Prologue
Terra
Aspen grabsmy hand and pulls me into the center of the dank basement where all the other girls are dancing. The boys are all huddled up in clusters around the wood paneled walls. Some stare at the girls, some stare at the disco ball Aspen bought from the dollar store and hung from a water pipe in the center of the room. Some stare at their feet. None of them are staring at me, though. Except my brother Logan.
I glare back and he laughs as he does this stupid little twitch thing, like he’s having convulsions and I know it’s his impression of my dancing. He’s mocking me, which isn’t surprising. He’s been such a dick lately. I don’t know why. Mom says it’s a phase because he’s a teenager. But I’m fourteen and I’m not a dick. And his twin brother Finn isn’t either. My oldest brother Declan is seventeen and he’s not a dick… I don’t think. He barely leaves his room lately, so I don’t really know. I’m actually really surprised he’s here. After all, he’s older than the party’s host, Aspen’s older brother Abbott Barlowe. But they are both on the varsity track team at school so I guess they’re friends.
“Isn’t this the best co-ed party ever?” Aspen says into my ear over the blaring music. She’s dancing her cheerleader ass off, swinging and swaying, and I’m barely moving now because of Logan and to be honest, because my legs are achy and stiff. I have a low-grade temperature I’m ignoring too, so the basement feels extra hot and sweaty to me. I yank at the collar on the green sweater I’m wearing, the one I borrowed from Aspen, because she swears I look ‘killer’ in it. I didn’t tell her I’m feeling too warm to wear a sweater because she would tell my parents, or hers. Everyone is on high-alert since I was diagnosed with lupus last month. No one really understands it so everyone who knows is treating me like I’m some kind of alien or atomic bomb or something. Well, almost everyone.
I don’t even really get what lupus is, but I know it basically means I’m going to feel shitty for the rest of my life, like I have for the last year. And I feel like a freak show.
“It’s theonlyco-ed party I’ve ever been to,” I remind Aspen, who grins. It’s her only one too.
Our parents are friends from church, which is how we know each other. Aspen’s mom Cynthia, who is even more hardcore religious than my mom, decided her kids weren’t allowed co-ed parties until they were sixteen and convinced my Mom to implement the same rule. Aspen’s brother Abbott just turned sixteen so this is his inaugural co-ed party.
Aspen and I were supposed to be upstairs decorating gingerbread men for the church Christmas social tomorrow but we snuck down here when her parents went outside to shovel the elderly neighbor’s driveway for her. So far no one has ratted us out.
I’m usually cool with the boundaries my parents set, but since I found out all my symptoms—the sluggishness and fevers and aches and general relentless pains—aren’t ever going to really go away, I have been itching to do stuff. Stay up late, watch R-rated movies, skip school, whatever. I just want to do everything, because I’m angry that I’ll never feel normal again. I feel like my life has been short-changed.
“Your brothers… oh man.” Aspen starts fanning herself as her eyes land on Finn and then Logan before sliding over to Declan. “I wish one of them would ask me to dance when a slow song comes on.”
The music stops suddenly as I’m making a gagging sound and pretending to stick my finger down my throat. Everyone gets quiet and a few people are drawn to the noises I’m making, including Finn and Logan’s mutual best friend Jake. He’s staring at me with an amused smirk and now I want to die. Abbott claps his hands, pulling everyone’s focus. “Who’s in for a little game?”
He grabs a Santa hat that was lying next to a bowl of pretzels on the food table and holds it up. His birthday party is Christmas themed since his birthday is just four days before Christmas. “In this hat are a bunch of pieces of paper. Half of them say truth. Half say dare.”
You can literally feel the tension in the room rocket, like a power surge that makes everything snap and crackle. The boys stand straighter, all the girls’ eyes get wider, and some start fussing with their hair nervously. Abbott’s grin widens. He’s really handsome. Tall with a thick, athletic build, blue eyes and thick blond hair. But for me it’s the kind of good-looking I can acknowledge but am not drawn to… I like dark hair with even darker eyes and an angular jaw and full lips and… Jake. Finn and Logan’s best friend. He’s the person I can never stop staring at. He’s the guy that makes me feel like I’m caught in a riptide whenever he walks into a room.
Declan rolls his eyes and makes that sound in his throat he makes when he’s unimpressed like when Dad tells him to shovel the driveway even though it’s Finn’s turn. “This is a lame idea. And it’s not even the proper way to play the game.”
“Rules are meant to be broken, Hawkins,” Abbott shoots back at Declan and then turns to everyone else. “You pick a piece of paper with truth or dare. You say the truthful answer to the question I give you or do the dare I give you, and then and only then, you get your secret Santa gift.”
My eyes flitter over to the plastic tree in the corner with the wrapped gifts under it. Everyone was told to bring something that costs seven bucks or less. Aspen and I didn’t bring anything, so we should probably slink away now and head back upstairs. I glance at her and she’s standing as still as a deeply rooted tree. We’re not going anywhere.
“I’ll go first!” Finn volunteers easily because he’s a daredevil. Always has been.
“Good man, Finn. You are my new favorite Hawkins,” Abbott announces and holds out the hat. Finn shoves his big mitt in there and pulls out a folded piece of paper.
“Dare,” he says with a happy grin. Of course he’s happy. He’s the kid who tobogganed solo down Demerit Hill when he was five, hit a rock, and his little body launched from the sled, careened over the road at the bottom of the hill, and almost landed in the barely frozen lake, then immediately asked to do it again.
“I dare you to spend two minutes in the closet with…” Abbott’s icy eyes scan the room, and I am horrified to notice all the girls look excited. About being locked in a closet with my brother? Gross. “Casey.”
Casey Andrews, a bubbly brunette with the highest voice I’ve ever heard, turns this ridiculous shade of pink that somehow makes her look more attractive. When I blush I just look like a tomato. Casey’s in Logan and Finn’s class and I think she’s in love with both of them. Or maybe it’s just one of them but she can’t tell them apart. She spent half the summer at our family restaurant, sitting at the counter ordering sweet tea after sweet tea just to moon over them. Now Finn walks over to her. “You game?”
Her answer is to giggle and I want to make the gagging sound again. Finn and Casey walk over to the little closet next to the bathroom. He gallantly opens the door for her. Inside, there’s a vacuum cleaner and a water tank and probably forty spiders. I try not to shiver. I hate spiders.
As soon as Finn closes the door, Abbott walks up to it and leans on it, pulling his cell phone from his back pocket. He stares at the screen. “Time starts now, kids. Make it interesting.”
I try not to think of what Abbott considers interesting. He may only be sixteen but I’ve seen him making out with girls, like big time, after hockey games tucked into the alcove where the pay phones used to be in the corner of the arena by the public restrooms. He knows what he’s doing.
“Casey must be over the moon,” Aspen whispers. “What I wouldn’t do to be locked in a closet with one of your brothers.”
“Are you trying to make me puke?” I whisper back with a frown. I grab the front of my sweater and subtly move it back and forth, trying to cool off. I don’t know if my fever is getting worse or it’s my anxiety that’s warming me. I am low-grade freaking out about the idea of playing this game.
She nudges me and laughs. “Come on. There’s got to be someone here you want to be locked in a closet with. Boy or girl. No judging.”
My eyes flicker over to Jake who has his head tilted to the left, talking to Logan. His voice is only a low rumble of undecipherable sounds from where I am but it still makes my stomach flutter. He is so… perfect. Aspen gasps and grabs my arm. “Do you wanna get locked in a closet with Jake Grady!”
“Shut up!” I whisper back angrily and feel my face get hot. “You are insane. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Also he’s changing his last name when he turns eighteen. He told Finn that the other day. He’s going to be Jake Maverick.”
