Dare You To

“Go to hell.” Beth rushes down the hallway and I pursue her at a leisurely pace.

Lockers lurch open and clang shut. Chatter fills the hallway. People stop and stare as Beth moves. Moves—that’s exactly what the girl does. She holds her head high and owns the middle of the hallway. A few kids have transferred to this school since my freshman year, but they spent their first couple of weeks trying to blend into the paint. Not Beth. Her hips have this easy sway that catches the eye of every guy, including me.

Beth checks out the numbers over the doors, no doubt searching for her fifth-period room. I pick up the pace and fall in step with her as she pulls a badly folded schedule out of her back pocket. Her thumb skims the list until it finds its target: Health/Physical Education.

The odds of winning just increased in my favor. That’s my next class too. “I can show you where it is.”

“Are you stalking me? If so, you’ll get your ass kicked.”

“By who? The guy you made out with in the tree line?” I have a hard time believing that a man as great as Scott Risk would allow his niece to date Tattoo Guy, but maybe that’s why he switched her schools. You gotta love a man who takes care of family. “Sorry to tell you, but I can hold my own.”

Beth wears a scowl that could kill on sight. “Threaten Isaiah again and I’ll kick your ass.”

I chuckle at the thought of the tiny, black-haired threat throwing swings at me. Punches from her would feel like a bunny biting a lion. By the way she pinches her lips together, I can tell my laughter pisses her off. Time to end this bull. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”

“Helpful? You mean you’re trying to help yourself. You’re a walking hard-on for my uncle.”

A muscle near my eye ticks. On rare occasions, bunnies can develop rabies, and Scott did warn me she was rough around the edges. He failed to mention that razor blades are her softest layer. My mouth snaps open to ask what the hell is wrong with her when Lacy sidles between us. She shoots me a warning glare. “I got this.”

“Come on, dawg.” Chris waggles his eyebrows and I realize he sent in Lacy to disturb us, thinking he interrupted me making a play. “Let’s go to class.”

“Yeah.” Class. I want to win the dare, but that won’t happen if I lose my temper. I follow Chris, willing to do anything to get away from Beth.

BETH

THE MOMENT RYAN TURNS his back, I sag against a purple locker. The acrid smell of fresh paint fills my nose. Watch—the damn locker is newly painted and I’ll have purple on my ass.

A hallway full of strange teenagers gawk at me like I’m an animal caged at the zoo. I swallow when two girls giggle as they pass. Both crane their necks to get a better glimpse of the new school freak.

People judge. They’re judging me now.

“Your hair used to be blond,” says Lacy.

What is the deal with the people in this town and my hair? I barely recognize the girl I once claimed as a friend. We sized each other up in English, trying to figure out if the other was really who we thought she was. Lacy has the same chestnut-brown hair as when we were kids. Just as long, but not as stringy. It’s thick now. She nods at Ryan’s friend Chris, indicating that he should follow Ryan into the classroom and he does.

“You used to hang out with cool people,” I say.

The right corner of her lips tilts up. “I used to hang with you.”

“That’s what I just said.”

The bell rings and a few remaining stragglers race to class. Lucky me, I share another class with Ryan. I push off the wall, check for paint, and feel off-balance when Lacy follows.

The cliques split off as fast as cockroaches when a light shines. Ryan and a couple other guys relax at a table near the back as if they’re God’s gift to women. Their expensive jeans and T-shirts that sport their favorite moronic teams scream total jock. I hand my enrollment sheet to a teacher deep in conversation with two more jocks. They discuss baseball, football, basketball. Blah, blah, blah. It must be a male thing to talk about playing with balls.

Lacy plops down at an empty table and kicks out a chair for me to join her. “Ryan says you go by Beth.”

I fall into the chair and glance over at Ryan. He quickly averts his eyes. My blood tingles—was he really staring at me? Stop it. The tingling fades. Of course he was. You’re the freak, remember? “What else did Ryan tell you?”

“Everything. Meeting you Friday night. Yesterday with Scott.”

Fuck. “So the whole damn school knows.”

“No,” she says thoughtfully. Lacy looks me over and I can tell she’s searching for that pathetic girl from a long time ago. “He only told me, Chris, and Logan. The one with dark hair sitting next to Ryan is my boyfriend, Chris.”

“My apologies.”

“He’s worth it.” She pauses. “Most of the time.”

For four classes, people have ignored me. I helped the situation by sitting in the back of each room and glaring at anyone who looked at me for longer than a second. Lacy drums her fingers against the table. Two thin black ponytail holders wrap her wrist. She wears low-rider jeans and a green retro T-shirt imprinted with a faded white four-leaf clover.

“How many people have you told?” I ask her.

The drumming stops. “Told what?”

I lower my voice and pick at the remaining black paint on my nails. “Who I am and why I left town.” I’m fishing. Because of the enrollment slip, no one has called my name out in class and no one’s mentioned my uncle. For today, I’m anonymous, but how long will that last? I’m also testing the waters for the town gossip. Lacy’s dad was a police officer and he was the first one to walk into the trailer that night.

“No one,” she says. “You’ll tell people about your uncle when you’re ready. It’s sickening. No one gave a crap about Scott until the World Series. Now everyone worships him.”

A group of girls break into laughter. The same type of purse rests on the table in front of each perfectly manicured girl. Sure, the colors and sizes of the purses are different, but the style is the same. The blonde laughing the loudest catches me looking and I toss my hair over my shoulder as a shield. I know her, and I don’t want her to remember me.

“Gwen’s still staring,” Lacy says. “It might take a few days for the hamster wheel turning her brain to make the full circle, but she’ll figure you out soon enough.”

I might appreciate her sarcasm if I wasn’t distracted by the blonde. Gwen Gardner. The summer before kindergarten, Lacy’s mom suggested to Scott that I go with Lacy to Vacation Bible School. I put on my favorite dress, one of two that I owned, pinned as many ribbons as I could in my hair, and skipped into the room. A group of girls in beautiful fluffy dresses surrounded me as I introduced myself. To the tune of giggles and whispers from the other girls, Gwen proceeded to point out every hole and stain on my beloved dress.

That was the high point in my relationship with Gwen. From there, it went downhill.

“She still a bitch?” I ask.

“Worse.” Lacy’s tone drops. “Yet everyone believes she’s a saint.”

“And I thought third grade sucked.”

Lacy snorts. “Imagine what middle school and training bras were like with her. I swear the girl blossomed into a C-cup between fifth and sixth grade. Thank God Ryan finally broke up with her last spring. I couldn’t stand being within a foot of her a moment longer.”

Of course Ryan dated Gwen. I’m sure the break-up is temporary and they’ll marry soon and create tons of other little perfect spawns of Satan in order to torture further generations of people like me.

We lapse into an awkward silence. It’s strange talking to Lacy. It used to be the two of us against the world. Then I left. I assumed, in my absence, she’d become one of them—the girls who were perfect. She had the potential to be one. Her parents had money. Her mom would have bought her the clothes. Lacy was pretty and fun. For some insane reason, she stuck with me—the girl who had two outfits and lived in the trailer park.