Truth & Dare (7 page)

FADE OUT

FADE IN:

“I didn’t mean to scare her,” I say.

Tyler, from the far corner, agrees. “He was trying to get away from her.”

It’s not until now, now that I’ve seen myself from outside—not in a mirror, outside—that I realize my mother looks like me. There’s a ghost of my dark eyes there; her mouth is wide and shaded like mine. And right now, it’s turned down.

“I was afraid this was too soon,” she says.

From the nurse’s bed, I swear to her, “It’s not. I was going crazy at home.”

This is the wrong thing to say, considering I just lost it in trig. The clinic is just off the main office, and I hear people talking beyond the door. My name floats to the top of conversation. People are concerned.

Mom looks at the floor, tugging her chin in thought. “I wonder if Dr. Strickland has an opening?”

“I’ll apologize. I was going to apologize anyway.”

“Evan, your intentions are good, but if you had a seizure …”

Tyler could help, but he’s leaning on the wall and watching the conversation I can only half hear.

“They would have called an ambulance.”

“Honey,” she says.

I cut Tyler another look. Chewing his thumb, he drifts further away. I mutter, “I think I just fell asleep.”

When Mom frames my face with her hands, her expression ripples. Instead of going on, quietly frustrated, she frowns. Turning her hands over, she presses one to my forehead, the other to the side of my neck. “Evan, you’re freezing.”

An answer spills out of me; it pours out of my mouth before I can stop it. “Yeah, I know, I’m dead.”

“Evan!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Get your things,” Mom says. She reaches for her bag, but I catch her hand.

“I’m sorry! I’m fine. Mom, please.”

To prove it, I stand. I clasp her hand between mine. I’m ready to beg.

My memories of the ER are insubstantial; ghosts of something that happened to me when I wasn’t there.

But waking up in the hospital was agony, and it was real, and mine. At first, I was a twilight machine, fed by thick coils of tubes cut and thrust into my veins. I drifted toward awareness, vague and lost. But those tubes were gone when I woke up.

It was dark.

Swathed in tape and gauze, bound wrist and ankle with thick straps that cut into my skin, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even scream. The faultless rhythm of the ventilator demanded my throat for my next breath.

I lay like that for hours; I
thought
it was hours. Inside, I screamed for hours, and no one heard me at all.

“I promise you,” I say. “I fell asleep.”

She hesitates. I don’t know what that is in her eyes, if it’s hope or fear, but finally she picks up her purse and says, “Dr. Strickland probably can’t fit you in today … but I’m calling her when I get home.”

This is good; this is great. And I tell her that as I see her out, like she just stopped by to pay a visit. From the corner of my eye, I catch Tyler slinking back to class. He hunches his shoulders and hurries.

I’m pretty sure I won’t see him again until Saturday.

DISSOLVE TO:

Tonight, Dad comes to my door after work. Straight to my door, too. I hear him come in, then heavy, blanket-familiar
footsteps right to me. A while ago, he quit coming inside without knocking.

Instead, he arrives, leans against the frame, crosses his arms over his chest. Casual, like he’s visiting my office before heading to the water cooler.

“Big day, huh?” he asks.

I spread my arms. “I’m going to my own funeral, check it out.” My desk is a haystack of cards and notes, little balloons on sticks and stuffed animals. “Chelsea helped me dump the flowers off the custodian’s dock.”

When he’s nervous, my dad coughs out a laugh, heh heh. “Learning anything?”

“Yeah, it looks like I’m 2 good 2 b 4 gotten.”

“Wisdom for the ages.” Heh heh.

A guilty itch starts at my edges; maybe I don’t know half these people, don’t recognize the handwriting, couldn’t match it with faces. But I fell through the ice and they caught their breath. They deserve some kind of respect.

I swivel toward Dad. “Olivia’s having a party this weekend.”

Dad sheds his discomfort with a smile. “Getting right back into it. That’s a Todd, right there.”

“Since I can’t drive, I’ll probably stay over.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” I think he wants to call me Sport or Champ but he doesn’t because I’m not seven any more, which he knows. And I can almost mouth along with him when he adds, “You have protection?”

He’s asked me that before every party since ninth grade. Sometimes, I wonder if he wants me to say no so he can hand me a twenty with a wink and a nudge. We’re pals, my dad and I. We never talk about anything.

“I’m covered. Thanks,” I say with a thumbs up.

“Good deal. I’ll tell your mother,” he says. Then he’s down
the hall, off to change his work clothes.

It seems like we’ve had this conversation a thousand times. Even when I came out to him, it was painlessly friendly.

And he exited, down the hall to change his work clothes. Later, Mom asked a bunch of questions about falling in love. If I had. If I wanted to. Then, as she stood, she asked, “Did I do something …?”

Before I could say no, she answered herself.

“What a stupid question.” She kissed me, both cheeks, then brushed my hair from my face. “I love you, beautiful boy.”

“I love you, too,” I said.

Now she worries because I haven’t brought anyone home. Well, actually, now she probably worries because I drowned in Miller’s Pond and told her I was dead. I swivel my chair again, stealing a look at the darkened mirror in my bathroom.

A silver bead of water streaks down my cheek.

And on that note, I go back to my funeral.

DISSOLVE TO:

Though the air still hazes with frost, Olivia’s party spills out in rings around her father’s cabin.

Up in the woods, everything’s barren; leafless branches
stretch toward a bitter black sky. A haze hangs between us and the stars, so glittering white lights strung everywhere make up the difference.

“Evan,” Olivia crows when she sees me.

Olivia is gorgeous in a camel wool coat, two shades lighter than her skin. The buttons gleam, competing with the rhinestone flowers hiding in her hair. I swear, when she shakes her head, I see the blue part of my lips in every bauble.

She swoops over and clasps the back of my neck. Two bright spots of crimson light my cheeks—not a blush, but her lipstick. Olivia loves that trick. “Evan, Evan, Evan Todd, look at you.”

“Hey, sexy, you come here often?” I ask. I dip my head, but I don’t wipe off her kisses. They drive Tyler nuts, and I figure he owes me.

Waving me off, Olivia tugs on my knitted hat. “Fail.”

“It’s twenty degrees out,” I say.

Her laughter is warm. “But there’s cider inside. Wine, a pony keg … mixers if you’re good to me.”

“Aren’t I always good to you?” I ask, then slip my hands into her sleeves. She shrieks, barely saving her drink when she jumps back.

“Oh, no, you are not freezing to death at my party,” she says. She grabs me by the front of my coat and drags me inside.

The music’s so loud, I feel every filament of the beat on my skin. Bodies crush close, to talk, to dance, begging me to slip into the teasing heat. The coats are shed in here, revealing tropical cuts, bare backs, bare arms. I feel like a vampire. I want to drink them all up.

Caught in currents, I spin around to say, “Hi,” or to surrender hugs.

“Brrrr, sweetie!” Sinjai says, clasping both my hands between hers.

Morgan pulls me close. “So good to see you!” She rocks me against her chest until Olivia peels me away.

“You’re a whore,” Olivia says lightly.

Shrugging, I smile. “I’m just friendly.”

She pulls me into the kitchen. We don’t stop at the impressive array of liquor bottles or red party cups filling the counters—she leads me into the pantry.

It sounds intimate, but it’s not. The pantry is almost as big as the kitchen; instead of appliances, it has shelves. Lots and lots of shelves, filled with jars of homemade jam, fruit and pickles. It smells of cinnamon and of something vaguely earthy in there, and as Olivia turns, her spiced perfume slips into the mix.

“So what’s going on with you and Tyler?” she asks abruptly.

I watch her rise on to her toes, slipping fingers into dark reaches. With a shrug, I start to rub out the smear of her kiss off my cheek. “Wish I knew.”

Olivia ticks her tongue. “Don’t give me that.”

“I don’t know!”

Producing a dark bottle, she twists off the cap. Slow, deliberate motions, the metal band flashing between her fingers. “He’s been worrying himself crazy. Have you seen the circles under his eyes?”

I laugh. “I haven’t even seen him, let alone his fucking circles.”

“He’s been sick over this,” she says. She takes a sip from the bottle, then hands it to me. “Sick over you, texting me at all hours. Having nightmares.”

The smooth, golden burn of Jamaican rum is almost as good as drawing heat from touch. It’s like a swallowed ember,
glowing dimly in my chest. “Well, I can’t tell it from here. Did he move his locker?”

With pursed lips, Olivia waits for the bottle before she answers. “He’s been using mine.”

“He’s skipping trig, too.” I point at her. “He was there on Monday, haven’t seen him since. And he’s gonna get busted off the team if he flunks it. I can’t help him there.”

Rubbing the bottle against her lower lip, Olivia shakes her head. “I don’t know what …”

“Liv,” Tyler says behind me. His voice shimmers like oil on water.

“Look who’s here,” Olivia says.

He answers with a kiss, dipping her back until she has to scramble to keep the bottle upright, propped on his shoulder. The air arcs electricity when he rights her, when he tosses me half a glance. “Hey, Ev.”

Olivia starts, “Maybe you should—”

“Dance with you?” He slings his arm around her shoulder, then kisses the back of her neck. It’s the only skin her coat reveals. “Any time, let’s go.”

Wedging past me, Tyler shrugs, as if to say, “Hey, when the lady says she wants to dance …”

With a touch, Olivia palms the rum into my hand, and she’s spirited into the pulsing body of her party again.

It’s funny; she actually takes warmth with her, and sound. The pantry makes a hollow echo of my breath. Before the walls can close around me, jarring me up with green tomatoes and apple rings, I slip into the party, too.

I used to know how to do this. I can fake it.

CUT TO:

“No,” I say, raising my voice. With a finger pressed into one ear, I lean closer to Sinjai. “I’m still in physical therapy now,
but I should be able to play by spring.”

Her nails press into my arm as she presses closer. “Oh! We were all wondering!”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll be good by then!”

Before I can elaborate, Chelsea sweeps by, and in a tangle of high-pitched greetings and partings, she extracts me from Sinjai’s company and rushes me through the patio doors.

“I’m so cold,” she complains, huddling me into a dark corner. The stonework wall bites into my hip. I steady Chelsea’s shoulders to keep her from shoving me onto the lawn, and she shoves both hands up the back of my sweater.

Serpentine heat streaks across my skin, and I pull her closer. “Then why did you bring me outside, loser?”

“Quieter,” she says. She lays her cheek against my chest, and absurdly, I want to ask her if my heart’s beating.

A useless question. I know it is. I feel it fluttering in my throat, hungry at my temples for more of her heat. Her breath sinks through wool to my skin, a bright, white point of warmth that slowly spreads.

She shifts, melting to fill all the spaces between us. As the edges of her nails glance across my shoulders, she complains, “I’m warmer than you are.”

“I coulda told you that.” Rubbing my cheek against her hair, I tighten my arms around her. “Livvy’s got a fire going inside, I’m pretty sure.”

Her breath stops, hitches, and she presses against me. “I know.”

“Hey,” I say, when the weight between us changes.

“I was so scared.” She turns her head, rubbing her brow against my collarbone before looking up at me. “You went and died on me, and I never …”

Cold collapses around me. It’s like the weight of water, like trying to run through it. I think, I’m sure I don’t want
her to say what’s coming next. I manage a quiet, “Chelsea …”

“Seriously, Evan, I know I talk all the time, talk, talk, talk, babble, even, I’m babbling right now, but I don’t, I can’t, you have to know.” She stops; I hope. Then she goes on, this awful, unstoppable hitch when she says, “Evan, I love you.”

“I know.”

She stiffens; her hands fall—ghost touches down my spine to escape my sweater. “Oh, really?”

Mumbling, I nod. “I was trying to ignore it.”

The subtle fall stops. Chelsea jerks back. Her eyes glitter, a hard and angry grace note to the set of her jaw. “Wow.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say, but when I reach for her she deflects my hands. “You know it’s not you. You’re amazing.”

Her posture suddenly perfect, Chelsea smoothes her shirt and glares at me. That’s one of the amazing things about her—she’s not ashamed. She won’t look away. “Why can’t I be your exception? It happens all the time!”

I hate that I’m the reason she’s trying not to cry. “If anybody could be, it would be you. I’m just not … I just don’t …”

“God, you take advantage of me!” A ripple wavers out from the middle of her lips, and she fights it with angry blinks and shoulder bobs. “Hugging me, putting your arm around me, God, I am just …”