, pretending I cared about cleaning, about anything. Because if I didn’t, I’d reach for him. And I couldn’t. Not again.
The candle sputtered out, drowning us in darkness.
Just two shadows left in the aftermath, side by side, sweeping up red cups and unspoken truths, pretending we hadn’t just set fire to what was left of us.
Dare found LED candles in a junk drawer that provided enough light to finish cleaning the kitchen.
“You remember that summer we swam every night for two weeks straight?” he asked. “You said the pool felt different at night. Like magic.”
I swallowed. “You used to say the stars made it feel like we were floating in space.”
He laughed. “God. We were such losers.”
I turned slowly, arms crossed over my chest, hugging the memory close. “We were happy.”
He was closer than I realized, his face unreadable in the dim light.
“Were we?” he asked.
“You tell me.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “We were twelve. I hated that I liked being around you so much.”
“I hated that you made me feel like it was okay to want more.”
Neither of us moved. Then he stepped closer. One step. Another. Until I could feel his breath, his heat. His hand braced against the glass door beside my head. He didn’t touch me, but he didn’t have to. I felt him in every molecule of air.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and for a heartbeat, I leaned in. Just barely.
Then he was gone. Two steps back. One breath away. He reached for the handle, and I stepped aside. Dare disappeared into the dark, and I stood there, watching the candlelight dance against the glass until his shape dissolved into shadow.
